Alright amigo, I'm not sure I can emphasize this enough: there has never, ever, fuckin EVER in the history of this sport been a coach that instructed his players to pass horizontally at the expense of looking forward, and especially not to the extent that we have this season. You're absolutely right that such a thing is precisely what our players have done, on that I cannot agree with you enough. But I can assure you it is not because of managerial instruction, regardless of how clueless you or anyone believes Sherwood to be. Dembele did indeed say such a thing in a press conference, but he went on to point out that their tactical instruction was not enough about them and far more so about how to counter opponent strategies. No manager in their right mind, especially at this level, instructs his central midfielders to prioritize the horizontal. No one.
On the stat topic, I must ask you to stop placing words I did not say in quotations and attributing them to me. I didn't say stats are "not important," I said verbatim that they "do not tell the whole story." Such intended meanings are not even remotely close, even in the usage of a paraphrase. Therefore, there is nothing contradictory in my statement. Paulinho's goals are indeed a very meaningful contribution, but as for the technicalities of his play specifically, he offers nothing particular or unique. I repeat and emphasize again that I do not believe he is not a poor midfielder per se, but that he is also not one that we should've spent 17 mil GBP on.
Lots of players at this level can jump high and head the ball well, but that does not necessarily mean they have notable athleticism. Once again, didn't say he's shit at anything except shooting, just that he doesn't stand out. And yes, his shooting ability is appalling for a BTB midfielder. He shouldn't have to be particularly aggressive? You want a BTB central midfielder that isn't aggressive? Oy vey, there is hardly a trait I could want more in a player I expect to be tasked with linking up play and running the full extent of the pitch. That is a fundamental misunderstanding of the volante position he plays for Brazil.
Coming from South America cannot be seen as an overarching excuse. If it were so, I can assure you no one would pay 17 mil for such a player and put him right into the first team. Such business would be madness. So while it is a clear obstacle and does occasionally affect players, it cannot however be used as a method of excusing a player from the continent every time they have a poor rookie season. Each player deserves their own basis for assessment. We have had plenty of exposure to Paulinho, and it is apparent to me that he does not contribute much to team dynamics. He is a passenger far too often who contributes almost nothing to build-up play. This is not good enough from a BTB midfielder, who should be an absolutely integral component of such a component to our play.
See, the thing about it is you really, really can't assure me of anything unless you've been in the dressing room or training with Timmy and heard his gameplan. All we have to go on is that our players, for one reason or another, seem to refuse to play through the middle. I can be just as sure that no midfielder ever made it to the EPL, Brazilian national team, Belgian national team or French national team only passing sideways, so something has to give; these players didn't suddenly forget how to play the game they've been playing their entire lives over the course of one season. That, coupled with the fact that you can watch just about any game this season and see we prioritized going wide quite a lot of the time, leads me to believe there is some conflicting instruction somewhere along the line that is leaving our midfielders, many of whom were lauded as great players with amazing potential, confused and passing out wide more often than not. Again, I agree with you... they aren't the most creative lot around, but you absolutely cannot deny that playing it out the wings has been our go to
all season. Forgive me if I choose to believe in the talent of the players over the talent of two underachieving managers.Though this portion of the argument is in no way worth pursuing, as all the either of us can provide is pure conjecture seeing as we aren't on the training ground day in and out, so we just don't know.
And again, I'll push his goalscoring prowess as more than unique enough for our squad. We have a +2 goal differential. Take away Paulinho's unique ability (amongst our midfielders) to put himself in the right positions to score and we're sitting negative.
Negative. Who in our current squad possesses the ability to have put away 7 more goals if Pauli wasn't around? Dembele? Capoue? Sandro? Bentaleb? They're useful in their own right, but without Paulinho's ability to score our strike unit's collective inability to maintain form would be horribly exposed. I guess what I really don't understand is how you don't see his ability to score as unique in its own right.
Having the ability to outjump most opponents and being a decent header of the ball doesn't constitute as notable athleticism? You're kidding, right? You have an odd, rigid definition of athleticism.
I think Paulinho possesses all the aggressiveness he needs. To prove as such, I've quoted Eperons stat board for Paulinho's game against Fulham. I know they're just stats, so therefore they could never
possibly be indicative of a players performance ever never ever (some words for your mouth), but seems to me like Paulinho does possess an ability to assert himself in different areas of the pitch. I believe if you look elsewhere in this thread someone mentions that he had the most successful tackles of any player for either team. That kind of performance is what Paulinho, on form,
can bring to the table. If you're going to bash him for being out of form, fine... but don't say he isn't an above average talent. On more than one occasion this year he's proven he is more than capable of being a highly influential player. To go back to my original point, I think with a manager that knew how to balance our midfield properly (i.e. using a destroyer), Paulinho could focus more on getting himself into even more dangerous attacking positions and scoring a good 10-15 goals a season. Which, again, given our current strike force, is something I see as potentially crucial.
I was only assessing Paulinho. You've got constructive things to say, but you are highly mistaken if you think there wouldn't be any sort of difficult adjustment period that might affect form for a player jumping from South America to England to play with 6 other new signings. That he's performed as well as he has given the borderline laughable scenarios our club has been in this season, coupled with his all the nuances of his transition from one country to another (from language to style of football) is something I see as noteworthy. And, as I said,
exciting. This is a player who, at times, has shown he has what it takes to dominate a match and score clutch goals-- one year of experience and growth in chemisty with his teammates, plus the very real possibility of a more accomplished manager, is 100% something to be excited about.
