thebigbangtheo wrote:Whilst thoughts of acquiring the likes of a Maddison (ideal), Odegaard (feasible) or Isco (intrigue governed by the chaos theory) to be the lynch pin of our creative attacking play in the final third are somewhat exciting and positive, I still don't find myself being dismissive of Xhaka's ability to play the role also.
As I have stated once or twice before during the Swiss's tenure, he is deployed in a completely different role for his national team than he ever has been for us. That he possesses the ability to tread a perfectly weighted pass through the eye of a needle or disguise one enough to make the scarlet pimpernel jealous, should not be in any doubt.
On more than one occasion during Euro 2020, the commentator was in raptures regards some of his passing, especially diagonal balls over the top or putting someone in from around the side of the defence.
Regardless of this however, I am not advocating that we don't continue to acquire fresh new players for the squad and dispense with those accustomed to underachievement and their failure to perform at the required level.
Moreover, I'm inclined to think that if Roma can't afford to stump up the cash we want for him pronto so we can conduct our own transfer dealings, we simply tell them to go fish elsewhere and we just keep him as back-up to be deployed further forward without the same defensive responsibility safe in the knowledge that any issues of losing the ball are in proximity to the opposition goal rather than ours, plus effective defensive cover in midfield would now be behind him to compensate.
I stand by my previous musings, on the basis of Xhaka only being deployed in a more progressive manner further forward of the DM and DLP roles we are more accustomed to him playing and instead be utilised along the lines of how he is for Switzerland which seems to produce the better version of player.
The immediate by product of this unintended retention of his services would be scope to release both Elnenny and Kolasinac for nominal £1-2M fees or even less in the grand scheme of clearing the decks of mediocre players and sub par mentalities marinated in defeat, self doubt and dispair.
Keeping Xhaka as a second, hopefully third choice option in exchange for being able to now jettison Kolasinac and Elnenny would represent a 66% success rate of moving surplus players on, up from the current achievement of 0.00% and diminishing the horde of parasites we are infested with.