Deutsch Wolf
aka Dawn
- Joined
- Oct 16, 2009
- Messages
- 105,623
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I suppose at the time we had the U23s (as was) exactly mirroring the first team's formation. So Marques was playing like a Junior Coady (and that then ended up being wasted when we no longer wanted the real thing). And any CM would have been mirroring Neves, Saiss (in 17/18) or Moutinho in a 3-4-3. There was no attacking midfielder as such and I don't think he ever looked like a Jota/Cavaleiro type at any point. Nuno also never even watched the Academy games in person and gave scant consideration to bringing any of them through.My issue with that one is why the hell was he playing in that position in the first place?
He moves to Famalição to play as an attacking midfielder, looks amazing and then explodes the season afterwards playing for Amorim's Sporting as an inside forward in a formation similar to Nuno's at Wolves.
Sporting have on occasion (usually due to injuries) played him as one of the central midfielders and he's looked exactly as you described, pretty safe but nothing special. I don't get how you can look at his qualities and play him anywhere other than in an attacking role.
We got it wrong but I can forgive them that, it's not one where we were clearly making an error at the time.