miles wrote:
Unless directed forward by some exotic Italian/Carlos Kickaball with funny hair, or an Arsene Wenger castoff, in which case he is revered and wanked over as a 'creative' midfielder...
This is what really winds me up about this site, you can't give your honest opinion on a player without being accused of having a hidden agenda, or accused of being lured in to 'The cultured foreigner' myth, or Wenger's 'Beautiful Football' myth
The Kevin Nolan argument is a huge one, I’m still not massively convinced of what he does bring to the side outside of either penalty area. In terms of discussing Noble though, I do think it’s important to not get mixed up and include him with other players. Mark Noble is one of the senior players in our side, I rate him very highly and think that at what he does, he’s good player. Where I find him disappointing, is when he has to step up and be the senior central midfielder. As I’ve said, he’s a good ‘link midfielder’, decent in the tackle, tracks back, goes forward, ‘ok’ set-piece delivery, the occasional decent throughball.
The frustration with Noble, is that this sort of thing only really happens when West Ham are in control of a game. Like too many of our midfielders. Last night, every one of them seemed to go missing in an offensive way when we were on the backfoot. It could be down to Allardyce’s tactics, it could have been that the wide men dropped off too far leaving no outball, and Carew became too isolated, but I do think there were a couple of passages of play when we actually had the ball and even with a congested midfield of Nolan, Collison and Noble, with McCartney and O’Brien both available for passes, that’s when I felt that we were poor at keeping the ball. That’s something that I personally think that Lansbury, Bentley and Taylor are better at.
Having said that, I do think there is something to be said about the fact that under Zola and Grant West Ham players have been receiving very mixed messages about what to do with the actual ball for far too long now. It could be that from an ability point of view, Noble and Collison are equally adept at keeping the ball as Lansbury and Bentley, maybe it’s psychological, whatever. I personally think that too often though, both Noble and Collison make the wrong decision.
Please, please don’t lump me in with the crowd who think that ‘any old striker’ will be a better bet than Cole, or that all overseas midfielders are better than our home-grown ones. Before his injury, I thought Collison was going to be one of the best attacking midfielders we’d seen at the club for some time, and I still hope he makes it. I also think that Noble will be a hugely important part of our midfield and think that he does bring more in most areas than our Captain Marvel. Sadly for Noble, he’s not 6ft 2 and as adept at ghosting into goal-scoring positions as Nolan so seems to have been deemed as less valued. But I digress, I think Noble’s progress has stalled and he needs to become better at taking charge of a game and dictating the pace of our football. He can’t compete with Diop as a big wardrobe shaped defensive midfielder, he can’t compete with Nolan as a goal-scoring midfielder who adds height to our set-pieces front and back, so he has to compete with Lansbury and Collison and whoever else as our ball-playing central midfielder. Sometimes, I think he has a tendency to go missing a little in that regard, that’s all I’m saying.