Scott McTominay

[Deleted]

May 6, 2019 14:26:00 GMT Kamilo said:

Not taking anything away from young Scott but I think Victor has been the only player who hasn’t been shockingly bad at some point this year. Thats our new level.

What game was McT shockingly bad in?

[Kamilo]

May 6, 2019 15:08:05 GMT @jimmyjojojunior said:

May 6, 2019 14:26:00 GMT Kamilo said:

Not taking anything away from young Scott but I think Victor has been the only player who hasn’t been shockingly bad at some point this year. Thats our new level.

What game was McT shockingly bad in?

He wasn’t but he wasn’t a regular feature all year long. Wasn’t used for quite some time when Ole first came in.

[Deleted]

May 6, 2019 15:41:03 GMT Kamilo said:

May 6, 2019 15:08:05 GMT @jimmyjojojunior said:

What game was McT shockingly bad in?

He wasn’t but he wasn’t a regular feature all year long. Wasn’t used for quite some time when Ole first came in.

That's the point though, he's played in 21 games this season, 15 in the league (far fewer than most) and still he's been a better and more committed player than 3/4 of them. Was also slated and written off at the start of the season as not good enough.

The lad has proved he's more than good enough, along with Lindelof he's the first name on the team sheet for me right now. One of few players that have earned their place.

Feel sorry for the guy, grows up following the club, working hard and fighting hard to get a place in the first team and ends up being involved the worst one we've had. The only one yesterday that can hold their head up high.

[Kamilo]

May 6, 2019 23:03:25 GMT Paul said:

May 6, 2019 15:41:03 GMT Kamilo said:

He wasn’t but he wasn’t a regular feature all year long. Wasn’t used for quite some time when Ole first came in.

That's the point though, he's played in 21 games this season, 15 in the league (far fewer than most) and still he's been a better and more committed player than 3/4 of them. Was also slated and written off at the start of the season as not good enough.

The lad has proved he's more than good enough, along with Lindelof he's the first name on the team sheet for me right now. One of few players that have earned their place.

Feel sorry for the guy, grows up following the club, working hard and fighting hard to get a place in the first team and ends up being involved the worst one we've had. The only one yesterday that can hold their head up high.

I completely agree with you, Victor is my player of the year still however. Scott has been an example of what it should mean. I think Garner just said that in an interview, that the youngsters just outside the first team look up to Scott.

[Stew]

Made the cover of PES!

[Bestie]

Jul 30, 2019 10:22:20 GMT Stew said:

Made the cover of PES!

Tattyed.

[Stew]

Jul 30, 2019 10:23:10 GMT Bestie said:

Jul 30, 2019 10:22:20 GMT Stew said:

Made the cover of PES!

Tattyed.

Not in his actual thread!

[scrowford]

Not a bad match by McTominay

[Rustin Cohle]

Will Scott be Jose’s greatest legacy at the club? Not many seemed to rate him, even people who knew the academy well, but he’s doing better each week and proving doubters (including, to an extent, myself) wrong. A large part of that will be because of the faith Jose showed in him when he brought him in.

[Stew]

Interestingly Klopp was singing his praises in an interview about Scottish football the other day, said he’d huge potential.

[caino]

can we have this posted in as im not a subscriber ?

[GeniusCantona]

Oct 31, 2019 14:59:23 GMT Rustin Cohle said:

theathletic.co.uk/1323549/2019/10/25/michael-cox-midfield-pivots-of-the-big-six-are-epitomising-their-clubs/

