Moussa Dembele

Yes more on that here:

http://www.football365.com/faves/8368973/F365-Says

I don't agree that it would be best for us though. Sandro next to Carrick is far too defensive, when your two wingers stay wide you need someone to make themselves available higher up the pitch. Cleverley contributes in this way, and is a better passer than both Sandro and Dembele. I think Sir Alex has his own idea of what he wants his midfield two to be capable of. I like the current balance.
 
Unfortunately that same idea is what brought about Fletcher and Carrick as a combination and the rest of our questionable pairings. It would seem his recent idea is to have a little bit of everything, whilst specialising in and accomplishing (as a pair) nothing in particular. Malaga are another side who have chosen to have a ball winning combination in central midfield and despite arguably having less quality than Spurs duo, its been the basis of a brilliant season for them
 
I don't mind that kind of combination, it works really well for some teams. It obviously makes City very difficult to beat when they get it right. It also means sometimes they need Yaya to break ranks to break down the opposition.

Madrid use it. The two cover for the wingers or mostly Ronaldo who rarely tracks back. It brings out the best in Ozil, and we could hope for similar with Kagawa.
Then again we just use our wingers to cover the fullbacks. The midfielders cover their own area and for a long time now we have dominated most games, with a few exceptions of course for various reasons.

Dembele's best game of the season, against us, we played Anderson, Cleverley and Kagawa in midfield. All these players were a level below what they offer now. I just feel he can't take the game to the opposition in the way we need in most games and i'm not sure he is great under pressing either as he can't do what Cleverley does.
 
I think that we need a quality playmaker and a box to box player Keano style. Scholes and Giggs are too old, Ando is injury prone, there's still question marks regarding Fletcher and Carrick will be 32-33 next season (he will serve us well in the next 2-3 seasons but you just have to start thinking about bringing in someone who allow him some time to rest)
 
Everytime i see him, he impresses. Really should have gone for him.
 
I mean from an attacking sense, they both have an authority about them to make the difference and have the ability to grab a game that is slipping away from them and turn it around. He needs more goals, but that will probably come when Sandro or a new signing is alongside him instead of Parker.
 
He's an attacking player who also wins the ball a lot. He wins the ball back almost as often as Rafael, who has won the ball back most of any of our players this season. Dembele wins the ball back only slightly more than Carrick, but still.

Think of most other players in central midfield who win the ball a lot and how much more ability on the ball Dembele has.
 
His development is really astonishing. He was bought as a forward I think and then converted into midfield - not an offensive midfielder with no defensive responsibilities though, that would have been easy, he turned into a sort of a box to box midfielder who's basically a full package - passing, tackling, positioning, vision, goal threat. I'd say he's already one of the best midfielders in the league and with a learning curve like that he could easily go on to become a world class midfielder.

Such a shame we didn't try, he didn't even cost that much. No way we're ever getting him from Spurs though.
 
I could be talking rubbish because I dont have any numbers to back it up, just my recollection of how he used to play. And even when he was playing off a striker in his first position in the premier league, he still made tackles in there. So I think thats been part of his game for a while and probably why they wanted to move him back in the first place
 
I'm sorry but I really don't get what you lot see in him. Yes he can ghost past players with ease but he tries it too often in silly positions, he doesn't make himself available for the ball all that well and he's not a good passer.
 
I think he's very good, and could get better than that. Still young.
 
I reckon at least half the time he plays like he's still a winger. Obviously he'd have been able to play there for us given we've had Anderson and Giggs playing the same converted role, but the idea that he's a level above Spurs just seems absurd to me.
 
I didn't mean improved version of Ando as a bad thing there tbh.
 
He's no world-beater, but he's a damn sight better than a few of the players we've been utilising in central midfield this season. I really think he was worth a punt especially at that price. He has great potential and could be even more impressive in a better team.

He's playing well against City's midfield here, the same City midfield which gave us a torturing two weeks ago.
 
He's been brilliant second half, running at players, beating them for fun and good eye for a pass.
 
