What is it with defensive midfielders & attacking midfielders?

Totally agree. Right loada b@llacks. False 9s and all that crap. Football is a very simple game complicated by idiots. The FA cup final proves this, what a load of pony, 2 teams trying to avoid defeat, turgid doesent cover it, completley over thought.

 

Just go back to the seventies,they were common enough then, in the great sides of the era, Liverpool, Leeds, Arsenal, etc

 

Agreed - probably Yaya Toure is the other one.

 

The game has gone narrow which means teams pack midfields and so can afford to assign roles like defensive midfield and attacking midfield, football has gone from 2-3-5 to 3-4-3 to 4-4-2 to 5-4-1 the day someone re-reverses the pyramid and goes back to 2-3-5 a-la the 1950s it will blow everyone's mind!

 

What is it with all these vaccines and medicines today? Surely a leech worth its salt can do it all. When did it become so specialist? Am I missing something?

 

Whats the difference between a defensive midfielder and an old fashioned sweeper? - Both operated in front of the central defence and provided an extra level of protection...

 

What's the difference between dust and fluff?

 

This goes very well with... it was on his wrong foot. ..

 

Yeah i don't think he had it all he was more of a defensive midfielder great at breaking up play though and moving forward with the ball.

 

I think personally it depends on the system you play as to if you need a DM or not. If you are playing a midfield 3 like Barca, City, Chelsea and Man U tend to do then a good DM is vital to screen the back 4 and allow the other midfielders to pull the strings. In a 2 man centre midfield like we played when we last won promotion, it’s vital to have two players that can act as all rounders like Brownhill and Conor did for us

 

Perhaps it's me, but I think midfielders who can do everything equally well are an extremely rare breed and always have been. In all my years of watching Barnsley, I can think of Redfearn, Hourihane & Banks (first time round) who you could class like that. I never saw Ally Millar crunching into tackles like Alan Little, but Little couldn't create like Millar. Ronnie Glavin couldn't tackle and protect the back four like Ray McHale, but McHale couldn't create or score like Glavin. Billy Ronson hardly scored, Steve McPhail hardly tackled, but both made positive contributions to their respective teams.

 

What about Kenny Brown though?!

 

Kenny couldn't tackle.

 

Lol, I think you're being generous there.

 

If I had a time machine I might take a couple of hours out...after watching Alexander the Great rout the Persians, Leonardo painting the Mona Lisa etc...to nip back to 1974 to see the Reds play. I'd be interested to see them now with older eyes.
I might also see a skinny, callow youth stood on the kop and tell him that he ought to go do something constructive with his time.... like invent a smart phone or something.
Unfortunately I probably wouldn't have listened as I concentrated on Kenny sliding in with a crunching challenge and storm off upfield.
Anyway.....who'd swap inventing a smartphone for seeing King Ronnie in his pomp?

 

Ain’t it a lot to do with squad sizes? Back in the day teams would get through seasons using only 14 or 15 players so everyone had to be multi positional & able to be all round footballers so couldn’t be specialists.

Now with most clubs (certainly top 2 levels in England) having 2 players for every position then you can have specialists.

 

He was able to be both, he was an all rounder. At times he had more freedom & had a sitter alongside him like Gilberto & at other times he’d be the one doing the defensive duties

 

Let's put it this way....we have just got relegated because we do not have midfield players whose natural instinct is to defend and stay disciplined in position, such that when we lose the ball we are not picked off on the counter attack. Compare our away results last season to this. Conor learned the role and was disciplined....he sacrificed his natural tendencies for the good of the team and he had Morsy or Marry James alongside him. This season the only defensive minded player we had was Williams (although Gardner was better towards the end of the season) and he was a young lad whose youthful enthusiasm often got the better of him and he emptied the midfield, chasing the ball. You have to have a balance and that is not what we had last season. Heckingbottom's plan was to coach the discipline into players and it doesn't always work. Moncur a classic example....he has really focussed on the defensive side, has improved but isn't good enough at it...it has also taken something away from his natural game. I remember the Brentford game when we were 2 nil up and all we needed to do was hold our positions and make it difficult for them to break us down but Potts was still bombing forward and getting ahead of the strikers....we got away with it that day but we didn't on others. Away from home we just had no resilience....our defence was easy got at. Unless we recruit and improve the balance of the midfield it will be the same next season

 

One great of the game not mentioned here... Scott Brown