My view is that midfield is what really matters

A great midfield makes average strikers look incredible, as they create high quality chances and pose their own goal threat, which making average defenders look good by offering great protection to them and using the ball well, relieving pressure etc.

If I compare our squad today with our squad under Farke, it's midfield that screams out as being s**te now in comparison. Maybe the defenders were a little better, and Pukki maybe a bit better than Sarge, but the real standout difference is the quality of Buendia, Leitner, Vrancic, Stiepermann and even Trybull, and in the next championship season, Skipp and Cantwell. McLean seems to be the best CM we have at receiving the ball from the defence, yet he was more or less the worst at that back then.

That midfield is miles and miles ahead of what we have now. And it isn't even as if we seem to have added solidity - not sure I'd say our current midfield is more robust than the technically brilliant one Farke gave us (in fact I'm sure that I wouldn't say it is)

Posted By: SimonOTBC, Sep 22, 13:36:19