What is the point of "The Ox"?

[I am invisible]

I think Atletico Madrid sometimes play a 4-4-2 sometimes and they are top of La Liga. Juve made it to the final with a two striker system. I agree with IBK on this one. Football moves in cycles. Maybe 10 years ago the game demanded a holding player but now we're seeing more box to box players coming back with nobody just holding like the old Makelele types. I think it's just as dangerous to assume football is going to go a certain way. But I don't think the players think that deeply about it. They just need to be the best they can possibly be and they'll find a spot. I don't think a player like Gerrard is redundant. If the game required him to be more disciplined I don't think he'd have a problem adapting...

I think box-to-box abilities and attributes are coming back, but not necessarily box-to-box midfielders, if that makes sense? First and foremost, I still think we're looking at these guys being holding midfielders - positionally disciplined players who keep the team's shape, and can control the ebb and flow of the game - we're just looking at a new breed of holding midfielder, who can also suddenly surge forward with the ball once they've won it (and if it's safe). It may very well just be a question of discipline, like you say, but that, for me, is a small but significant difference. It means that there's a primary job to do first, and that we're not just giving them a free role to charge about all over the pitch, with everyone else as their supporting act.

...Systems change but players adapt. Would players like Henry, Zidane be redundant in the game today even though they played in totally different systems? Even old fashioned strikers like Wright, Shearer and Batistuta would find a way to play in the modern game today. Take Giroud as an example. He has the style of an old player but he makes it work.

Yeah, I agree - that's pretty much what I was trying to say. I see no reason why any type of player can't find a way to apply their talents to a new system and a new role, provided that it's not radically different - it just feels like some of them fight any kind of change a little more than others, and it usually seems to be the British lads? I've never heard a word out of Arteta or Cazorla, for example, about being pushed into a deeper, more defensively disciplined midfield role - they just quietly got on with it - but when you ask Walcott or Ramsey to play on the right, they'll do it, but they won't be able to resist mentioning that they're really a central player, and they'd rather be playing there. It just makes me feel like they're not really committing to the new they've been given?