I know this has been a rejected idea by many, including our manager himself, but can we just be done with it and move this lad to a permanent midfield position? We already have CDM problems and our RCBs get injured very easily yet we are constantly asking of those two positions to cover an immense gaping hole behind Mo just to do what we refuse to officialize (sending Trent to the middle of the park). Most of the goals we concede are coming from that right side exploiting our inability to properly cover for him going forward. I'm not saying the goals are his fault, that's not what I mean. What I'm saying is that we're playing a system where we want to give him license to roam freely into the midfield, but we have a hard time covering for him (no proper CDM, RCBs getting older and are often injured, etc.)
Some will say ''but the NT tried and its not working'' or ''we tried and its not great''. I don't care, we have World Class manager, make it work. The lad is that good that you can build your team around him. Just get a RB (Gomez does the job as far as I'm concerned) and put TAA in midfield one way or another. Wether its as a CM or even as a CAM (even if we have to modify the formation or our tactical approach to the games). He's just too good on the ball to be playing RB all his career. His finishing is better than some of our forwards, his long and short passing is amazing, vision, pace, very aware of the smart runs he can make from midfield to the edge of the box, etc. Most importantly, this lad is never more engaged and showing incredible spirit than when he is doing the offense part of his job.
Gareth Bale, although a very different player, comes to mind when you think of TAA's situation. He was a left-back that was very good on the ball and with tremendous offensive abilities. He was moved from LB to LW and then RW. I believe something similar has to happen with Trent. We've got a superstar in him and sometimes you've got to show a bit of flexibility and shape your team around your superstars to get the most out of them and the team as a whole.
Furthermore, think of all the times we finish the game by bringing Joe to play RB and TAA stays on the pitch. All of a sudden we're much more secure. The midfield is still too easily bypassed, but there's no longer a gaping hole behind Salah and to the right of Matip/Konate who have to burst their lungs running after the resident opposition's LW being thrown yet another over the top pass by his teammates.
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