Is Lucas Leiva the most underrated DM in Europe?

vanDEEZ wrote:

Valkyrja wrote:

vanDEEZ wrote:especially considering khedira isnt a DM and hes number 2 on the list

Khedira played DM this pre-season and did great. He's definetly top 5. The best is De Rossi

first of all im doubting you even watched preseason because though he had a more limited role he definitely wasnt a DM imo in preseason.  secondly, according to you it takes a player 2.5 months playing as a DM to earn top 5 DM?


anywho- my original point is that leiva may be considered a top 5 DM but besides busquets, ddr, and martinez... there arent really any top 'true' DMs.

It's not like he hasn't played a ball winner role before. That was his job in the last 3 seasons.

CBarca wrote:

Case in point, Lampard is playing in the "2" of a 4-2-3-1 today. Is he a DM? Here's a better one: Pirlo plays behind Marchisio/Vidal/Pogba/etc. Is he a DM?

Something that annoys me to no end in this forum.

Some guy was trying to tell me Dembele was a DM the other day ffs

Believe me... it's not limited to this forum. A large number of football supporters are far too hung up on where a player is deployed and don't pay attention to the role they have actually been given. I personally think it's a symptom of the FIFA generation, or at least the segment of which that hasn't bothered to explore the tactics beyond the most basic level.

Valkyrja wrote:It's not like he hasn't played a ball winner role before. That was his job in the last 3 seasons.

I wouldn't say that being a ball-winner and being a pure DM are equivalent.

Take Khedira for example. Granted I don't watch Madrid often, but when I do Khedira has typically been the more dynamic midfield presence (between him and Alonso). He's been given a role that asks him to roam, harry, chase, and contribute to the attack. To me, that seems to be a box-to-box midfield role, despite his starting position in a "holding" pair.

It's always appeared to me that Alonso is actually the more stactic of the "holding" pair. He's the one that sits and dictates play. In my opinion, I wouldn't say that Madrid's set-up employs a pure DM. Between Alonso's controlling presence and Khedira's running, they haven't really needed a pure DM. BEcause of the quality of the two at performing their roles, they can get away without employing one. However, you could also argue that it's come back to bite them in matches against the very top sides.

I'm a Liverpool supporter. I've seen Didi Hamann and Javier Mascherano play DM for Liverpool and it baffles me that people convince themselves that Lucas is fit to lace either of their boots.

I've got a list of players who are better DM's than Lucas, I've probably missed a few.

Busquets (By far #1 in the world.)
Javi Martinez
De Rossi
S. Bender
L. Bender
Mascherano
Song
Fernando Reges
Fernando
Sandro
Paulinho
Gustavo
Romulo
Gonalons
M'Vila
Kondogbia
Capoue
Matuidi
Fellaini
Yaya
Fernandinho
Witsel
Vidal
Inler
Khedira
Ahmedov
Denisov
Lass
Carrick
Yacob
Wanyama
Medel
Neustader
Schneiderlin

I know that not all of these are proper DM's, but they would all be upgrades on Lucas if they were asked to play his role.

The Lucas delusion baffles me. He's not a good DM at all. He was dribbled past more times per game than any other player in his position in the Premier League last season. The reason is simple, he over commits to tackles that he can never win. He can't jockey a man to save his life, it's all or nothing, and too often it's nothing. He constantly abandons position because he doesn't understand what he's supposed to be doing.

He makes lots of tackles because he goes round chasing the ball all match, ignoring the fact that he has no pace to recover and that others might not be in position. This is why we see stats like "Lucas has made the most tackles". People assume that that makes him brilliant. It doesn't. Look at Busi, a lot of the time he can win the ball back/help to win the ball back without even making a tackle. He's so clever and so aware, he can make an attacker run where he wants to so that another player can come in and win the ball back. If someone runs at Lucas they glide straight past him or get fouled.

People put our drop off in form in 11/12 down to his injury, ignoring the fact that it wasn't until Agger got injured and we lost 5 out of our next 6 that we fell away.

They also think he was brilliant against Stoke, but Stoke offer no threat in between the lines, no runners from midfield and no creativity whatsoever. Against Villa they had the likes of Bacuna and Delph breaking from midfield and Lucas couldn't deal with it. There was one time in the first half where he was standing right next to Bacuna who popped the ball off an jogged straight passed Lucas and ended up running at the back 4.

Look back to last season, away to Southampton, their 3rd goal came from Jay Rodriguez picking the ball up 25 yards from goal and jogging straight at the defence. Where was Lucas? It's his job to make sure this NEVER happens but he doesn't do it.

I don't buy all this about his injury. Yeah, I know it's a bad injury but he actually made his comeback from that last August. 12 months ago. When does it stop becoming an excuse?

We had to completely switch our style in the 2nd half of last season and play on the counter attack, partly because Carra came back and doesn't have the pace to play in a high line and partly because it's impossible to play a pressing game with a high line without a good DM. It led to the pressing players being hesitant because they knew if they overcommitted and got bypassed, the defence would have no protection.

His passing is very very average, he gets high % rates but his range isn't great. He's very weak and slow which means he struggles under pressure, as shown in the Villa game by losing the ball and putting us under pressure at least 3 times.

People point to his form a couple of years ago as a reason why we should stick with him and use him as our DM in Rodgers' 433, ignoring the fact that the system we used when he was in his best form (even that was inconsistent, got schooled by Modric and Sandro) is completely different to the system we play now.

Then we had a 442, with a deep defensive line, 2 holding midfielders and wingers that tracked back a lot. It meant he could get away with charging out of position because we always had a player covering (Spearing, Poulsen, Adam. Admittedly they're not good players, but they covered his flaws), this is what allowed him to make loads of tackles and convince everyone that he was a great DM.

