defensive midfielder

[bigv]

Despite our success and 4th place finish last season, an area where i feel we still need improvement is in the defensive midfield role. Palacious the "combative"and "tough-tackling" midfield general, despite showing early promise in this position has underachieved of late and anyone who tells me that Huddlestone is a midfield enforcer is having a Turkish as he is about as mobile as a quadriplegic with haemorrhoids. Granted, his vision and distribution is top notch but his tackling and defensive movement/timings are awful.


Will Palacious live up to his billing at wigan, or will we try and compensate with a highly attacking midfield quartet? Which of these two are more suited to playing alongside a modric/vdv kranjcar type player. Too many attacking options but where is the balance and which player is the one to afford us this midfield cohesion.?
Your thoughts ladies and gentlemen......... amd erm Gareth......

[ozoha]

I think we had an excellent defensive midfileder. But he'll need some time to adapt to the pace of Premierleague.
 
I've wathced Sandro's games since he was signed. I really believe he can be great for us.
 
Here in Brazil he's very well rated.

[CountPuchi]

I know we can be hard on Sgt Wilson but i still have my faith in him. But i think right now he is still not in the same frame of mind after his Brother's death. He should have been given leave to sort himself out. Its not easy to play with emotional scar clinging. Sure he is professional but he's still human.

[Derry-Yid]

People are to quick to knock players(no offence bigv) when there going though a bad spell...Wilson was excellent for us in the first half of last season...he was poor at the end of the season..but the guy is big and strong enough to pull himself together and come back stronger this season..all players go through bad spells so hopefully that was his out of the way....he looked low on confidence abit last year...if he can get that back he'll be ok.

[Gareth Keown]

youre all falling into the trap of separating the 2 functions of a central midfielder in a 4-4-2.... its a mistake..

you can talk about defensive midfielder or attacking midfielder when looking at 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 where the central midfielder(s) are more defensive.... but in a midfield 4 that doesnt play the diamond formation then the 2 CMs need to be both... but really when using 2 wingers too, they need to be more defensive than attacking - unless they have the pace/stamina of a Bale or even Jenas..... clearly both THudd and Modric DO NOT.

in our system, we really need 2 central-midfield sentinels.... THOU SHALT NOT PASS..... as we use very attacking wide-men in midfield and can use attacking fullbacks... Palacios, THudd, Jenas and hopefully Sandro fit the bill..

Thudd OR Modric for me at the same time in the team....... not both together.

[dedleysting]

We have plenty of options at the "defensive midfield role" notably Palacios and now Sandro, but correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Kaboul play there once towards the end of last season.

I for one love Palacios. And I really hope he can overcome his lack of form/dip in confidence/his personal problems and return to the form that made us splash £12m on him. Wilson is a good good player on his day. Boy do I look forward to seeing those days again....

[Gareth Keown]

Palacios is making the same frequency of errors as before.... well within the acceptable category as a CM..... no worse than THudd or Modric..

the difference is that without a recognised scapegoat eg. Jenas now playing regularly, Palacios has been chosen by the 'great unwashed' as next in line for that title..

I mean seriously... does he make more errors than say a Dawson or Corluka ??.... perish the thought of these 2's ability being questioned tho...

not a massive fan of Palacios (I prefer Jenas in CM myself) but he doesnt deserve the flak currently received for the 'huge number' of games he's played for Spurs this season to date...

[Adventurer]

People are to quick to knock players(no offence bigv) when there going though a bad spell...Wilson was excellent for us in the first half of last season...he was poor at the end of the season..but the guy is big and strong enough to pull himself together and come back stronger this season..all players go through bad spells so hopefully that was his out of the way....he looked low on confidence abit last year...if he can get that back he'll be ok.

A defensive midfielder should not really go through a bad spell. A DM, unless affected by injury or fitness, or taken apart by a super opponent who is just too good for him or too quick in an occasional game, should nearly always be able to produce his primary function of tackling and disrupting etc.. Wilson has unfortunately been below par generally for quite some time now. Harry and the coaches need to find a way to get him back to the almost world class DM that he can be. Otherwise, he is really not good enough for us.

Like others, I have great hopes for Sandro. Have only seen various parts of his matches on You Tube etc. but he really does look like a top class DM and more, perhaps in the mold, although potentially better in attack mode, as Viera used to be. He has speed and wonderful balance & control. Potentially world class.

Also Kaboul has great potential (how long does one need to say that). He also seems to me to be admirably suited to an all round DM role.

And we should not forget the contribution that Jamie O'Hara can make with his battling give all enthusiastic never say die play.

Gosh we have an abundance of riches in midfield to use (even JJ who I would like to leave ASAP seems to be able to play a decent game recently)

Lets hope that VDV can be the actual consistent goal scoring attacking midfielder that would really help us to compete against the top 3 and give us the options we need.

[CountPuchi]

Hmm gareth. If i were to say when he first came and played effingly awesome and better than Jenas played for us in 4 years i doubt ull believe me.

Although i gotta say what dedley said was spot on! I remembered his cruch tackling against Ars*nal and winning the ball without fouling and etc. He basically bossed the midfield on his own and let Hudds his freedom to spray passes around. True he makes errors *especially his passing which reminds me of Zokora* but i dont think you can compare a def mid with any back 4 player. Its like saying SgtWilson playing on the RB and performed as good as Charlie but in fact that did happened against manure and he was skinned alive!

