ANCELOTTI HAS FAILED HIS TEAM
On Thursday night, it was a familiar tale for Los Blancos against Atletico, Atleti were compact, defended deep and with robust physicality, took their chances and got the job done against their arch rivals. Madrid fans will point to key mistakes at important times during the game.
THE DEFENSIVE MIDFEILDER:AN ARTIST
In recent times, it is often said that the art of defending is dying in the modern game, that the obsession with free-flowing attacking football by so many managers in the game today has made defending become secondary and people forget the fact that you might score three or more goals and not win
WHATS HAPPENING AT ARSENAL: MY TAKE ON THINGS
Its been a pretty grim couple of weeks for Arsenal starting from the absolute capitulation against Anderlecht to losing our 15-month unbeaten home record to a severely weakened Manchester United team.
FINDING MARCO'S PLACE
It is no secret that Marco Reus’s contract at Dortmund is nearing it’s end. It is also no secret that a release clause in his contract will be activated in 2015. As expected the top teams in Europe will already be scrambling for his signature as he is arguably one of the best and most promising talents in the football universe at the moment.
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Sunday 4 February 2018
ARSENAL 5- 1 EVERTON: TAKEAWAYS AND THINGS TO KEEP AN EYE ON
Monday 12 September 2016
SUMMARY OF MAJOR DEALS BY TOP CLUBS IN EUROPE
The transfer window came to an end a while
ago, and no matter the team you support, you cannot help but admit that it has
been a very eventful one. A lot of players were linked to a lot of teams, and
while some of these links materialised, to the disappointment of some fans,
they did not. The most expensive so far was Manchester United’s re-signing of
their youth product Paul Pogba for a fee of £86 million in a deal bound
to rise to an excess of about one hundred million pounds. Outrageous to some,
Paul Pogba’s transfer was greeted with happiness by the United faithful, as he
was an addition to the already star studded list of transfers they had already
made which included names like Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and relative unknown Eric
Bailly would feel like it was a profitable window this
summer for United. Their “noisy neighbours” across town have also made some seemingly
positive reinforcements this window. Manchester City made quite a number of
significant signings this summer, bringing in players like Nolito, Ilkay
Gundogan, Claudio Bravo, Leroy Sane, John Stones and the talented Gabril Jesus. Chelsea made a number of
signings including the capture of Olympique De Marseille’s Michy Batshuayi, but
the most notable remains their recapture of David Luiz from Paris St. Germain.
Liverpool have not been quiet either, signing Loris Karius , Georginio
Wijnaldum, Ragnar Klavan, Joel Matip and Sadio Mane. Much to the surprise of
Many, Arsenal fans also seemed quite content with their team’s transfer
dealings despite some nervy moments between the period they signed Granit Xhaka
and when Lucas Perez and Shkodran Mustafi were added to the team.
Meanwhile across Europe, Barcelona snapped
up a couple of key players including Lucas Digne, Paco Alcacer, Andre Gomes and
Samuel Umtiti. Atletico Madrid added to their ranks Kevin Gamiero, Nico Gaitan.
Real Madrid recaptured Alvaro Morata, making him one of the latest players to
return to his former team in a transfer window where that has already happened
a couple of times already. From Madrid to Paris, as PSG spent the summer
getting the likes of Hatem Ben Arfa, Jese Rordiguez, Grzegorz Krychowiak and Thomas
Meunier. In Germany, Bayern Munich got the teenage senation Renato Sanches and
also recaptured Mats Hummels from Borussia Dortmund whilst Borussia Dortmund
recaptured Mario Gotze from Bayern Munich and got hold of Moussa Dembele, Emre
Mor, Mario Goetze, Marc Batra, Sebastian Rode, Raphael Guerreiro, Dzenis
Burnic, Andre Schurrle. The round up concludes with a look at Juventus who
completed arguably the most controversial of the summer with the purchase of
Gonalzo Higuain for £76. 50m. They also completed another controversial
acquisition of Miralem Pjanic from AS Roma. Moraccan International Mehdi
Benatia came in from Bayern Munich. Dani Alvez, Marko Pjaca, Mario Lemina, Juan
Cuadrado were also brought into the club.
It has been a busy transfer window for most clubs in Europe. All the transfers made make football fans and pundits alike ask the question “Who did the best business?”. In all truthfulness, this question can only be answered by time. We watch and season how it all pans out, for now, enjoy the season
Monday 5 September 2016
WHAT IS A DEFENSIVE MIDFIELDER? EXAMINING WHAT IT IS TO PLAY THE POSITION AND WHY MOST TOP TEAMS PREFER A MEDIOCENTRO
* Build up: The player in the role must take charge of this phase and know when, to whom and at what pace to pass the ball to a teammate in order to advance the play in an organised manner. Merely passing it or hitting diagonals is not enough. Each pass must carry a meaning and an idea.
* Defensively: The player must be able to do what a typical destroyer would, intercept, tackle (when needed), hassle and also form part of the defence when it becomes necessary to do so.
From the above description, most destroyers carry out only the defensive phase and do very little when it comes to the build-up & attack phase. This reason on the surface explains why most teams who play with a mediocentro play better aesthetically pleasing football, because they have one more player to facilitate and essentially be the brain of the 1st phase of the build-up.
Using the two players used as case study, we apply their attributes to the role.
The graphic here shows Kroos deeper, after passing it to Casemiro, the Brazilian immediately knocks it backwards towards the centre backs |
The image shows how the two interiors (Kroos and Modric are deeper than the actual “dm”) |
Notice Kroos trying to help Sergio Ramos dictate by pointing to Casemiro, but he is ignored with the defender preferring the longer ball forward which is lost as shown below |
The graphics used to describe these two issues may have been from one game, but this has been a reoccurring occurrence in the game play of Real Madrid. A lack of confidence from the team and the player himself to gain possession is a problem as much as having him in the team is "solution".
To conclude this piece, the demands of the roles have been explained. Also, defending is not exclusive to the defenders and the DM. Football is a team sport should be done as a team. Not one position or more is limited to specific duties. Defending should be done as a team, as unit, with each player knowing doing their part for the collective good. Therefore, it is in my opinion that in this era, where the elite clubs want to play aesthetically pleasing football as well as win games,S having a mediocentro over a destroyer as your "DM" is absolutely paramount.
Monday 29 February 2016
REACTION TO ARSENAL FROM MANCHESTER UNITED VS ARSENAL (3-2)