Our midfield 3!

I honestly thought our midfield three of whitt, mutch and gunnarsson would virtually pick themselves this season, but having watched that today i'm really not sure. all three were dreadful and it came as no surprise when gunnarsson was taken of half time. Indeed the only surprise for me was that mutch wasnt taken off with him. The most i'd give them today was 3/10! I think whitt gave the ball away everytime he had it in the first 20 minutes.

The one bright light that came out of todays performance was tommy smith. He didnt give the ball away once. He looked to go past a man (the only player we've had who can) and he made some decent tackles.

When kim and bellamy are playing malky could definitely play smith as the most forward of the midfield three and drop mutch or gunnarsson. He has a lot of guile and will certainly give teams something to think about.

One more thing, maybe kiss could be used in the middle as he is the only midfield player we have with a bit of bit about him.

oh dear, that doesn't sound too encouraging.

Were the centre backs our playmakers again too?

No not really rhys. I wouldnt say we went route one all the time today (ala huddersfield) and the lad connolly looked very good on the ball, but our midfield looked completely lacklustre throughout. gunnarsson, whitts and mutch thought they were xavi, iniesta and fabregas and they just didnt want to earn the right to play!

Tommy Smith was very good and doesn't look as if he's here to sit on the bench. My biggest problem is that we have lot's of players this season but not lots of options. A lot of our players seem to be carbon copies of each other. They are neat and tidy (steady eddys). Malky hasnt really addressed the pace problem and i think for team who has spent approx £6 million this summer we seem too a have very little cutting edge. Our full backs are not great and how anyone can still think kev deserves his place in the starting eleven of a team hoping to make the top two is beyond me.

I also think we're missing someone who can drag the players through a game (barry ferguson, shaun derry).

I've said it all along we need a player like Alan Carvallo, it's blindingly obvious.

So if we actually bought Xavi, Iniesta and Fabregas we should be fine?

Slumdog's Son wrote:So if we actually bought Xavi, Iniesta and Fabregas we should be fine?

Naaaah, they'd still have to earn the right to play over Kiss, Ralls and MacPhail

Smith is a player that likes to play passing football, he's not for the long ball game, and that I like. Mutch is the same, he's good on the ball and able to distribute amongst the players around him well. Pair that sort of play with Whittingham, who on his day can play a blinder of a long ball, and we have a great midfield. Id like to see it as the most important part of a short ball high posession style of football that can allow us to simply flood an opponents defence with numbers. We then also have the option of surprising a defence every now and again with a long ball from Whitts past the offside trap, especially if you also utilise Velikonja's pace.

I still believe we have the best midfield in the league, it just needs to find it's feet better and maybe be allowed more creative freedom. We have enough players to play a short game, a long game, a wide game, a narrow game, every style of football imaginable. It just makes the continual appearance of only one dimension, especially the one that barely uses the central three, all the more disappointing.

Mutch looked incredibly off the pace today and didnt even be able to do the simple things like pass the ball straight back to the thrower off a throw in!

I'm going to bang on about this all year - we don't know what to do with the ball. It ain't rocket surgery as they say in the Dordogne!

Malky said last season he was building the team around whitts and that why whitts said he wanted to stay.

Putting whitts as a second CDM for 3 games in a row isnt building the team around him and will cost us the 10-15 goals he scores and god knows how many assists this season.

The worst thing is Malky isnt going to want to lose 2 on the spin so it will be 451 again against wolves imo. Dam watching DJ on sky is making me feel sick

Biguba wrote:I'm going to bang on about this all year - we don't know what to do with the ball. It ain't rocket surgery as they say in the Dordogne!

No, they don't.......

Awkward...

That central three are the one part of the squad i wouldn't change at all. They had an off day, everyone has them.

I hope you're right red614 but what concerned me yesterday was the contrast to the beginning of last season. last season we knew we had to earn the right to play football and often run other sides into submission. like i said previously, yesterday our midfield 3 thought they were barcelona and we got battered by a poor team.

In the newcastle game mutch looked like he was the kind of midfielder who could pick up the ball and drive at defenders but the huddersfield and bristol games have suggested he's anything but that. all three of them looked leggy and dare i say knackered!!

We've got nobody who frightens teams like a jason koumas in his prime but we've also not gota barry ferguson or shaun derry who can drive the players on.