Anyway, I could go on but I won't bore you any more than I already have. /RANTOVER.

Just before I go. This is my first post, hopefully the first of many.

I do admit, he was poor against Aston Villa, but only in the second half when we all decided to park the bus. Most of your post is just... wrong on so many parts. lol

Majority of the players on your list are not better... in fact at least half of them aren't even defensive midfielders.

You are aware Leiva came back from a 12 month injury, not 6 months, right? He came back in August, injured himself against City, and then was out again until December last season, so not too sure what you mean when you say he came back and was playing until August.  

He was what started our "second half" form as we were a lot better in possession, and had the ball in our feet more because of him (winning the ball back etc) despite trying to get back to match fitness / used to the tempo of the league again. He wasn't the greatest, but he did well under the circumstances. Even then he had the most tackles and was in the top 5 for intercepts in the league. He also one of the best "tactical" players we have in the team, more so than Gerrard...

We played a deeper defensive line because we wanted to slot Carragher into the team, not "cover" Lucas. Just what. Why would we go back to playing a "higher line" now that Carragher's not playing? lol  

His passing rate is very good and his range is fine. He's not supposed to be a playmaker, that's Gerrard's role. He doesn't struggle under pressure, in fact he thrives in it, so not too sure what you mean by that. Gerrard's form last season was mainly due to Lucas. Stevie was quite inconsistent before that...

But yeah, let's just write an essay and then say Spearing, Poulsen, Adam covered Lucas' flaws. Let's not mention he was in the top 5 for tackles and intercepts last season too (that's 3 years in a row now), playing mostly with Steven Gerrard next to him. Or is Stevie a poor player?

Oh, and welcome to the forum. Come check out the Liverpool section.

So who is better than Lucas from that list? I can understand why people might think are couple are better, we all have opinions, but the majority? No chance. I did state not all of them are pure/natural DMs but all of them could play the role better than him.

I never said he came back from a 6 month injury, I said he was back from the first injury A WHOLE YEAR ago. Yes, he got another one shortly after, even so, he's been back from that for 9 months.

"He was what started our "second half" form as we were a lot better in possession". Wait, what? We were absolutely dreadful in the second half, couldn't keep the ball to save our lives. Unless you're talking about the second half of last season, in which case no we weren't. We switched to a counter attacking style, we didn't dominate possession more.

I thought my original post made this clear, the amount of tackles he makes DOES NOT make him good. It shows that he chases the ball, that's fine if you've got someone else covering you, very often Lucas doesn't have cover but chases it anyway. The amount of times he rushes in and over commits is reflected by the amount of times he gets dribbled past and the amount of times he gets caught out of position. It wouldn't be SO bad if he had at least a little bit of recovery pace, but he doesn't. Also, his tackle % isn't great, I'd rather someone who wins 3 out of 3 than 5 out of 8. 5 out of 8 would actually be decent by Lucas standards.

Watch the first half again. Watch when Bacuna has the ball and rolls it to the right back, he jogs straight past Lucas, yeah, Lucas, the good DM, into an acre of space. He gets a run straight through on Agger and Toure. Look at Lucas during all that, completely switches off whilst Bacuna jogs past him and hardly moves to get back. He's slow, weak and positionally dreadful.

If he was one of the best tactical players he wouldn't abandon his position so carelessly. He wouldn't leave the defence exposed. Why is this so hard to understand?

We've gone back to a higher line because Rodgers has bought into all this "Lucas just needs pre-season" shite. Rodgers has his favourites, it's clear that Lucas is one of them. I like Rodgers, he's clearly an intelligent man but it's just as clear that he doesn't quite grasp how important the DM role is and how different it is playing it in a deep 442 compared to a high line, pressing 433.

He thrives under pressure? He lost the ball needlessly about 3 or 4 times in our own half yesterday. There was one that resulted in Johnson needing to hack down Benteke because Lucas had got us in a muddle by not picking a pass. He nearly cost us a goal in that West Ham match last season when he was tackled 20 yards from goal by Carlton Cole. Why do things like this get ignored?

Stevie's upturn in form was when Henderson came into the team and did all of his running. Gerrard played much better than he did when the midfield was him, Lucas and Henderson than he did when it was him, Lucas and Allen. The key was Henderson. He carried both of them at times. Not to mention Sturridge and Coutinho vastly improved our team just a few games after Lucas came back and made things a whole lot easier for everyone.

I pointed out Poulsen, Spearing and Adam because they all played VERY deep. Deeper than Gerrard. They rarely ventured forward. Lucas would chase the ball whilst they'd sit. This is why it's bizarre that people point to Lucas' "great form" at that time, ignoring the fact that the role he was playing was very different to the one that he'll have to play. Rodgers has spoken about preferring a "1-2" midfield. When Gerrard retires we'll switch to that (unless he changes his plans) and Lucas will be the "1". Well, I hope he won't, because he's not good enough, but anyway. He'll be playing as a sole DM, which means there'll be even more emphasis on him than there is now. Which is very worrying considering how poor he was yesterday. Unless we drop another midfielder as deep as Gerrard was yesterday to cover him we'll get slaughtered. And if we have to change the shape to cover a player's weakness, especially a player playing such a vital position in the system we play, it shows how poor he is.



To summarise:

His "great form" proves nothing about how he'll do in a high line, pressing 433.

Tackles are not the be all and end all of a DM. Some great DMs tackle a lot less than Lucas.

He's been back 9 months. It's about time we stopped making excuses.

Oh and more about Carra, he was part of the reason we dropped to a deep line. But not having a good DM was definitely another. Michael Dawson at Spurs is quite slow but they're able to play a high line very well when Sandro is in front of them because he's brilliant.