Quote Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn View Post
I don't buy any of those stats as they don't adequately reflect the poxy backward/ sideways game we play. I'd have one of Ox's passes over 10 of Coquelin's. Ox knows what direction the opposition goal is in whereas Coquelin is very confused. Bellerin and Mustafi might be the top guys but almost all their stuff is aimless tipping and tapping, slowing the play down, neutering the runs of players like Iwobi and even Theo when he can be bothered. Ozil and Alexis' pass rate may be lower but they are doing it in the danger zone whereas Coquelin often has time to pick a pass and will almost always choose the safest (and generally pointless) option. No doubt Coquelin has been told to play this way, to keep it conservative. But it breaks the back of our momentum. In one incident today Coquelin received the ball near the centre and Iwobi set off up the pitch. It was an easy pass buy Coquelin wasn't looking anywhere except backwards and had no interest in looking anywhere but backwards. And back went the ball, instinctively. I said at the time, sub him and sell him, tongue in cheek but it was still a classic demonstration of what has changed in the fundamentals of our game. We are just so negative now. Tip, tap.
I wish you'd scrutinise Ozil's game to this sort of level. Coquelin isn't the greatest passer but he completed more passes than Ozil and it would probably shock you to hear that he created as many chances as Ozil today but actually played the ball forward more than backwards whilst Ozil played it backwards more than he played it forwards. Ozil only completed 1 long pass and everything else was short.

Zero dribble attempts, zero attempts to tackle. Saw the match live at the stadium and he was just as bad as the stats suggest. We only has one central midfielder today at the races. Ox.