Michael Cox: Midfield ‘pivots’ of the big six are epitomising their clubs

SPOILER: Click to show

In England, we’ve never quite nailed an appropriate name for the role.
“Holding midfielder” sounds distinctly unglamorous. It’s a verb that suggests importance in football terms: holding your position, holding the side together, but it nevertheless has connotations of doing the donkey work for others.
“The anchorman” doesn’t work much better. While an anchor plays an important role, it’s difficult to think of a more functional object.
Even the relatively recent expression, “The Makelele role”, doesn’t quite work. That position at Chelsea was well-established but the role came to symbolise a limited, defensive-minded ball-winner, whereas Makelele was a talented technician who had played further forward in his formative days, and insists his interpretation of the role was revolutionary because of his contributions in possession.
In Spain, they’ve got it right. That player is the “pivot”, the axis upon which everyone rotates, the reference point for the rest of the team. It concisely summarises the fundamental importance of the player who is — on the pre-match team graphics, at least — usually at the centre of the side. Five players behind him, five players ahead of him.
And, sure enough, if you want to summarise the Premier League’s “big six” at present, the best microcosm is by assessing the identity of the player in that role — in terms of both their quality and their style. If you want to know how a team plays, look at their pivot.
Scott McTominay, Manchester United
Let’s be honest — Manchester United are miles away from where a club of their stature should be and Scott McTominay isn’t close to being a world-class central midfielder. He has, slightly unfairly, come to symbolise the club’s malaise.
The thing is, even in United’s glory days, there was a place for someone like McTominay. During Sir Alex Ferguson heyday, United had their share of superstars but more than their title rivals, they also boasted a dependable group of solid, reliable players to fall back upon — highly versatile, technically decent but mentally excellent, generally products from the academy. Find any great Manchester United performance under Ferguson and you’ll often witness a Darren Fletcher, a Wes Brown, a Phil Neville or a John O’Shea playing an important role by nullifying an opponent or covering for a team-mate’s forward runs.
McTominay is in that mould. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has, inevitably, compared him to Fletcher, which broadly makes sense in a positional sense and in terms of national team representation. If McTominay played the squad role Fletcher did at the same age, no-one would bat an eyelid. The issue, of course, is the failure of recruitment that has meant he has become a part of United’s spine. Only David de Gea, Harry Maguire, McTominay and Marcus Rashford have started all nine games for United so far this season. He’s part of their core when he should be a sporadic substitute.
McTominay is not a bad footballer. He doesn’t excel at anything in particular and has a curious positional history — having started up front in his youth-team days, he was sometimes used in defence by Jose Mourinho last season, and in midfield is most noticeable for his physical stature and his occasional driving runs. That can prove useful — his storming run into the box won a penalty against Crystal Palace, his surge down the right got Southampton’s Kevin Danso sent off, and against Liverpool last weekend, he drove forward into a good position and shot from the edge of the box.
In possession, McTominay is limited. His forward passing often goes awry, although he’s perfectly competent when United’s game plan, as against Liverpool, involves spreading play out to the wing-backs with simple sideways balls, and he was an important part of their impressive first-half display. If other parts of the jigsaw were in place — if Paul Pogba had established himself as the head of a midfield trio and there was a reliable deep-lying passer in front of the defence — then McTominay could play a perfectly useful role as the Ander Herrera figure, providing the energy and covering for Pogba’s bursts.
Instead, McTominay is being asked to play a more central role that doesn’t quite suit him. He is what United are — an attempted throwback to the glory days that doesn’t quite work.
Granit Xhaka, Arsenal
Arsenal, under Unai Emery, are not a dreadful side. They finished fifth last season and reached the Europa League final, and the bookmakers still consider them likely to finish fourth this season, which would be considered a successful season for Emery.
The question, really, is what are Arsenal? They are certainly not the entertaining, attack-minded side that Arsene Wenger cultivated, but nor have they been transformed into a defensively disciplined, tactically intelligent team capable of frustrating opponents with a clever game plan. Emery spoke about the importance of pressing in his early days at the club but that seems to have dropped off significantly, and there’s still question marks about his default system, about how he uses Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette together in big games, and let’s not even go into the Mesut Ozil situation. We don’t quite know what Arsenal are meant to be.
