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Ball Harvey Kendall are back!
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What a pleasure it was to watch a proper midfield yesterday.
A half-fit Arteta had a great game. One early miss-placed pass and from them on he ran the midfield. Always in the right place, always linking up with Pienaar and Osman, always probing.
Ozzie was at last free to play his proper game and as in the second half against Chelsea he was excellent throughout.
Pienaar, although not at his tantalising best was still excellent. The balance was there yesterday and with the engine room ticking (against a good team) we had Donovan causing problems on one flank and Bily giving us balance on the other.
All the talk of us missing Fellaini proved to be so wide of the mark. In fact, I think Pienaar, Arteta and Rodwell could become the new Ball, Harvey and Kendall (with Ozzie being the ideal cover).
If Moyes keeps the balance right and we keep clear of injuries to the key players, who knows for the rest of the season!
Ged Dwyer, Posted 21/02/2010 at 08:58:39
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However, K, B, & H?
No.
Or to put it another way, certainly not.
Take Osman, for instance, his performance yesterday and against Chelsea were excellent because he was allowed to play, as were Arteta and Pienaar, who, when we played the ball on the ground, looked as good as any midfield in the Prem.
And I think that that is what we should be doing, playing on the ground and not sitting too deep which is when we resort to hoofing long balls. I know Heitinga hit a long ball which led to the first goal and there is an occasional need for a long ball but we look at our best when we keep the ball on the deck.
Arteta did not have a "great" game and it will probably be next season before he is back to his best.
There are four teams well ahead of us in race for fourth place which makes it extremely unlikely, if not impossible, for us to bridge that gap.
Let’s just wait and see how things develop.
The plaudits for our midfeild performance, for me. firmly go to Donovan and Osman who ran the show for the Blues.
Gerry, I understand your sentiment but it’s not just one game.
We played City off the Park, were unlucky not to win at Highbury, beat Chelsea and now Man U. It is only the Devil’s children that we did not get a result against.
Kendall, Ball and Harvey were putting in those sort of performances every week for 4 or 5 years. I think we have got the makings of an excellent midfield but they will have to go along way to even be mentioned in the same breath as the "Holy Trinity".
The great thing at the moment is that we are reminded of great times in the 60s and 80s because we have a very good footballing midfield, and good players, with some back-up, in every position (LB back-up?).
And something that comes along with that is pride. We were immensely proud of the great teams, not just for winning, but the manner in which it was done. And that’s what this bunch of players have got now. Standards.
Which is why my mind goes back 40 years. I sincerely hope we have much more of this to come.
The way Arteta has carried on where he left off after such a long lay-off is nothing short of fantastic and he is very similar to Colin Harvey.
While Pienaar may never reach the heights of Alan Ball, he could go close if he was allowed to play in his correct position all the time... and potentially Rodwell could become a very consistent cultured ball winner and passer of a ball, not to mention goalscorer. The only problem is keeping them at the club.
I was lucky enough to be an old teenager/young man during the time the Holy Trinity played together and they were mesmerising, not just to spectators but to the opposition too!
Week after week they would rip open defences with deft one-touch football and they all knew where each other was (seemingly) without looking, it was amazing to watch.
While we have a tendency to talk about the Holy Trinity we have to remember that it was actually a 5 man midfield with usually Husband and Morrisey playing out wide. Those two were great players too and we did in fact play the oft-maligned 4-5-1 system then as we do so often now but it could change to a 4-3-3 at the drop of a hat...especially when Alan Whittle played.
Accuse me of bias if you like but this really was the best midfield I have ever seen, club or international, and I feel honoured and thankful that I was there to experience it.
I don’t think the lads today are quite that good..... yet!
I would compare him more to John Hurst. John had a similar athletic build to Rodwell and had come to Everton as a lad as a centre-forward. From there he was coached steadily to the rear, through ’half-back’ to what we would now call a central defender.
Because of this he could make a contribution all over the pitch. His defending was excellent as a ’centre-back’ and his distribution was top-notch. He could carry the ball upfield with confidence and scored quite a few goals. On the way to the title in ’69 he scored a goal (the winner) at Turf Moor which was not unlike Rodwell’s goal on Saturday.
John Hurst was a very underrated player both in terms of his skill and his contribution to that side of the late sixties.
Team’s can’t win with sentiment.
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1 Posted 21/02/2010 at 15:36:44
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What will determine our final placement this term will be how we perform against those sides desperate to survive and who resort to a more physical approach particularly in the midfield area. If our performance against the other lot without Fellaini is anything to go by we may well have quite a few more hurdles to overcome. The next challenge will be away to Spurs on the back of a midweek European trip. Players like Ball, Harvey and Kendall would rise to such challenges let’s hope the current crop are up to it. I’m afraid I still need some convincing.