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He's not suited to a 2 man midfield. He's a shadow of the player he was at Bayern when deployed in one.
He wasn't even that good and Bayern. A lot of hype. He never had any stand out abilities.
He's not suited to a 2 man midfield. He's a shadow of the player he was at Bayern when deployed in one.
I have watched games, but you have me all wrong. I don't want him to be a defensive midfielder like Casemiro is, I want to sign him to have a prime passing midfielder, comfortable on the ball, which covers all the bases one of our other midfielders can't, in this case Coquelin.
Kroos-Coq has a very good balance of midfield qualities. It's more physical (and defensively capable as I argued) than one with Cazorla, it is better at passing and dictating than with Ramsey, it is more experienced and rugged than with Elneny, and Kroos isn't a player particularly susceptible to injury.
Citys core - Yaya - Fernadihno - Milner -Silva + Fernandinho > whatever arsenal have fielded , the guys you mentioned featured but werent the core, hell Nasri contributed to that side aswell. Oh and Kun helps too.
Uniteds core was older but they had match winners back to front - the RVP addition basically put them over - Oh and Fergie helps too.
Maybe, a shift to 4-4-2 diamond would do the trick with box to box midfielders either side of Kroos. Or we could pull a cheap deal and sign Gary Medel with Kroos and Nenny/Ramsey either side of him. If we were to go mental in the summer which I would LOVE to happen, I'd break the bank for Zlatan/Cavani/Benzema, Krychowiak,Kroos,a top CB and Naingolan/Allan. Sell Ramsey, Ox and Theo.Kroos is a bit passive defensively - can work in a co-ordinated team but that team would have to make concessions for him defensively. He's adequate without being especially good defensively to play in deeper midfield. Your midfield partners will have to be the ball-winner. It would mostly have to be a 3 man midfield aswell (which I think we should switch to at some point anyway).
Coquelin/Kroos as a duo would function pretty much exactly the same as Coquelin/Cazorla, which might sound good but IMO we need to do better if we want to be an elite team. We might aswell just keep doing Coq/Caz as a duo, if that's the dynamic everyone wants.
We need someone who is capable of doing both of what Coq and Caz can do in deeper midfield if we must persist with a 2 man midfield. Kroos on paper is ahead of who we have in terms of his overall quality but stylistically he's probably not the guy. The guy we need must be more defensively secure while still able to distribute from deeper areas. We can say that those players are "impossible" or only at big teams, but the reality is that Arsenal as a club have aspirations of being an elite team. And an elite team needs to at least have players capable of reaching an elite level, and excelling in more than one area.
Özil was played out on the left for Germany in the WC so Kroos could dictate play from the middle. Quite the endorsement.
Never been impressed with him, a little bit Denilson in him.
But these are the type of players Wenger will go after in the summer.
Kroos isn't a ball winner though, and that isn't the role he'd play here. Coquelin would be the one making the majority of the tackles.Forget the stats here, watch any game of Real Madrid's and you'll see it gets overrun when he plays deepest. If we're looking at stats, then fine. I'll use them to prove my point.
Compare him to Casemiro, another midfielder in the same team. One's played 25 times, the other 16.
Interceptions
Kroos: 35
Casemiro: 26
Tackles won
Kroos: 41
Casemiro: 34
Aerial duels
Kroos: 45%
Casemiro: 64%
Tackles lost
Kroos: 70
Casemiro: 40
Blocks
Kroos: 1
Casemiro: 7
All against a squad player who's fairly average... That's pretty inept, even if you believe stats. Watch any game of his and you'll see what I'm on about.
Özil was played out on the left for Germany in the WC so Kroos could dictate play from the middle. Quite the endorsement.