The same can be said of Xhaka. He’s not incisive enough with his distribution to be considered a deep playmaker and his tackling is so reckless that he can’t be considered a reliable ball-winner either. It’s unclear whether Xhaka favours playing as the deepest midfield, protecting the defence, or whether he prefers more license to push forward. “Can anyone tell me what is Xhaka’s best quality?,” asked former Arsenal midfielder Emmanuel Petit earlier this week. “I don’t know why he has been made captain. The leadership is absent.”
Leadership is a separate issue. Xhaka was made Borussia Monchengladbach’s skipper at just 22, captains Switzerland, and was elected into this role by his Arsenal team-mates. It may well be that Xhaka is the most appropriate man for that job. But aside from a good spell towards the end of his first campaign with Arsenal — 2016-17 — Xhaka’s performances have been disappointing and his primary role unclear.
While advanced passing metrics suggest Xhaka’s distribution does help Arsenal build passing moves, he is defined more by his errors. His penalty concession against Tottenham earlier this season was ludicrous — his challenge was so unnecessary, and so late, that it’s impressive the officials were able to spot it. He also has a remarkable habit of playing square passes straight to opponents under little pressure deep in midfield, which is particularly problematic as he then finds himself ahead of the ball, and unable to atone for his error.
The wider question is why Emery doesn’t feel comfortable using Lucas Torreira in the deep midfield role. That was previously considered the Uruguayan’s natural position, and while he’s largely performed well since joining Arsenal last summer, he’s generally been asked to push forward, to the right of the midfield, rather than building play from deep. Perhaps Emery believes he lacks the physical qualities to play in midfield but that shouldn’t be a barrier to using him there — as other Premier League sides have demonstrated.
Jorginho, Chelsea
During his first season at Chelsea, Jorginho had three problems.
The first was that he was considered the teacher’s pet. Brought in to replicate the patient passing style that epitomised Maurizio Sarri’s Napoli side, he was the on-field symbol of a regime that simply wasn’t popular with Chelsea fans.
The second was that Jorginho wasn’t N’Golo Kante. While the Frenchman has barely played as the sole holding midfielder during his Premier League days — aside from a brief period at the start of Antonio Conte’s spell in charge, before he switched from 4-3-3 to 3-4-3 — there was nevertheless a peculiar backlash against the idea that Kante could be used as a box-to-box midfielder, rather than in front of the defence. Jorginho, who was playing that role, found himself under extra scrutiny.
The third problem was that Chelsea’s strikers kept missing chances. There were two notable statistics from his debut Chelsea campaign: the first that he then broke the record for the most passes in a Premier League game (180 against West Ham), the second that he didn’t collect a single assist. But Jorginho played plenty of delicate, floated balls over the top of the opposition defence for attackers breaking through on goal — they just couldn’t provide the finish, and therefore he didn’t manage an assist.
That’s the problem with the assist metric: it depends upon the chance being converted. Using the expected assists (xA) measure, Jorginho should have ended with around five assists last season, a healthy tally for a player in his role.
The good news is that Jorginho has recorded an assist this season, for Tammy Abraham’s hat-trick goal in the 5-1 thrashing of Wolves. That was a fairly simple ball, but on other occasions — for a chance Pedro Rodriguez wasted at home to Brighton, and a lovely dink over the top for Marcos Alonso against Newcastle last weekend — Jorginho has shown his ability to play the decisive pass. He’s more than a simple sideways passer.
It’s intriguing that Lampard has continued with Jorginho in that deep midfield role, with Kante — when fit — deployed further forward. There’s been less fuss than last season, and Kante has popped up with a couple of important goals. Jorginho certainly doesn’t boast Kante’s ball-winning ability but he has shown defensive qualities in the way he’s pushed up to press, as well as a superb last-ditch block in the win over Southampton.
What Jorginho has lacked, though, is standout performance in a big match. He was peripheral in the 4-0 defeat to Manchester United on the opening weekend and, in the 2-1 defeat to Liverpool, he was outwitted by Fabinho. Jorginho’s style is all about control but it’s not enough to control matches against the ‘other 14’ sides in the top flight.
Harry Winks, Tottenham
