Jump to content

Why this insistence on a defensive midfielder?


Recommended Posts

There comes a time when you have to pick your best players.

 

Lee & McGugan could play together no problem.

 

Yes they could ,but that would leave us wide open as McGugan cant defend and Lee is one of our best attacking weapons. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes they could ,but that would leave us wide open as McGugan cant defend and Lee is one of our best attacking weapons. 

That is harsh on McGugan.

 

He has defensive qualities and so has Lee.

 

I'm pretty sure they played together quite a bit last season.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Most teams have a defensive midfielder. 

 

Carlos sees them in training everyday ffs. 

 

Perhaps he's worried about how open we'd be with McGugan and Lopez. 

 

The former isn't exactly well known for his tremendous workrate. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For all his technical ability, McGugan doesn't offer the back four the same protection that Hutchinson and Semedo do.

In the Preston game, before scoring his phenomenal goal, McGugan was also brought on in centre midfield alongside Hutchinson for a period, shunting Lee out wide to accommodate him. However, McGugan was soon moved out to the wing to make room for Lee to step back into the middle of the park, as he simply wasn't tracking back or closing down with anywhere near the same energy that Lee had been doing up to that point. Bearing in mind that Lee had run himself into the ground for over 70 minutes at this point, that's pretty poor in my opinion.

Therein lies the conundrum with McGugan: he's technically one of our most gifted players, but he doesn't seem willing or able to put in the work rate Carlos demands of his midfielders. The standard has been set by Bannan, Lee, Hutchinson, Wallace and Forestieri; it's up to McGugan to match their level of commitment in order to allow his quality to come to the fore more consistently.

As things stand, I don't think Carlos trusts McGugan 100%, otherwise he'd play him.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hasn't Lopez come in for hutch in the past and done a pretty good job? both last week and this week semedo has been a liability who seems to be out of his depth at the moment. Anyone who saw the hudders game will know he nearly cost us a goal in the first half and Lee had to bail him out by sprinting back and chasing a player who had nicked the ball off him. Today's match sounds like he had another couple of situations which could have hurt us.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest trusty_left_peg

Hasn't Lopez come in for hutch in the past and done a pretty good job? both last week and this week semedo has been a liability who seems to be out of his depth at the moment. Anyone who saw the hudders game will know he nearly cost us a goal in the first half and Lee had to bail him out by sprinting back and chasing a player who had nicked the ball off him. Today's match sounds like he had another couple of situations which could have hurt us.

 

Think it was against Fulham where Lopez was a bit deeper and played well, probably his best game whilst he's been here. Wouldn't be surprised to see him play in that role against Stoke.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...