The Role Of The Midfielders
The midfielders are going to be crucial to our success or failure, and at the time of writing we have a number of them. We may yet lose a couple before the window closes, but at this moment in time they give us an array of tactical options which are not available to any other club.
I am going to focus on the central midfielders for the moment, and the way they fit into the system overall. They can fulfil any number of roles.
Scott Brown can play as a defensive midfielder or as a playmaker.
In the first system he stays back and patrols the area in front of the defence.
In the other role he moves a little further forward and sets up the attacks. Some think he lacks the legs for either role now … actually, I think as a playmaker he will be more good to us as all the essentially has to do is pass the ball rather than chase it as he used to do. The difficulty is, he’s the best we have in that position.
Callum McGregor can play in both of those roles, and he can also play further up the pitch, as an attacking player.
Right now he spends a lot of his time covering for Brown … that limits his effectiveness in our team, I think. Callum is one of the players the media seems to think could leave in this window, but I actually doubt that he will.
Soro could step in and do the Brown role if he was given a chance; it’s what he was signed for I’d presume, but we haven’t seen a single thing from him yet to give us an idea of that.
Is that the fault of the manager, for going with his favourites, or just an acknowledgement that Soro, for all his obvious talent, isn’t quite ready for the first team yet?
A bit of both I think, right now. We will see him.
Ntcham is the wild card.
There are suggestions in his game that he’s as versatile as McGregor, capable of playing three different midfield roles, as a defensive player, a playmaker and as an attacking footballer supporting the strikers. But I couldn’t actually tell you where he excels.
I think he’s probably a playmaker, but he can be lazy and lax and that’s the last thing you want those players to be.
But he is a formidable weapon because you can put him in those different roles.
Which brings us to Ryan Christie, who I’ve watched played behind the strikers, out wide right, out wide left, in a central midfield role and even up front under Lennon’s bonkers no forwards system. Which hopefully we’ll never see rear its ugly head again.
The last midfielder is David Turnbull. He’s a playmaker but is also capable of getting forward and scoring goals; indeed, it was the reason we went for him.
He can play, for sure, and I like his range of passing and his coolness on the ball.
It’s the decision about which combination of these guys to play – and in what roles – that will be probably the most important that Lennon makes. Some say our midfield still looks lightweight; actually we do have two players who aren’t mentioned above who could add some steel to it … Nir Bitton and Kris Ajer. But that overcomplicates things a bit.
It’ll be a combination of the guys I’ve written about … they will decide our season.