Harry Winks is perhaps the exception to the rule. In a Tottenham side supposedly based around aggressive pressing in advanced positions, immediate ball recovery and relentless waves of attack, Winks sits deeper and provides some calm, assured passing from between the lines.
At least, that’s the theory. In reality, Tottenham have looked tactically confused this season — they’re no longer pressing anything like as relentlessly as during their peak years under Mauricio Pochettino, and that was probably the case during last season’s run to the European Cup final too. In possession, Spurs have been deeply unconvincing, with Christian Eriksen in and out of the side and Dele Alli failing to demonstrate the form of his first couple of seasons.
Winks is still there, still playing his usual role. Winks has developed into more of an all-rounder over the past year or so — his run into the box to head home a late winner against Fulham was the thing you expect of a No 8 rather than a No 6, and he showed some good trickery against Arsenal earlier in the campaign in the build-up to Son Heung-min winning a penalty. But he’s still fundamentally a safe passer, and has the highest pass completion rate of the six players depicted here.
The problem is what happens out wide. Winks spreads the play nicely between the flanks — he was good at feeding Serge Aurier during the 4-0 destruction of Crystal Palace. But Aurier is notoriously inconsistent, and Spurs’ full-back options on either side — once you consider the decline of Danny Rose — are their weakest since Pochettino joined Spurs in 2014.
Winks is the classic type of player whose quality is most obvious when he’s absent. Tottenham badly missed him in a 1-1 home draw with Arsenal last season, when they lacked control in the centre of midfield, and he was impressive when coming on with Spurs 1-0 down away at Manchester City in the league after his side had struggled beforehand. In the Champions League final, too, he was the midfielder offering most control, and helped Spurs enjoy sustained periods of possession.
Winks could offer more, though. In 98 appearances and more than 5,000 minutes for Tottenham in the Premier League and European competition, he’s managed just one assist from open play. Yes, it’s not Winks’ primary responsibility to be directly creating chances, but others with his composure offer more incision. The nature of that assist, incidentally, is telling — it was a simple square pass out to Aurier in a home game against Brighton two years ago, and Aurier’s cross floated over everyone and drifted straight in.
Winks is good in a positional sense but not as prolific a ball-winner as other defensive midfielders at top clubs. That’s become more obvious in a side that isn’t pressing intensely, and there was a curious incident late in last weekend’s home draw with Watford where the ball dropped between Winks and Alli on the edge of Spurs’ box, neither seemed particularly interested in taking control of the situation, and Abdoulaye Doucoure stole in and shot wide. Tottenham’s supporters were fuming at the lack of urgency from their side, and Winks — a little unfortunately — may come to be regarded as a symbol of that lack of fight.
Rodri, Manchester City
There was an incident in last weekend’s 2-0 victory over Crystal Palace that demonstrated why Pep Guardiola brought Rodri to Manchester City. When a ball bounced loose on the edge of the City box, many players would have smashed it clear. Rodri, though, made a point of playing the ball calmly and precisely into David Silva, who then launched a counter-attack that ended with him volleying home from Raheem Sterling’s fine chip over the top.
Being in the right place at the right time to make a defensive interception while simultaneously thinking about how to build an attacking move makes Rodri a perfect holding midfielder for City.
The caveat here, of course, is that Rodri wasn’t actually playing as a holding midfielder on Saturday. Guardiola went full Guardiola and deployed both Rodri and Fernandinho as his centre-back pairing, instead using Ilkay Gundogan as his deepest midfielder. That’s a viable option in games like that, when City will dominate possession — and with the injury problems in defence, it is certainly useful. And if Rodri has the natural defensive qualities to play at the back, his defensive contribution from midfield is unlikely to be an issue.
And while height isn’t a prerequisite for playing in defence for a Guardiola side — look at Fernandinho — Rodri’s physical stature is noticeable. A tall player certainly comes in handy for a City side who have, as Guardiola has acknowledged, often looked vulnerable when defending set-pieces, particularly at the near post. On the opening day, against West Ham, Rodri won an aerial battle within the first minute.
Rodri is also adept defensively on the ground. His experience playing under Diego Simeone — a rare manager of a top side who actively likes his players making lots of tackles — means he has developed a tenacious, snarling edge. He made more tackles than any other player in La Liga last season. He idolised Sergio Busquets, who he’s often compared to, but his former Villarreal team-mate Bruno Soriano, a little bulkier, is a better template.
