Quote Originally Posted by mandela8 View Post
Vieira may be that CM. I'm naw sure anyone quite knows what his role will be.

The biggest issue with the squad is that it lacks creativity and goals. From the little we know it looks like he helps with this.

Partey can take the ball from deep and move forward too.
Lokonga should be more involved too. I'd quite like Telemiens too but I don't think it's as important as you seem to, Serf.
I’m starting to come round to the idea [of Vieira as the second 8]. In some games, at least - if we play both him and Ødegaard all the time then we’re back to the same problem of having no cover for either. But I could see if working in the right circumstances.

I think a lot will depend on what we do at LB. Generally speaking you always want to attack with at least 5 players - one for each ‘lane’ - and up until now one of our 5 has always been an overlapping LB. We’ve either had a double-pivot with 4 up top or we’ve had Xhaka as the left-8, who’s more likely to drop to support Partey so we’ve needed an extra man from somewhere else. If we go for someone like Martinez at LB though, I’m wondering if we’ll see more of straight spilt? The front 5 stay forward and the back 5 stay back, with Martinez and/or Tomi (or even White) stepping forward to bracket Partey when we attack. All of those defenders are well capable of distributing from deep.