Losing Sterling and Diomande from midfield

Wavy Davy said:
Personally I’ve not seen enough of Diomande to think he is our saviour and a strapped up thumb keeping a player out is baffling, is he hiding?
Sima had a great start to season and was predominantly playing on the left but is out right to accommodate Silva who offers nowt. Can’t think of many games where shoe horning Silva onto the pitch has worked for us.
Sterling would make a massive difference to midfield as long as the back 4 stay where they are. At one point last night Lawerence and Lundstrum were sitting at the back while Tav and Souttar were away for a jog.
I think the midfield will look after itself if the defence actually defended.
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It's the other way round. A decent midfield makes it easy for a defence, a non-existent one makes it extremely difficult for any defender. You defend as a team, the midfield need to do their part and if they do it well a Rangers defender should have very little to actually do domestically.
 
rosbear said:
Ridvan worries me, he is injured a LOT. Barisic is only one of a very long list of players who have downed tools at the end of their contract. I am more concerned that we have paid a lot of money for his replacement to sit in the stand.
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Yes, he's undoubtedly improved in recent months, but his availability has been very poor indeed.
 
gordon_blue said:
It’s also missing Cortes as well. He was coming on to a game.

We need Yoilmaz back so Sterling can move forward.
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I think the Cortes injury was a big blow.plenty of encouraging signs in the hearts and Kilmarnock(ironically where he picked up his injury)games
 
EK1422 said:
The warning signs were there even with Diomande in midfield.

I don’t even think the issue with the midfield is the personnel, it’s a structural issue.

If you look at the positions of our entire team when we lose the ball it’s frightening. Only a couple of months ago this was our main strength and now it’s our biggest weakness.

Step one in improving has to be to control games a lot better. Deny teams prolonged possession of the ball even if it sacrifices creative output in the short term.
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This seems to have got a worse a lot to do with the inverted full backs and without ridvan it leaves middle wife open and defence all over the place

I don't think silva is helping as he is not defensive enough to help out either.

We are playing a system that if everyone is fit works as we have seen but when there are injuries it's 100 prevent the wrong system as we are all over the place, trying to put players into it to cover positions they are not used to has made it look worse.

Ultimately players need look at themselves but clement needs to be pragmatic and say OK this is what we have how do we make them work as a unit

We honestly should be going 3/5/2 our slight variation with who we have available right now.
 
skorn said:
Indeed -- it is as simple as that.

Very strange tbh.
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Keep seeing posters saying Barisic is awful - they're not wrong, he has checked out already, but the problem is Sterling is also terrible at left back! Might as well go with Barisic and let Sterling shine in the middle.
 
bluereason said:
With Sterling being taken from midfield to fill in at left back (which he doesn’t look comfortable) and Diomande out with the hand injury all our midfield rhythm and synergy has gone. It doesn’t explain the rest of the team’s lack of desire and effort but when both of them are in the midfield we look a much more dangerous proposition. How far away is Yilmaz?
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How the heck does a finger injury keep a professional fit player such as Diomande from playing football? It is laughable.

​

 
ideally we'd be looking at Sterling for industry next to Diomande for guile in the midfield
both quick, both determined, both young and hungry

instead we've had Lundstram - ageing, slow and appears to have no appetite for it
Dowell - perma-injured and whilst offering the odd glimpse of "something" doesn't do enough in any category
& lawrence who since injury has been a shadow of the promise we were shown in him

RTD-BEAR said:
We honestly should be going 3/5/2 our slight variation with who we have available right now.
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problem we've had is that Baloguns been injured/ill & Davies has been AWOL
 
Wolverhampton Town said:
Not one player in our squad is a dirty, nasty, aggressive piece of work. Diomande might be that guy but he started well and faded at the same time the team has.
With aggression comes desire to win and we need to find some of these going forward.
I woke up today hating that team of losers and seriously concerned about Clement.
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Diomande definitely isn't going to be that guy.
 
bluereason said:
With Sterling being taken from midfield to fill in at left back (which he doesn’t look comfortable) and Diomande out with the hand injury all our midfield rhythm and synergy has gone. It doesn’t explain the rest of the team’s lack of desire and effort but when both of them are in the midfield we look a much more dangerous proposition. How far away is Yilmaz?
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I simply cannot get my head around the concept that a footballer can miss games because of a bumbed thumb?

One of the Van der Kerkoffs twins (sp) was happy to play for Holland in the 78 WC final with an arm in a type of plaster due to a fracture, I'm sure.
 
Barry Slimfit said:
It’s a fcking shambles that folk are pinning their hopes on Sterling being the saviour of our midfield. He’s just an athletic right back really.

Answer this truthfully- would he get in Celtics midfield?