Known as an obsessive in terms of tactics, and adept at taking on board coaching instructions, Rodri is unflappable in possession, measured with his distribution with both feet — generally firm, side-footed passes that encourage his team-mates to receive the ball on the half-turn and ease into attack. He’s yet to create a goal but his ‘expected assist’ tally of 0.75 suggests it’s probably not far off. He also broke forward to the edge of the box to score a late consolation in the shock defeat to Norwich, and essentially seems like a player capable of playing pretty much anywhere — he’s even an option as a late Plan B, as City tend to cross the ball more when struggling to break down opponents late on.
Rodri is only nine matches into his Premier League career and will need to prove himself over the course of a whole campaign before he can be considered the league’s best in his role. It’s not unusual for La Liga imports to find the Christmas period testing and struggle physically in the second half of their debut campaign in England. So far, however, he seems the perfect fit for Guardiola’s City.
Fabinho, Liverpool
What a difference a year makes. For the first eight Premier League games of last season, Fabinho didn’t play a single minute. Questions were asked about his future — was he struggling to adapt? Was Jurgen Klopp not impressed by him in training? But then, the Brazilian was eased into action with a 20-minute cameo against Huddersfield, and made his first start the next week against Cardiff. Since then, he’s been almost undroppable — the only Liverpool midfielder you can say that about — and has come to summarise Liverpool’s approach perfectly.
While exclusively fielded in the defensive midfield role under Klopp, Fabinho is more than a mere holding player. He was often fielded in a box-to-box role — or even as a right-back — at Monaco, and offers the mobility to push up, press high and win the ball quickly.
Fabinho has also demonstrated his vision in possession — Salah’s goal against Arsenal, when he rolled David Luiz and finished calmly, came from an excellent Fabinho pass into the right channel. While generally an assured, safe passer, Fabinho offers the occasional penetrative pass into the forwards, and often good diagonal balls for the wide players.
But it’s Fabinho’s ball-winning quality which makes him particularly perfect for a Klopp side. Liverpool’s manager wants something specific from his defensive midfielder — he wants him to be a ball-winner, but someone capable of doing so energetically, backing up the press of more advanced players, rather than just sitting in front of the defence and waiting for attacks to form. Fabinho does that excellently, which has proved useful this season. Take the opening-day victory over Norwich when he sprinted forward to win the ball quickly in the lead-up to a Mohamed Salah curler wide.
Such is the emphasis on proactive ball-winning, against Chelsea he pushed up high to shut down Jorginho, flipping Liverpool’s midfield triangle, and leaving the defence a little exposed. But this was clearly part of Klopp’s game plan, and Fabinho dominated his opposite number, imposed himself on the game, put his side in charge, and also burst forward to help win the free-kick that resulted in Liverpool’s opener. It’s the most dominant performance by a defensive midfielder in a big Premier League game this season.
Like Rodri, Fabinho has deputised in defence when injuries to regular centre-backs has meant he’s been required in a deeper role, and his height is useful when the ball is wide as he often drops back to wins headers inside his own box.
Furthermore, Fabinho is one of only two players in the Liverpool squad — the other being James Milner — who knows what it takes to win a major European league title. His success with Monaco back in 2016-17, when they beat PSG to the title, is comparable with what Liverpool are trying to do — a tactically exciting, energetic young side trying to overhaul a dominant team packed with higher-profile superstars. If Liverpool are to repeat that feat, Fabinho will play a big role.

Well those are some backhanded compliments for McT. Maybe our standards have fallen but when I see McT, I see a player with great potential. Jose saw this too and I would trust his eye and assessment of talent over this writer.

[Rustin Cohle]

Oct 31, 2019 15:03:17 GMT caino said:

can we have this posted in as im not a subscriber ?

It is posted, click the spoiler tag.

[ScholesEvilTwin]

Just give him the Captaincy

[caino]

Oct 31, 2019 17:10:46 GMT Rustin Cohle said:

Oct 31, 2019 15:03:17 GMT caino said:

can we have this posted in as im not a subscriber ?

It is posted, click the spoiler tag.

cheers!

think that's an unfair assessment of McTomminay. hes 22!

Xhaka - 27
Winks - 23
Rodri - 23
Fabinho - 26

im shocked Rodri is only 23 tbh. he plays with a much more mature head.

but id rather have Scott thank Winks or Xhaka.

his passing is getting better and hes becoming physically stronger. hes maturing very well