So just finished watching the madrid derby, and as always with Madrid, in good or bad times there are always some strong disagreements (probably the same with every fan base). One of which, has been isco. But i see james at madrid and now bayern, coutinho at barcelona. all 3 attacking mids (making the news for not so good reasons) signed by their clubs to play as central mids; a position that involves some defending. granted, its not really a pattern as its just real and barcelona that have employed such a move, but it seems the idea of elite nos 10s is fading away

your most creative player these days is either a winger and the attacking mid is playing a deep lying play maker role. there are teams with pure attacking mids on them, but the rise of the 'cut-in' wingers, and 3 man midfield seems to be stifling the nos 10 role. is it just a case of copy cat football? should players in that position be more dynamic? your thoughts......btw if this is a topic that's been explored before, then my mistake. i'm really interested in your opinions. heavens know the million and 1 podcasts and football shows that exist i've hardly heard this come up as a topic

It's just a case that in modern football, everyone needs to be involved in both sides of the game, defense and offense. And in the rare exceptions where you need to hide a player because of attacking contributions far outweights the defensive side, you can't afford for him to be a midfielder. It's easier to hide a winger than a dude playing in midfield.

the attacking midfielder is not dead, lazy bum n10 like James are.

Copy cat football is a cute name for it. Yeah, it's a lot of teams following more successful teams and implementing their tactics and strategy. Like when everyone thought tiki-taka was the greatest thing till it wasn't. Or the 3 man back line fad.

Anyway, this may seem really bad of me but the so called 10s nowadays are not as great as a 10s (or the men who could have played the role) like the ones I grew up with or the older folks did (guys and girls Tito's age). To put it in perspective (and not actually calling these men 10s), I could quicker see a manager making an exception for Riquelme, Aimar or Laudrup than they would with James, Coutinho or Isco.

Anyway, the tactical set up of teams demands midfielders to be more dynamic including attacking midfielders. They still have to be creative but they are also asked to more defensive work. Way more than I could remember. The 10s of the world has to adjust their play style or be deemed surplus to requirements.

What should die a quick death is this fad of ball playing goalies. Regular goalies worked for a century, why change it?!

Everything you said is the reason why isco was never good in a Madrid shirt lmao, this fact has been obvious for a long time, but as usual some of you are more interested in trying to show up others than taking a real look at what has been happening on the pitch.

who is give a shit how neatly you shield the ball and dribble when your breaking down attacks cause you gotta get dem YouTube likes instead of winning .

As usual you guys only come around when there is no choice but to own up, isco biggest fraud in football finally got exposed cause Solari wanted the team to win, instead of being bogged down by a slow ass 10 who can't create for shit.

@Doc look what you have done ffs

I have him on ignore, that's not my problem.

I think spacing / stretching defences has never been more important, therefore versatile "cut-in wingers" are the new force.

Also the best strikers are nowadays required to be fairly good at play-making, too, instead of just being foxes in the box. If your striker is going to drop down to be an outlet in the build-up play - like at Liverpool, for instance - that's going to take away the space of a traditional number 10.

So in other words art all that play making and link up that cf does that was so useless according to real madrid fans, is what makes isco a luxury player nowadays?

Crazy I thought I was only one who noticed that benzema does a lot of isco job for him, yet isco is the most creative even though all he doing is turning over the ball by over dribbling or shooting into the stands no real 10 or any real midfielding work elite , never seen isco play make at benzema level even once in a rm shirt yet he is always good and better than everyone on the team

What a title for a thread. I thought maybe some other footballer had died.

No AM is not dead. They just have to be more fitter and smarter.

You have my permission to close the topic as no more arguments are needed

Vote for me as the next president.

yeah the term i should have used was decline rather than 'death'. its just i was thinking in the last ten years about top pure attacking midfielders or nos 10s, (elite ones), and i was having a hard time coming up with many. messi, yeah but even he isn't really that, he just wears many hats

Let's not be too dramatic either, title is fine, what happened to Salah is sad but people die everyday that's life...

The overwhelming movement is Europe in recent years has been to line up 3 midfielders to control the play or to have superiority to recover the ball faster to counter. It's really just about work rate being preferred to that extra bit of creativity from a pure n10.

The last teams to thrive in Europe using a 4231 with a number 10 were Bayern and Dortmund. Gotze for bvb and Muller for Bayern both had a very high work rate on the defensive side of the ball.

Thinking about it now many teams which actually line up in 433 defend with a 442

Also the isco not playing cause he is a 10 is a myth, he has gotten a free role to roam as he sees fit most games and he sucked ass cause he sucks and has a very low footy IQ.

let's not forget kroos was an AM at first a very good one and still transitioned into cm flawlessly and done good at dm in spurts, and real madrid fans have no prob trashing him for isco, claiming the latter is dynamic and versatile when kroos is living proof of that and isco proving he is a one trick pony, cause it's about shitty tricks with him and there is more to being a good midfielder than that 10 or not, something real madrid fans have still yet to learn.

The 10 died when isco flopped so gloriously in his debut season

Mr Nick09 wrote:Let's not be too dramatic either, title is fine, what happened to Salah is sad but people die everyday that's life...

Read your post and thought Salah had died, had to Google him.