De Jong is the best holding midfielder in world football. A truly superb player.
Only those with an interest in football handed down from reading Eamon Dunphys Star column would seek to compare players playing in two different positions. De Jong is as good at his job as Iniesta is at his. Would Farmer or yourself compare Buffon with Rooney?
Sweet jaysus. End of discussion.
Apology accepted
I wonder how Iniesta would do in an ordinary team? Xavi makes him look better than he is imo.
Got to agree with KIB man here. :wacko:
Hard to make a comparison against players who play in different positions and De Jong is as good as there is in his position today.
not particularly. remember him coming on to great affect in a champs lg final years back against Arsenal. Xavi stayed on the bench that day. Iniesta is a cracking player and would thrive at any level. He could probably play deeper ala Xavi to a pretty high level too.
Scott Dann to Arsenal looks a done deal for £6m. This looks like a very underwhelming transfer window for Arsenal thus far.
Players in:
Gervinho (£11m)
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (£12m)
Toral Harper (£500k)
Bellerin (£500k)
Dann (£6m)
Jenkinson (£1m)
Total spend £31m
Players out:
Clichy (£7m)
Emmanuel-Thomas (£1m)
Denilson (Loan)
Fabregas (£30m)
Nasri (£22m)
Total sales £60m
Net receipts £29m plus original fund of c. £25m gives Wenger £54m to spend between now and August 31st.
Of the incoming players I really think Gervinho is the only player that will improve the first eleven. I really don’t see how Wenger is going to replace Nasri and Fabregas out of the remaining budget. I’m the biggest Wenger-phile you’ll come across but I think they’re really going to struggle to get in the Top 4 this year, it’s gonna be a real dog fight with Liverpool and the game in August could really set the tone for that battle for the season.
It’s important to note the context of all this.
It began on a discussion on the world’s best players. KIB stated Messi, Ronaldo etc and then started talking about levels. He mentioned De Jong on a level above Iniesta. He made the comparison of the two players initially - not me. Ever since Rocko backed down and accepted that De Jong was a very good holding midfielder, he has been sure to mention the ‘superb De Jong’ in every post he makes, as if he has been justified somehow and was the only one to see it.
Of course it is ridiculous to compare players in different positions, but what I would say is why are the world’s best players nearly always forwards? That is because a greater degree of ability and talent is required to operate in the attacking area. It is a noble trait to be able to break up play in midfield, be a decent passer and maintain a presence which De Jong does well. It is another thing creating chances and scoring goals as Iniesta does very well.
Ah fuck.I thought Liverpool would get him.
Considering the prices thrown around for English players this summer, that is a very good bit of business.
i think you have contradicted yourself there maybe more than once.
But to take you up on one point - the worlds best players arent nearly always forwards. Forwards get headlines but never underestimate the importance or greatness of a Buffon, Ferdinand, Cannavaro, Maldini, Alves, Alonso, Xavi, Zidane, Keane etc of recent vintage. Very few come close to De Jong at what he does. In terms of effectiveness as a player, he is up there with any of them. The world cup final was a prime example. Spain ran rings around the German midfield in the semi final, Schweinsteiger et al. De Jong while he took risks and was wild pretty much intimidated the Spanish midfield. Xabi Alonso for one didnt really want to know. No Spanish player targetted the area in front of the weak centre halves because of his presence. If Robben had tucked away the golden chance he spurned in the second half, De Jong would have been remembered for one of all time great world cup performances. Alas he ran out of legs but replacing him with the hapless Van der Vaart turned the game in Spain’s favour in extra time.
rumoured on the Villa forums that the injury that kept Dann out for the last few months of the last season has been slow to heal.
But De Jong isn’t a holding midfielder, he is a hard tackling athletic and sometimes dirty midfielder. My idea of a holding midfielder is Donadoni, Pirlo, Matthius or Sammer, someone who controls the middle and dictates play as well as definitely having to be a superb passer of the ball. I really don’t think De Jong falls into this category.
Thats exactly where i was coming from, i was remembering when KIB was putting De Jong in with Xavi, Iniesta etc as world class players. He is good at his job, but not in that class.
And of course you can compare players from different positions, you can judge their value to the team, and for my money for every Iniesta there are 20 De Jongs.
Can we just make one thing clear.
Nobody wants to be a defender. They are just put their as kids because they aren’t good enough or fit enough to be a forward.
As an Arsenal fan, I am constantly getting people saying to me “Wenger must buy”.
My reply is always …no shit Sherlock but who?? Where I always get silence or some bullshit reply.
To which I carry on and say in reailty Wenger has 3 choices:
A: buy true world class players (e.g. Pique, Sneider) but pay the overflated prices for them caused by Man City, Chelsea, Real Madrid, etc
or
B: buy young talent but unproven at the highest level (e.g. Oxlade-Chamberlain)
or
C: buy half decent proven Premiership talent (e.g. Jagielka, Cahill, Dann,)
Option A: isn’t going to happen full stop - fans just got to accept it.
Option B: Wenger’s favourite but it isn’t going to win you anything esp when you are selling the likes of Nasri and Cesc.
Option C: the best of a bad situation that be hoped for at this stage.
The reailty of the situation is a mix of B and C and hope this is enough for the top 4 again. Wenger had it in his head the he could build towards a title-winning side like 98 and 04 with the currrent crop but the likes of Viera, Bergkamp, Pires, Henry were never going to be replicated.
I think the board and Wenger know the league is an impossible feat but focus now is on settling for the Champions League money.
Welcome to modern day football/business Arsenal fans.
I remember that match and I don’t remember a vintage performance from him, nor Alonso not wanting to know. It seems like you are trying to make people bring up the horror tackle and somehow reference it to him laying down a marker to the Spanish midfield a la Keane on Overmars in 2001. Well, like that challenge, it did fuck all to influence the game. What should have happened was that De Jong got sent off which meant his country were down to 10 men early on, and that would hardly be recognised as being a vintage performance now would it?
I think Paulo Maldini might disagree.
A Central Defender gets as much out of smashing a forward, getting the ball and passing it out to a midfielder as a striker will ever get out of a goal.
Of course you’ll get players that are brilliant defenders, and of course they take joy out of smashing up forwards but they only take so much joy out of it because they are bitter that they couldn’t be forwards and see it as a way of getting back at them.
Like an old GAA manager used to say when I was younger,
‘You can teach players to be backs, but you can’t teach players to be forwards’.
Now obviously that is not completely true, but you can see what he means.
donadoni - right sided midfielder. italian ray houghton
sammer - sweeper euro 96 and Im pretty sure for dortmund also
some unfortunate examples aside I think you are more referring to the defensive playmaker - Alonso, Pirlo etc - players who rarely get past the ball but are the first receiver from the defence and link the player from a deeper position. This seems to be the role United have earmarked for Sneijder too.
Again De Jong is different, there arent 20 De Jongs around. Macherano comes close but De Jong is far better on the ball than him. The Benitez mix of Mascherano & Alonso was a superb partnership - Milan had Gattuso and Pirlo - Real - Redondo & Makelele. Even United - Keane and Scholes. Im sure there are far more examples of the brute and the deep lying playmaker double act. De Jong would even be better alongside a more creative player than Gareth Barry. But the importance of his role should never be underestimated. Man Utd need him badly. Arsenal imo would have won a couple of league titles with him in the side, the state of that clown Alex Song getting caught ahead of the ball repeatedly. Even Chelsea Id rank him a far superior player than Essien or Mikel. I’m pretty surprised to be honest that Mourinho hasnt made signing him his number one priority as he is just the player Real need.
Oh, well in that case, I would like to retract my earlier statement.