But all i can be sure is that if wanna compare defensively between 2 Midfield players id say Jenas and SgtWilson. Jenas lose by a looong mile. I was shocked we didnt have time to ship Jenas out really.

[Gareth Keown]

the fact remains that for the past 2 seasons since he joined, Palacios has not been a defensive-midfielder.... he has been a central-midfielder, 1 of 2 in a 4-man midfield unit...

for the last 2yrs he has gone forward to support the attack as many times as THudd or Jenas has done.... that is a FACT.

we dont use a system which allows for specifically a defensive-midfielder (say like Liverpool do with Mascherano who seldom approaches the final third of the pitch)...

neither is Sandro just a midfielder who defends mainly... he is a central-midfielder that does both defend and break forward to support the attack...

PS - Jenas is the better player than Palacios, when given licence, to go forward and support the attack.... also he tends to have better positioning allowing him to intecept balls more rather than resort to tackling to get it as much... but in our system Palacios is the better player as we attack so much from the wings anyway..

[Derry-Yid]

People are to quick to knock players(no offence bigv) when there going though a bad spell...Wilson was excellent for us in the first half of last season...he was poor at the end of the season..but the guy is big and strong enough to pull himself together and come back stronger this season..all players go through bad spells so hopefully that was his out of the way....he looked low on confidence abit last year...if he can get that back he'll be ok.

A defensive midfielder should not really go through a bad spell. A DM, unless affected by injury or fitness, or taken apart by a super opponent who is just too good for him or too quick in an occasional game, should nearly always be able to produce his primary function of tackling and disrupting etc..

Really?

So would you say a goalkeeper or a striker,cant go through bad spells either?..if a striker hasn't scored in 5 or 6 games...would that not be him going through a bad spell?....or a goalkeeper that has had a nightmare in his past 5 or 6 games....is not going through a bad spell either?

All players(no matter who they are or what position they play in)go through bad spells...its called form...Wilsons form has dipped, there is no questioning that....for what ever reason he is low in confidence...The sooner he gets his confidence back his form will improve..and with that the tackles and the disrupting will get better.
 

[WilsonJet]

I think Palacios is definitely a defensive midfielder, although perhaps he hasn't been used in that role 100% because of the 4-4-2. He's spotty right now for sure, and his form has dipped, but don't forget how valuable he was in the middle of last season. There was a period before his 3-game suspension for yellow cards when I truly believed he was the best defensive midfielder in the league and possibly even the most valuable player on the team for that spell. I seem to remember Harry making similar comments as well. He has uncanny tackling ability when his mind is right.

I sure hope Sandro is as good as advertised. Most of us who haven't had the luxury of seeing him play already seem certain he is one of the more talented players on the team.

[dazzaTh]

Palacios is making the same frequency of errors as before.... well within the acceptable category as a CM..... no worse than THudd or Modric..

the difference is that without a recognised scapegoat eg. Jenas now playing regularly, Palacios has been chosen by the 'great unwashed' as next in line for that title..

I mean seriously... does he make more errors than say a Dawson or Corluka ??.... perish the thought of these 2's ability being questioned tho...

not a massive fan of Palacios (I prefer Jenas in CM myself) but he doesnt deserve the flak currently received for the 'huge number' of games he's played for Spurs this season to date...

Gareth, just because people are picking up on Palacios' faults does not mean they are using him as a scapegoat, it's the fact that his mistakes are becoming more and more frequent and people are starting to take notice and highlight them on here.
 
I have never been a big fan of Palacios, his work ethic is great but he's an awkward player, commits too many fouls, and his passing/distribution is terrible.
 
I always worry when I see him in the starting XI as he tends to give the ball away way too often and doesn’t offer any attacking threat what so ever.
 
The two games against Young Boys he played two identical square balls across our back four which went straight to the opposition, who thankfully were not good enough to punish us.
 
If he continues to do that in games against better teams we will be punished.
 
I do agree on your views with Corluka though Gareth.
 
He is the weak link in our team, he is unbelievably slow and makes our team unbalanced – we have a fast, attacking LB and a slow, purely defensive RB.
 
When teams play us they will automatically stick a pacey left winger to face off against Corluka as he is so immobile.
 
But I don’t think Kaboul is a much better option either. We definitely need to get somebody in January for that position. When talk was going around in the summer about us possibly signing Micah Richards, I thought perfect but it didn’t materialise.
 

[Gareth Keown]

ironically with Palacios, I think his notable errors in going for long-passes across the midfield which had been intecepted, stemmed from an over-confidence in his ability to hit those passes successfully.... he wasnt even attempting those balls before when he 1st joined and stuck to the simple and basic.... and thus got the proletariot fanbase at WHL behind him....

all it takes is for him to realise that its just not worth it to try those balls, as he will be criticised severely if they fail.... I actually think that thats now happened, as I thought he played more simply against Wigan and stuck to the basics more...

he can still pass long upfield and make those forward runs tho, as we need him to do that in this Spurs team... just dont pass long ACROSS the pitch in midfield or defence... thats all he needs to change..