Lol, Renato is not Wjnaldum. Plus you quite overrate tempo play. Having the best tempo controller in the world is not going to be very effective against top teams and PnP wins the midfield. Look at how Barca's midfield with Busquets constantly gets overran. Kante vs City/Real.
https://twitter.com/Footydetect/status/1410367823533182978
Against most smaller teams, as long as the CMs are tidy in possession and can pick a pass (as well as familiar with a system that constantly generates superiorities), you are fine. You don't need Busquets or Toni Kroos to break down all low blocks. You need confident passers.
I rate midfield controlling a lot (big Xhaka fan) but the EPL is a different beast, especially with the high-pressure system we play. Once you get past Locatelli, that's it. He's out. Even Xhaka is more valuable out of possession.
Locatelli is not a bad player by any means (and I'll be satisfied with him) but he simply replaces Xhaka while being worse out of possession. Unless he can somehow add more value than Xhaka does with his possession play, our midfield pivot is going to DOWNGRADE SLIGHTLY with Loc.
That West Ham game, for instance, we don't make it back from 3-0 down with Locatelli instead of Xhaka. Midfield passing was good but transitions are inevitable and winning the ball back quickly and pinning teams back high up was more important to sustaining our attack than tempo.
Just admit that you just want a pretty player. Locatelli could turn out better than Xhaka because of the age difference but I doubt it. You must remember that the Serie A is a slower, more careful game. EPL is a different beast and we need PnP anyway you look at it.
If Locatelli was as defensively capable as Xhaka, that alone would make me very excited but Xhaka was a player that could deal with EPL wingers without much trouble and actually was great at intercepting and positioning (which covers for his lack of recovery pace).
Locatelli doesn't have the same defensive attributes and he isn't likely going to be much better than Xhaka in possession.
All that said, the downgrade would be marginal and there's still a good chance we've got some kind of Gundogan so my complaints are not really heavy.
All that said, the downgrade would be marginal and there's still a good chance we've got some kind of Gundogan so my complaints are not really heavy.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
