Massengo in the Middle - not for me.

[brady bunch]

I know he is a cracking lad, with cracking hair and he is an absolutely tenacious tackler, who gets all over the pitch, he also puts more senior pro's to shame with his commitment and energy.  BUT and for me its a big but, you still have to be more then that to play in the middle for a team that wants to succeed in the Championship.

What you need to succeed and IMHO he does not "yet" possess is this:

• Positional awareness
• A footballing brain / sixth sense - he is way to Helter-Skelter for me, we look far more solid when King plays in the middle.
• Being a good passer (his first pass last night was straight to a white shirt), his pass completion is poor.
• A great first touch (more noticeable in the previous games), but he often needs several touches to control the ball.
• Assists - the stats speak for themselves here, HNM is probably bottom of this for city, below even those like Ping who have only played a handful of games.

He is great to watch and I am sure he is going to get better and better and go on to great things, but we are not an academy, we are in a brutal unforgiving league and we need an upgrade /King/Williams in the middle at the moment.

I will get my tin helmet on.....

[Pezo]

I don't disagree with your observations but if he had those attributes then he wouldn't be here he would be at a top 6 prem team. 

[Super]

1 minute ago, brady bunch said:

I know he is a cracking lad, with cracking hair and he is an absolutely tenacious tackler, who gets all over the pitch, he also puts more senior pro's to shame with his commitment and energy.  BUT and for me its a big but, you still have to be more then that to play in the middle for a team that wants to succeed in the Championship.

What you need to succeed and IMHO he does not "yet" possess is this:

• Positional awareness
• A footballing brain / sixth sense - he is way to Helter-Skelter for me, we look far more solid when King plays in the middle.
• Being a good passer (his first pass last night was straight to a white shirt), his pass completion is poor.
• A great first touch (more noticeable in the previous games), but he often needs several touches to control the ball.
• Assists - the stats speak for themselves here, HNM is probably bottom of this for city, below even those like Ping who have only played a handful of games.

He is great to watch and I am sure he is going to get better and better and go on to great things, but we are not an academy, we are in a brutal unforgiving league and we need an upgrade /King/Williams in the middle at the moment.

I will get my tin helmet on.....

He is the only player who is trying to make things happen, Also what i noticed last night was how much stronger he is this season. You need energy in the middle of the pitch and a combo of James and King don't give you that.

[grifty]

So you want to replace the player who has arguably been our best player this season and certainly over the last couple of games for a 32 year old who doesn't move round the pitch or a player who manages 30 mins of football before being injured for 3 months?

OK.

[underhanded]

Watching last night there seemed to be a real hesitancy  to play anything through the middle. This was not only collectively as a team (often overlooking James and Massengo for a pass out to full backs) but also Massengo and James themselves - they were very rarely (if ever?) passing to eachother, and nearly always out wide. We were then nearly always crossing from deep, which was almost completely ineffective.

Massengo, on I think 2 or 3 occasions,  actually drove the 10-15 yards needed to open up more angles that gave us more attacking impetus. This broght the team up to the final third, and meant no more crosses from deep. I think he needs to stay where he is, and there needs to be more focus on allowing him to drive forward in central positions. It's the only thing that looks remotely dynamic at present

[RobintheRed Red]

2 hours ago, brady bunch said:

I know he is a cracking lad, with cracking hair and he is an absolutely tenacious tackler, who gets all over the pitch, he also puts more senior pro's to shame with his commitment and energy.  BUT and for me its a big but, you still have to be more then that to play in the middle for a team that wants to succeed in the Championship.

What you need to succeed and IMHO he does not "yet" possess is this:

• Positional awareness
• A footballing brain / sixth sense - he is way to Helter-Skelter for me, we look far more solid when King plays in the middle.
• Being a good passer (his first pass last night was straight to a white shirt), his pass completion is poor.
• A great first touch (more noticeable in the previous games), but he often needs several touches to control the ball.
• Assists - the stats speak for themselves here, HNM is probably bottom of this for city, below even those like Ping who have only played a handful of games.

He is great to watch and I am sure he is going to get better and better and go on to great things, but we are not an academy, we are in a brutal unforgiving league and we need an upgrade /King/Williams in the middle at the moment.

I will get my tin helmet on.....

