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No. 10 Playmaker - or is he?


RoystonFoote'snephew

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When football is discussed in the modern era we often hear about players operating in the number 10 role. By this is meant the principal Playmaker of the team. But how many of today's principal Playmakers actually wear the No. 10 shirt? 

The answer is frequently in Europe. For a midfielder in Serie A, La Liga, Ligue 1 etc the No. 10 shirt is the most coveted, but this rarely transfers to England. If we look at the Premier League 'elite' clubs the No. 10 shirt is currently occupied by Mane (Liverpool), Aguero (Man City), Rashford (Man Utd), Pulisic (Chelsea), Kane (Spurs) and Ozil (Arsenal). Of these only Pulisic and Ozil fall into the Playmaker bracket and given their current game time to be called the Principal Playmaker might be stretching a point. In fact the evidence is that, despite the influence of European coaches, the No. 10 shirt in England is still regarded as one of the striker shirts. 

At City the No. 10 shirt is currently occupied by Jamie Paterson, who could be viewed as our principal Playmaker but recent comments by DH suggests he sees him more as, an 8. Which got me thinking, how many of our past players who could be considered our midfield general wore 10?

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18 minutes ago, Sir Geoff said:

As was mentioned in commentary yesterday ( Chelsea v Liverpool) by Martin Tyler the traditional number 10 playmaker is disappearing from the game. Just ask Dele Ali.

Was also said on talk sport. Hadn't noticed it myself. Most are using deep laying playmakers now? 

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15 minutes ago, Sir Geoff said:

As was mentioned in commentary yesterday ( Chelsea v Liverpool) by Martin Tyler the traditional number 10 playmaker is disappearing from the game. Just ask Dele Ali.

He’s not disappearing from the game, he just hasn’t played very well for a fair while.

There is plenty of footage where Mourinho has told him what he wants & what he expects but Ali either isn’t heeding the advice or can’t do what is wanted from him.

One of Mourinho’s biggest gripes is that Ali is lazy in training & Ali has admitted as much himself, so in a team of multimillion pound players, where do you play him & why would you play him when someone else is doing what you (as manager) wants?

Football is no longer a game where you can go out & play as you want, the manager / head coach decides how he wants you to play & if you’re unable to follow those directions then you can expect to find yourself not playing.

I see it as kind of the reverse situation with Weimann, while plenty of City supporters don’t think he’s worthy of a position in the team, if he’s doing everything that LJ & DH want(ed) of him then he is doing what’s right for the team, that may not be right for 75% of our supporters but it is for the men who matter.

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Teams just don't let someone sit in between the strikers and midfield and have time and space on the ball anymore. They sometimes, allow you to have a player in your own half who does that and that's where the role for slower, smaller, less physical but technically good players has gone. Bannan types.

You want to play in the 10 role, you got to run, you got to press, you got to work. Modern football is so much about fitness.

The 10 role still makes sense if that player works hard. Kasey Palmer vs Northampton. Worked hard, got ahead of the strikers, came back and did the deep lying play maker stuff too. That's a modern 10 performance. Not really interested in shirt number talk though.

So much of English football history is 4-4-2 and the player who wears ten in that is the traditionally the small quick goal scoring striker.

 

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3 hours ago, Sir Geoff said:

As was mentioned in commentary yesterday ( Chelsea v Liverpool) by Martin Tyler the traditional number 10 playmaker is disappearing from the game. Just ask Dele Ali.

No 10 was never the playmaker.  No 10 was the nippy inside forward who scored all the goals.  Jimmy Greaves, Kenny Dalglish, Sam Baldock, Bobby Reid in his last season for us.  

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