ha ! You get an honourable free pass when you get sucked into the black hole that's Newcastle United though.

prejudice aside...why hasnt Ruud shook off the debacle at Newcastle....

plenty of other managers have become employable after a blip in their 'reputation'..hell we had Souness ....

so is he not interested or has the stint at St James scarred him for life...

Gullit has managed Feyenoord and LA Galaxy in the last few years.

As for defensive midfielders better than Mascherano, Michael Essien, Marcos Senna, Claude Makelele and Gattuso all spring to mind, albeit the last two are starting to decline now.

I have to laugh at the people touting Mascherano as a great passer of the ball. He's good at executing the simple five-yard ones, sideways along the ground on the halfway line, that almost any professional footballer could do. He couldn't thread a ball through a group of opponents to an attacker team-mate if his life depended on it.

While not the only one in that position, his fouls to bookings ratio appears unnatural or little short of bewildering (I am not generally a number cruncher style "pundit" but it does strike me as freakish to the naked eye).

He has perfected that vicious scissor kick from the side which deserves a booking every time but we are lucky if he's pulled up for a foul.

To me he's an adequate or modest passer of the ball over 10 yards. When receiving the ball or looking to play it when in forward positions he is mediocre I think.

He is however good at keeping the play simple and ticking over with short passes, which is not an easy skill in the mind (even if it is in deed), is disciplined positionally, reads the game well defensively in terms of appreciating physical and spatial threat and makes himself available to other players well: he is a good defensive midfielder, indeed.

Sometimes it depends what one wants from their deep lying midfield "anchor" or "destroyer". Personally I, like Sir Alex and Carlo, prefer the Carrick or Pirlo type. Generally people that can do something sublime in possession once they have put their foot in, or a Senna or Essien who are less sublime but can create openings by running through midfields, as can Hargreaves and Anderson at Man Utd.

There are more ways than one to skin a cat, let alone cook it once caught.

I am told by a respected, by me at least, Liverpool watcher that Benitez may be restraining JM's passing and general offensive repetoire and that he has more to offer in that way than he has shown so far at Liverpool. I didn't think he was particularly good going forward in the last world cup either and he faded a bit as the tournament went on.

Though he is only 23, so I am sure he will improve his all round game and maybe even get booked for that scissor kick now and again.

Why would you need him to go forward for Argentina when they had a midfield full of such players ?

QUOTE:
Sometimes it depends what one wants from their deep lying midfield "anchor" or "destroyer".

Some people on here want their anchor midfielder to score regularly with overhead kicks, if he can't then this is bona fide proof that he's no good.

Gattuso and Makelele now ? You're taking the piss. Essien is technically an inferior defensive midfielder as he cannot tackle anywhere near as well as Mascherano. He's much better coming forward though so it depends what you're looking for in that role. Senna is a coverer, his positioning is excellent and this covers for a relative lack of pace and strength.

As defensive midfielders go what do people think of Daniele de Rossi? Just curious.

ptiy we ain`t got barnes or rushie anymore though!!!!!!!!!!!!
voronin just ain`t in the same league!!!!!!

(ignore this)

toro wrote:

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(ignore this)

That's your best ever post, toro.

garcia wrote:

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is there an outstanding prospect at ipswich we've not heard about yet?

Cheap jibe there. Try looking at the midfields of sides who win things, to see players better than those at Liverpool.

QUOTE:
you'd have to call that an eloquent silence.

Very sorry, didn't realise I was at the beck and call of you and dalliance. I shall get a little bell installed on my PC to alert me when my presence is demanded.

When I said comparing Mascherano, I suppose I should really have said that I was comparing him against what a player in his role should be. We've seen a wonderful example over the last few weeks of what a destroyer can bring to a team, in the shape of Marcos Senna. There was a huge thread over on the Euro 2008 forum about him. Admittedly he's not quite as good as Makelele at his peak, but Senna's certainly shown how to inspire a team to something better than a quarter final.

Obviously, as others have pointed out, and everyone has seen with their eyes, Makelele's legs are starting to fail, him but Essien has proved an able deputy. And while Essien gets pushed to right back to accomodate Makelele, that's not a critisism of Essien.

Gattuso is probably also just ahead of Mascherano - certainly he's probably the best of the non-world class players in that position. His distribution is certainly better than Mascherano's.

Of course none of these players would approach a game at the league leaders to see just how many bookable offences they can rack up in the first half before the referee finally sends them off, as Mascherano did at Old Trafford. World class players can have moments of madness, but they never approach games like that.

BrunoMaggiore wrote:

QUOTE:
As defensive midfielders go what do people think of Daniele de Rossi? Just curious.

I think he's the sort of player who is just a whisker away from world class, but still has plenty of time to achieve it. There seems to be just a last tiny piece missing that I can't put my finger on. It's not his distribution, or his vision. Possibly timimg, possibly workrate, like I say, can't quite put my finger on it.

Of course, all this snark, bitchery, and (hilariously) objections to others' "cheap jibes" would be more convincing had you, for instance, looked at more than the title and first couple of posts on that "huge thread over on the Euro 2008 forum" about nationality, ethnicity, and qualification requirements for international football.

Muppet.

To descend to your level, and consdiering the billions of constructive comments you've added to this thread, can I just say ROFLCOPTER?

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"huge thread over on the Euro 2008 forum" about nationality, ethnicity, and qualification requirements for international football

Toro, are you yet able to back up or withdraw your claim that I was dishonest on said thread? Ta.

QUOTE:
I think he's the sort of player who is just a whisker away from world class, but still has plenty of time to achieve it. There seems to be just a last tiny piece missing that I can't put my finger on. It's not his distribution, or his vision. Possibly timimg, possibly workrate, like I say, can't quite put my finger on it.

What exactly is to be understood by "world class." I think by most normal metrics a player like De Rossi could get away with considering himself a "world class" footballer (regular starter for the Azzurri, World Cup winner, regular starter for a top club, among the best of his generation in his country), but we can always narrow the scope of the word down to kicking extreme assitude. As for putting your finger on what's holding him back, maybe a tendency to choke under pressure? But probably just maturity; I think he ought to grow into a very pivotal player.

Not if you mischaracterise my claim thus, Dunc, no. But let's not overspill into other threads, huh?

If I had to be critical, sometimes his distribution is not the best, but then he sees a lot of the ball as he always makes himself available for the pass from defence.

oddly enough, johnny giles likes his attitude, and his defensive ability, but criticises him for not demanding the ball off his defenders very much at all. he'll sweep up or intercept the ball all day, but doesn't drop back for the ball very much. Gilesy frequently illustrates this with clips of Mascherano leaving the centre half to boot the ball up the field and to lose possession.

What Giles wants him to do is to get on the ball more and dictate the tempo of the play and act as that link that a lot of people here say he already is to a world class degree. I suppose that the reason that he complains about this because this (apart from the eyegouging, and nut stamping) was what he used to do all the time.