Yes if your gonna single him out god knows what you think of most of the other performers as you said Tin hat needed .

[Steve Watts]

20 minutes ago, underhanded said:

Watching last night there seemed to be a real hesitancy  to play anything through the middle. This was not only collectively as a team (often overlooking James and Massengo for a pass out to full backs) but also Massengo and James themselves - they were very rarely (if ever?) passing to eachother, and nearly always out wide. We were then nearly always crossing from deep, which was almost completely ineffective.

Massengo, on I think 2 or 3 occasions,  actually drove the 10-15 yards needed to open up more angles that gave us more attacking impetus. This broght the team up to the final third, and meant no more crosses from deep. I think he needs to stay where he is, and there needs to be more focus on allowing him to drive forward in central positions. It's the only thing that looks remotely dynamic at present

I think this in part was down to an unusually lacklustre performance from Weimann last night.  Had his usual industrious work ethic, but for whatever reason just didn't click for him last night.  When AW is off form we don't really have that player to play it through to.  Martin I thought was excellent last night.  Good workrate and really strong against a physical defence, but realistically he's better with the ball played into him.  He's not going to outpace anyone.  He used his strength well last night but didn't really have a foil.  I was hoping Wells would've provided this when he came on, but sadly not.

The trouble with playing balls in from the wing is that we still seem to be a very small team.  The delivery has to be spot on, but unfortunately last night there were too many balls floated into the six yard box.  Keepers will gather those up all day long.

[Gazred]

Not unreasonable observations.

I think he's better in a 3 personally, at least at this point. Perhaps further down the line he'll own that role in a 2 but you have to look at what was going on around him as well last night. Not exactly a ton of options when he did make space for himself and got his head up. James covers a lot of grass and knowing how to play off that will come in time.

Still, he's been one of our most consistant players this season and physically seems capable of playing games in a row. His tenacity and energy seem limitless. I'd be surprised if he was out of the starting 11 on Sat.

[Silvio Dante]

51 minutes ago, Gazred said:

Not unreasonable observations.

I think he's better in a 3 personally, at least at this point. Perhaps further down the line he'll own that role in a 2 but you have to look at what was going on around him as well last night. Not exactly a ton of options when he did make space for himself and got his head up. James covers a lot of grass and knowing how to play off that will come in time.

Still, he's been one of our most consistant players this season and physically seems capable of playing games in a row. His tenacity and energy seem limitless. I'd be surprised if he was out of the starting 11 on Sat.

I’d say he’s better in a 3 as well, and it’s probably due to positional discipline.

On Saturday, although he had a good game, the negative for me was that he got drawn into the middle from the right hand side too much when playing there - eagerness to get involved as against anything else. Against better sides, particularly with our right back issues, the space that leaves gets exploited.

I’d want him in the side for sure. The issue I think in a 4-4-2 is the positional discipline which isn’t unusual considering his age.

[Gazred]

1 minute ago, Silvio Dante said:

I’d say he’s better in a 3 as well, and it’s probably due to positional discipline.

On Saturday, although he had a good game, the negative for me was that he got drawn into the middle from the right hand side too much when playing there - eagerness to get involved as against anything else. Against better sides, particularly with our right back issues, the space that leaves gets exploited.

I’d want him in the side for sure. The issue I think in a 4-4-2 is the positional discipline which isn’t unusual considering his age.

Yep, spot on.

[WarksRobin]

I wish we had more players with Massengo's energy and drive, then we might see more 1-2 options and score more goals from open play.

[Simon bristol]

2 minutes ago, WarksRobin said:

I wish we had more players with Massengo's energy and drive, then we might see more 1-2 options and score more goals from open play.

Yes, i like watching him play, all of a sudden hes turning opponents and running at them, which no one likes to deal with. He had that shot from the left of the box last night, would have loved to see that fly in.

[bcfcredandwhite]

I admit that I was one who initially thought that HNM was another of LJ/Ashton’s expensive ‘duds’, but I’m delighted to say I’ve changed my mind. 
He’s not the finished article - and as others have pointed out if he WAS then he wouldn’t be playing for us. 
One thing I’ve noticed (and I’ve posted this on another forum) is that he’s very good at drawing fouls - like Grealish - and I’d maybe encourage him to make runs into the box more often - we might end up with some more penalties. 