Man of the Match in my view. He's been inspirational for them in the second half like Modric was so often for Spurs. If he can do that consistently, I see him being coveted after.
 
nahealai said:
He's no world-beater, but he's a damn sight better than a few of the players we've been utilising in central midfield this season. I really think he was worth a punt especially at that price. He has great potential and could be even more impressive in a better team.

He's playing well against City's midfield here, the same City midfield which gave us a torturing two weeks ago.
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No, they didn't. First of all, in that game they had silva while in this they played Dzeko(player less in midfield), and we played with Giggs in cm, and even with that they didn't look better than us at all.
 
Amar__ said:
No, they didn't. First of all, in that game they had silva while in this they played Dzeko(player less in midfield), and we played with Giggs in cm, and even with that they didn't look better than us at all.
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Silva isn't a midfielder as such, so why are you counting him? You rarely see him around his own penalty box so it's futile considering him as a central midfielder. I was referring to Toure and Barry, both of whom dominated Carrick and Giggs two weeks ago.

If you didn't think City's midfield looked better than ours that night, I fear for you, mate. Comical Ali wasn't this oblivious.
 
We should have went for him, but that goes without saying really. He would have looked great next to Carrick.
 
His best performance of the season is still his performance for Fulham against us back in August. That was his last game for Fulham, wasn't it? I find it difficult to believe that we weren't at least interested in him. It would have been criminal for us not to have been.
 
nahealai said:
Silva isn't a midfielder as such, so why are you counting him? You rarely see him around his own penalty box so it's futile considering him as a central midfielder. I was referring to Toure and Barry, both of whom dominated Carrick and Giggs two weeks ago.

If you didn't think City's midfield looked better than ours that night, I fear for you, mate. Comical Ali wasn't this oblivious.
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Silva is involved in keeping possesion and dominating the pitch almost as Toure. He is drifting inside most of the time, and trying to influence the game, and helping them keeping possesion, so it's a big difference playing him and Dzeko.

And in that game, he didn't even play wide, he played through the middle in front of Toure and Barry, since they played with just one striker - Tevez, and he was City's fourth highest passer in that game, behind Barry, Toure and Clichy.

So, if you don't think he is one of the main reasons why Toure and Barry played much better against us than they did against Tottenham today, think again.
 
nahealai said:
His best performance of the season is still his performance for Fulham against us back in August. That was his last game for Fulham, wasn't it? I find it difficult to believe that we weren't at least interested in him. It would have been criminal for us not to have been.
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We held the cards though because we sold Fulham Berbatov, so if we were in for him that surely would have been part of the deal. We should have but we couldn't have been.
 
Amar__ said:
So, if you don't think he is one of the main reasons why Toure and Barry played much better against us than they did against Tottenham today, think again.
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The main reason Spurs' midfield coped with City's today was simply that they brought the game to them as well. We conceded possession too readily against City with too many long and hopeful balls and we were always on the back-foot (counter-attacking tactics being intentional or not). Spurs, and in particular Dembele, took the City midfield on and it proved fruitful. Toure is strong but cumbersome, and Barry isn't that agile at all, so it was correct for Dembele to run at them, which he did to great effect.

Giggs and Carrick never did and never were going to do that.
 
nahealai said:
The main reason Spurs' midfield coped with City's today was simply that they brought the game to them as well. We conceded possession too readily against City with too many long and hopeful balls and we were always on the back-foot (counter-attacking tactics being intentional or not). Spurs, and in particular Dembele, took the City midfield on and it proved fruitful. Toure is strong but cumbersome, and Barry isn't that agile at all, so it was correct for Dembele to run at them, which he did to great effect.

Giggs and Carrick never did and never were going to do that.
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Actually, Spurs were average for most of the game, they were creating nothing, and city looked to be in complete control before the feck ups from their defence, and before Spurs brough subs.

They bringing the game to them is what would you expect considering they were trailing and they needed goal, plus city brought Kolarov and turned into defending mode.
 
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