RocktheCasbah wrote:
General Mirth wrote:
In fairness, Vieira didn't score goals with any regularity either. His biggest gift was being able to win the ball back and then gallop half the length of the pitch with it, all in the space of seconds.
Patters is right, when I think off 'third man combinations' that left hand side of Pires, Henry and Cole is the first thing that comes into my head. In fact, I don't think Cole and Henry have replicated that of understanding with any one since.
Come to think of it, I don't think there are enough partnerships these days. Certainly not in our time and not else where in the league either. I'd say Pienaar and Baines have the best partnership in England and that says it all.
I reckon Vieira got his fair share for us heads off to Wikipedia to check.... ok, no, he didn't. Twice he got 7 in one season, but no more than 4 in any of the 7 remaining. But the inability of one of our players, any player, to devour the pitch in seconds a la Vieira is surely one of the reasons our football has become so slow and easy to negate?
The problem is that they're all a bunch of specialists in my opinion, except Tet. It's fair enough to say that Diaby is the only one who would make those runs in the current squad. It's true and it's a good reason to include him if he ever gets fit again. It wasn't really what defined Vieira though. What defined him was his ability to adapt to any given situation on the pitch. He was one of the finest two-way players the world has ever seen. Diaby, during the best of circumstances, is effective in one direction.
I don't really think you solve the problem by signing a defensive-minded, physical player, like M'Vila or whoever. It's just a temporary way to counterbalance an inherent flaw in the team. You don't actually fix the problem. We need more players who understand how to play in central midfield, rather than in particular sections of it. It's not a coincidence that Barcelona, Bayern and Juventus all have players who function in both directions. That's not to say they're not dependent on a certain balance between them but as footballers they're pretty much complete. The attacking prominence of those teams sometimes means that we forget their defensive superiority. I don't think many top team in the world has conceded less goals than Barcelona during the last decade.