[054123]

There are some fair observations. Even accepting them to a greater or lesser extent, the positives are still such that he is one of the few bright sparks in the team.

Like many of City’s challenges at present, the point is there isn’t a real alternative. That’s not to take away from HNM, but the truth is with the squad and even the manager, no matter what your view, what is the alternative?

Lots of good debate this morning. No real solutions.

[mozo]

4 hours ago, brady bunch said:

I know he is a cracking lad, with cracking hair and he is an absolutely tenacious tackler, who gets all over the pitch, he also puts more senior pro's to shame with his commitment and energy.  BUT and for me its a big but, you still have to be more then that to play in the middle for a team that wants to succeed in the Championship.

What you need to succeed and IMHO he does not "yet" possess is this:

• Positional awareness
• A footballing brain / sixth sense - he is way to Helter-Skelter for me, we look far more solid when King plays in the middle.
• Being a good passer (his first pass last night was straight to a white shirt), his pass completion is poor.
• A great first touch (more noticeable in the previous games), but he often needs several touches to control the ball.
• Assists - the stats speak for themselves here, HNM is probably bottom of this for city, below even those like Ping who have only played a handful of games.

He is great to watch and I am sure he is going to get better and better and go on to great things, but we are not an academy, we are in a brutal unforgiving league and we need an upgrade /King/Williams in the middle at the moment.

I will get my tin helmet on.....

Got to say I completely disagree. It sounds like all the stuff you want him to have would be developed by him playing regular games in that position. 

I know it's only 7 games but Massengo and James are now the two early favourites for player of the season with HNM getting his nose in front. It'll be interesting to see if he can continue this awesome form and perhaps even improve as the season goes on. 

It seems like he's developed from a boy to a man this year.

[Fuber]

I'd say the problem is that on balance, against Cardiff it was less of an issue as we stayed compact and hit them on the break. We were much more open against Luton.

We lost 50:50s all over the pitch tonight, not just HNM. 

Thought James was overall the most anonymous hes been since signing.

Was just a bad game overall. Think the biggest issues was up front. Martin and Weimann really struggled last night, former was bullied, latter was fairly anonymous.

[REDOXO]

5 hours ago, brady bunch said:

I know he is a cracking lad, with cracking hair and he is an absolutely tenacious tackler, who gets all over the pitch, he also puts more senior pro's to shame with his commitment and energy.  BUT and for me its a big but, you still have to be more then that to play in the middle for a team that wants to succeed in the Championship.

What you need to succeed and IMHO he does not "yet" possess is this:

• Positional awareness
• A footballing brain / sixth sense - he is way to Helter-Skelter for me, we look far more solid when King plays in the middle.
• Being a good passer (his first pass last night was straight to a white shirt), his pass completion is poor.
• A great first touch (more noticeable in the previous games), but he often needs several touches to control the ball.
• Assists - the stats speak for themselves here, HNM is probably bottom of this for city, below even those like Ping who have only played a handful of games.

He is great to watch and I am sure he is going to get better and better and go on to great things, but we are not an academy, we are in a brutal unforgiving league and we need an upgrade /King/Williams in the middle at the moment.

I will get my tin helmet on.....

I’ve been saying exactly this. And apparently a bloke tweeted Twentyman and said something similar. 
 

If Williams is match fit and is doing well in training he should start!

Massengo is a very very good young player and I don’t suppose Williams would last 90 anyway but for now I would be doing the same thing. 

[REDOXO]

Double post. 

[Red-Robbo]

2 hours ago, bcfcredandwhite said:

I admit that I was one who initially thought that HNM was another of LJ/Ashton’s expensive ‘duds’, but I’m delighted to say I’ve changed my mind. 
He’s not the finished article - and as others have pointed out if he WAS then he wouldn’t be playing for us. 
One thing I’ve noticed (and I’ve posted this on another forum) is that he’s very good at drawing fouls - like Grealish - and I’d maybe encourage him to make runs into the box more often - we might end up with some more penalties. 

 

It's a good point.

I think refs sometimes give more protection to a shorter, younger lad who have the flair that makes them stand out, than they do to more hulking players.

Opponents could more or less punch out Famara and he'd not get a free kick from the experience!