Not a chance. And that’s why we are second best. They have better players in every single position bar goalkeeper.
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Unfortunately this is true.
 
skorn said:
Absolutely -- as said before, what we did by shunting Sterling into the LB spot was to shore up a defence against feffing Dundee !!
Rather than play him in his best position and give THEM something to worry about.

It rather smacks of a fear that imo we really shouldn't have against a team like that.
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The thing is we keep saying his best position is midfield when he is a right back.

I do think he strengthens the midfield and would give us some athleticism and dig but he's not played a consistent number of games in there for me to be our saviour either.
 
wee bud's pit boots said:
I simply cannot get my head around the concept that a footballer can miss games because of a bumbed thumb?

One of the Van der Kerkoffs twins (sp) was happy to play for Holland in the 78 WC final with an arm in a type of plaster due to a fracture, I'm sure.
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a quick google check has various football bodies reminding members that players cannot play these days with a hard cast on
 
SPRINGBOIG LOYAL said:
The thing is we keep saying his best position is midfield when he is a right back.

I do think he strengthens the midfield and would give us some athleticism and dig but he's not played a consistent number of games in there for me to be our saviour either.
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he's not the long term solution to CM
he will be the answer to the RB role when Tav goes

but in the current squad, he offers a lot more in terms of physical ability and desire than most in there
 
Wolverhampton Town said:
Not one player in our squad is a dirty, nasty, aggressive piece of work. Diomande might be that guy but he started well and faded at the same time the team has.
With aggression comes desire to win and we need to find some of these going forward.
I woke up today hating that team of losers and seriously concerned about Clement.
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If we had somebody who gave out what we get, they'll be suspended every 4th game
 
Skyy Bluenose said:
I've noticed Sterling the midfielder has become a much better midfielder the more he plays at left-back.
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My thoughts exactly
Macdonsj said:
he's not the long term solution to CM
he will be the answer to the RB role when Tav goes

but in the current squad, he offers a lot more in terms of physical ability and desire than most in there
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Hopefully that's in the summer and he's in his natural position next season.

I agree from now until the end of the season he shouldn't be out of the midfield if fit.
 
Cooper's left peg said:
As mentioned in other posts - Borna.

I'm not Borna's biggest fan but the midfield needed Sterling more than they needed him at left back. Midfield sets the tone for things and Sterling should have been in there.
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He plays BB and gets crucified for that as well. BB has checked out going by recent performances.
I don't think the manager has many options for LB, it's Sterling or a youth player.
 
Slipshod said:
Our midfield don't play as a unit.
They seem to be miles from each other.
There seems to be no positional discipline.
Cantwell seems to be all over the shop.
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Correct. We are not a well drilled and coached side. I'm not buying that they are and then just doing something different when they take to the field.
Looks more like they don't know what they are doing or what they are supposed to be doing.
 
Cooper's left peg said:
Clement choosing not to put Sterling in midfield is another example of his bizarre management.

It's an absolute joke.
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Phil had us playing well. MF was making the difference. Why he decided to mess with that philosophy is baffling to me. Sterling MUST be in MF unless you skate him at RB and push Tav forward with both covering for each other, overlapping. Barasic might have given up the ghost but if rather a LB playing LB with a stronger MF than she horning players into positions they should not be in
 
BB155 said:
Phil had us playing well. MF was making the difference. Why he decided to mess with that philosophy is baffling to me. Sterling MUST be in MF unless you skate him at RB and push Tav forward with both covering for each other, overlapping. Barasic might have given up the ghost but if rather a LB playing LB with a stronger MF than she horning players into positions they should not be in
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Spot on mate.
 
Game last night was crying out for Sterling to be played in midfield. We lacked any sort of steel in the middle and could’ve done with a left sided balance to the team in either Davies or Barisic at left back. Surprised Clement didn’t make any alterations at HT to combat the midfield issues we had.
 
Wavy Davy said:
Personally I’ve not seen enough of Diomande to think he is our saviour and a strapped up thumb keeping a player out is baffling, is he hiding?
Sima had a great start to season and was predominantly playing on the left but is out right to accommodate Silva who offers nowt. Can’t think of many games where shoe horning Silva onto the pitch has worked for us.
Sterling would make a massive difference to midfield as long as the back 4 stay where they are. At one point last night Lawerence and Lundstrum were sitting at the back while Tav and Souttar were away for a jog.
I think the midfield will look after itself if the defence actually defended.
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“Strapped up thumb”.

Looking for villains are we?
 
Wavy Davy said:
Just couldn’t picture a Richard Gough or Terry Butcher sitting on the sidelines when the team need them the most.
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What about if they haven’t been medically cleared to return to play football?

I think some people have been watching too much Escape to Victory.
 
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