Anyone know the status of Lo Celso? It’s easy to forget he was our best midfielder by a decent margin last year. He’s someone else, along with Ndombele, that can carry the ball forward, and not just boot it long or pass sideways. If we could get him, Hojbjerg and Ndombele clicking at the same that’d be a midfield good enough to be among the leagues best.
It would be the league's best, not among them IMO. PeH is as good an enforcer as there is at the moment and I wouldn't trade N'Dombele at his age for any other central midfield prospect in the world.
Other then Jose just hating Dele I'm not sure why we haven't tried it. No one on our team is scoring besides Son and Kane. We have a proven EPL scorer who, while certainly not in the greatest form, has been riding the bench all year. If Jose wants to play the conservative/defensive 3 man midfield against top tier teams fine, I can accept that. Playing it against bottom table teams, or playing Sissoko out of position on the wing against bottom tier teams, is infuriating.
Dele is 24 and still doesn’t have a defined position/can’t play in a 4-3-3 which is an issue, but apparently his attitude and training (or lack thereof) are to blame for being frozen out more than anything. Tanguy has shown you can get out of whatever stupid grudge Jose has against you, but it’s not going to be easy. I mean, the Burnley game last year where he was subbed at halftime and eviscerated at full time seems far more damning than anything Dele has done, no? As much as a loan to PSG would benefit him, I don’t think we can risk it in this Covid season.
After hearing the Mourinho quote about position, I don’t disagree with him. A soccer player should be able to play multiple positions and systems. Dele’s three biggest issue are he lacks speed, doesn’t always track back, and doesn’t take care of the ball. You don’t need to be fast if you handle the other two, but you need to do both of those in this system. Look at Kane and Son. They are all over the field. I love Dele. He reminds me a lot of how my daughter used to play. The problem is when you don’t track back and protect the ball, you look lazy regardless of how creative you are with the ball. I think Ndombole has shown you can do both, but you have to want it.
I still want him out on loan. He is losing value daily. He needs playing time to shape up so we can either utilize him or sell him at a decent price.
Dele's fall off is the biggest but Sanchez is not far behind. It wasn't too long ago that I really believed we had him locked into the starting XI for the next decade.
Apparently, I've just learned this, the point is to get the ball BETWEEN the posts and under the crossbar. Simple mistake, missing left and right so many times.