- Jul 25, 2005
- 1,949
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havn't seen a lot of him. From that clip he looks like Steed with a bit more quality...
just because he wont be great in his first year doesnt mean we shouldnt buy him. If the club thought like that we'd be mediocre forever!
But from what I read on here most SC posters think Darrent Bent is useless and was a waste of money. :bang:
JJ: A good attacking midfielder...once every five games
Hi TSH - completely disagree with that statement re JJ - I'd say he has a good game something like 1 in 2 and an acceptable or better game 2 out of three games,
that's nowhere near one in 5 - yes he had a blip recently due to injury problems - but normally JJ is one of our more consistently useful players - it's just a lot of his good work is ignored, often by people with an agenda against him
since comeing back he's played 1 game - was a good game
and of course often he's very good and sometimes as in the 5-1 - magnificent
There are various reasons why he's our best mid and one of them is because he plays more good games than bad
fair enough TSH all good valid points - but please I just ask you and others don't judge JJ on what you want him to be - judge him on what he is
But what is he? That's the problem for me. He's not a defensive midfielder for me.
he's a box to box midfield player who covers a tremendous amount of ground, who wins possession quite often as part of this (he's not a great tackler - but check his balls won stats in the telegraph - normally they stand comparison with other players)
he's a box to box midfield player who covers a tremendous amount of ground, who wins possession quite often as part of this (he's not a great tackler - but check his balls won stats in the telegraph - normally they stand comparison with other players)
he both scores and makes goals - he's our leading mid this season with regard to this
6 + 10 compared to Hudd's 4 + 10 Steeds 6 + 6 Lennon's 3+6 (courtesy of the good Spurs site I mention in another thread - hope they're right) - I won't bother with Zokora's
he makes a lot of passes in a game usualy with good accuracy - one of the many reasons doubtless why he is rated our top mid by Actim - how about that for the moment
I thought eastern European players are cheaper than that. !8 million is a big gamble.
Hi DC_Boy
I agree with you that JJ is a box-to-box CM. And imo that is precisely the problem Ramos has with him. In Ramos' Sevilla 4-4-2, it's the wide players who have licence to get forward, and the CMs both need to be disciplined, picking and choosing their forward runs. I think JJ has adapted pretty well to this more disciplined role under Juande, but it's not ideal for him.
Now, if Ramos were to switch to three CMs, then the ACM would probably need to be a more creative user of the ball - eg Diego, van der Vaart, Riquelme - than JJ. I don't think Ramos will play a 3-man CM with JJ as the main attacking force.
I could be wrong, but my suspicion is that Juande's problem with JJ is a classic square holes & round pegs one. Which is why if Sven offers a lorryload of Thai cash, I suspect Ramos would take it and buy a player like Modric who suits his system more.
I still think it's a massive priority. All the top teams have a defensive midfielder.
Carrick/Hargreaves
Flamini/Silva
Makalele/Mikel
Mascherano/Alonso (sort of)
The ideal is two wider players, one defensive minded midfielder and one creative midfielder.
We currently have:
Lennon: A wide player who seems to have lost the ability to go past people and cross it.
Steed: A central player playing out of position (albeit very well)
JJ: A good attacking midfielder...once every five games
Zokora: No comment
Hudd: Too slow
So arguably we need a new player in each midfield position.
and they always have had.....Roy Keane, Vieira etc
I think we need to buy that kind of player before we can consider breaking into the top 4. Not sure who though!
Am also a JJ fan although propably less secure so than DC is.