Grealish has played as a 10 in games and he's been just as good as when he played 8. As for the bolded part, just watch how Pochettino used Eriksen in games.
If we sign a DM we can still play 4-3-3 with Bruno and Grealish ahead of the DM. Or we can play 4-2-2-2 with Bruno and Grealish as right and left attacking midfielders
Grealish is a very good player who looks versatile and like he can affect games regardless of where he is deployed. Wasn’t your assertion yesterday that Grealish IS a left winger or attacking midfielder, that he is not a central midfielder and if we are looking for someone to play deeper in midfield it should not be him?
Now I wouldn’t truly know - I’ve seen Grealish being his side’s best player as well as being one of the best players on the pitch from a left attacking position in a few different setups, as a no.10 and as a striker. The first Villa game I caught this season was against us, and I dont think I watched a single game of theirs last season, so I haven’t seen him playing centre midfield. Have you? Did he not play predominantly from deeper last year? People talk about him ‘dragging Villa up’, his manager clearly sees it as a viable position for him and he himself has said ‘no.8’ is his favoured role.
I do know that McGinn is best with the freedom to attack the box, thriving as the player with license to vacate midfield - again I don’t know as I didn’t see it but I imagine a midfield three involving those two saw McGinn as the advanced no.8, nominally to the right and broadly the equivalent of the no.10 in our system, and Grealish as the deeper no.8, nominally to the left and broadly the equivalent of Pogba in our system. Our standing in the Premier League is obviously closer to Villa in the Championship as opposed to them scrapping for survival this year, where the extra steel in midfield and Grealish’s class higher up the pitch is perhaps more useful and a reason for the change in role this season.
Deeper, I envision him playing a bit like Moussa Dembele did for Spurs - similarly unrushed in possession, coupled with the requisite athleticism and technical quality he is excellent at evading pressure and carrying the ball forward. Along with players like Thiago and Modric, Dembele showed that just because someone can be effective in an advanced position doesn’t mean that they can’t or shouldn’t be playing deeper.
Pochettino was a bit of a tinkerer but on the whole I would say Eriksen was typically deployed from the right, moving infield (particularly if we are thinking about how he accommodated all of Son, Alli and Eriksen - Son left, Alli off Kane). Which of Grealish or Fernandes would you propose plays the ‘Eriksen role’? My issue is I think it’s more of a stretch to expect better results lining up like this as opposed to using both in a more conventional midfield three, precisely because I see no reason to believe that either would excel starting from the right wing.
A 4-2-2-2 seems okay until you think about what we would want our full backs to provide in attack and what the set defensive shape would look like - with Grealish and Fernandes pulled into a flat four.
