You are severely under-rating Henderson in that role. He was pretty damn good, even if not a top defensive midfielder, in that role until injured. He's learning and improving .. unfortunately even as his body begins to break down more often. Yes Wijnaldum could play that position too, IMO. He's fast enough, intelligent enough, excellent in possession, a very very good passer and distributor and definitely a better tackler than Lucas ever was !
Well, unsurprisingly, I disagree. But you know what, I hope you and Rurik are right. I'm not gonna be sitting here hoping that we concede a bunch of goals just so I can say that I was right all along.
Oh you can bet that I am gonna complain if I see any fuck ups. But you'll probably blame it on Lucas somehow.
I know and I meant "you'll" as in "everyone" though I quoted your post.
Exactly a defensively competent midfielder. Yes, I would have been a whole lot calmer if we signed Dijk and Keita.
I know you can't or won't accept this, but Henderson is a defensively competent midfielder. Your criticisms of him are irrational. It ranges from 'captain sideways', an epithet suggesting he isn't adventurous enough (something that is true of most disciplined DMs like Matic and Kante), to him not being able to fill the role at the base of midfield. No doubt he would get criticised for his hollywood balls and losing possession if he did attempt a greater percentage of high risk passes. All stats suggest that before injury he led the PL stats for passing success (because he is captain sideways you'll say), but also for things like interceptions and ground covered (showing he was patrolling the area in front of the defence with plenty of energy). If he can stay fit, and I admit it is a big if, then he is extremely well suited to being our deepest midfielder.
It's also ridiculous to suggest we are going to change the whole attack / defence. None of the other Top 6 in Europe do so (bar Spurs throwing the towel in or maybe Top 6 teams playing minnows in Europe) why should we ?!
The so-called easier games were where we were dropping points all last season. Fact is this squad isn't good enough. We barely made it last season and our defence is arguably weaker now that moreno and robertson are our LBs and not milner.
You summed it up pretty well there. I've said it before Henderson is a runner, it doesnt surprise me that he covers a lot of the pitch and manages to win a few balls back. My problem is that he lacks defensive instincts. His anticipation is crap, his positioning average to say the least. But he works hard, can't take that away from him.
The few times I've seen Milner in midfield he's looked out of place. Did he even play in midfield during pre season?
He has played as a midfielder for his entire career before last season. I didn't watch the pre-season games too much, but let me ask you this in return: did he play at left back? I'm only operating on a hunch, but his experience in midfield (and last season as a defender), plus the absence of a DM indicates that he would be the natural choice. Henderson, Coutinho, Lallana, et al are all better going forward than they are defensively. Why would we stifle that attacking threat and move them deeper? Where will Milner play if our left-back situation is "resolved" (not suggesting that it is until we watch how Moreno/Robertson do for the first 10 matches.)? I don't think Milner is ready to sit on the bench for most of the season just yet.
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Did you just instruct me to patch it up with duct tape?
Fernandinho also never played DM until he got to Manchester City – I watched him every week for Shakhtar and he was more of an attacking playmaker and at times played as a straight-up AM. Then he came to England as a more mature player and the coaches gradually started moving him deeper. Wijnaldum is going through the same transition, as Klopp is moving him ever deeper into midfield and this pre-season is already experimenting with him as the deepest-lying midfielder. BTW Gini already did play as a DM for the National team, for instance at the World Cup against Costa Rica:
Same for Yaya Toure – he was not a DM when he came to Barcelona, he became one at Barca. Viera was never a DM, he was the definition of a box-to-box player while Petit and Ray Parlour were the defensive specialists in those great Arsenal teams.
Depending on who you ask, a DM might mean this kind of versatile multi-talented player who in the mature stage of their career moves deeper into midfield – Schweinsteiger or Arteta are classic examples – or it can mean a player with severely limited attacking skills who is more like a 5th centre-back playing in midfield: Nigel De Jong, Mascherano, Javi Martinez, Obi Mikel, Lucas etc. If your definition is the 2nd one, then actually not many teams nowadays employ such players with any regularity (see Fernando at Man City who plays only occasionally) and actually the current trend is to convert such players to CB. If your definition is the first one, then Can, Hendo and increasingly even Wijnaldum fit this definition just about as well as any of our rivals' midfielders.
BTW Keita would have not satisfied your desire for a "quality DM" , because he quite obviously belongs to the first (versatile and multi-talented) category.
