da pinnacle： Rio Ferdinand is a once in a generation player. Often termed a ‘Rolls-Royce’ centre half due to the elegant nature and consummate ease with which he played the game, he has undoubtedly been one of the best defenders in the world this past decade. However, while his style of play and the quality of his performances may serve as an example to all, a particular bugbear of mine has developed over the past few months or so; namely from the media attempting to shoe-horn players into the classy centre-half role, even when it’s clear that their talents are best used elsewhere.
da wazamba： In a day and age where the casual armchair fan often thinks that he knows more than the man in charge of his team, this was bound to happen. The shift between holding man/ centre midfield and centre-half is often played down as merely a minor shift backwards, when in reality; the two roles could not be more different.
As far as I can make out, it merely points down to a need to replace Ferdinand or replicate his success in the role. Ferdinand’s decline has been far more rapid than anyone had previously anticipated and now we are treated to a game of square pegs and round holes when it comes to the ball-playing centre half as the search for Ferdinand’s successor gathers pace.
We have been told time and time again that Jack Rodwell will eventually be pushed back into centre-half the more he matures. The reasoning is clear and concise; once he has garnered enough first-team experience he’ll be able to handle the responsibility that the role requires.
In my eyes, at least, this would be a monumental waste of Rodwell’s talents. He offers far too much energy in the middle of the park, and if anything, I’d push him further forward as he matures.
The assumption that he’ll eventually end up as a ball-playing centre-half began when he first burst onto the scene and flies completely in the face of any of the evidence that his performances have borne out since then. It’s become one of those accepted ‘truths’ of the game. Something that was bandied about as an idea about his future position yonks ago before anyone had ever really seen him play. An opinion formed from a casual glance at his physique.
Phil Jones too has fallen into this very same trap. Far too much has been made of Jones’s performances so far. He’s already been compared to Man Utd legend Duncan Edwards, putting aside the quite frankly baffling comparison, it’s also startlingly premature for a player whose deficiencies have been conveniently covered up and glossed over because he does a noteworthy run forward every now and again.
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The fact of the matter is that Ferguson doesn’t trust Jones enough to play at centre half at the moment and that his versatility is a useful commodity to have in reserve, especially when you have the paucity of central midfield options that Man Utd currently have.
Everyone automatically assumes that Jones will revert to being a ball-playing centre-half given time. That may well be the case and this piece will be null and void in a few months or even seasons time, but I simply can’t see it myself.
While he may be the latest in a long line of heroic but ultimately flawed English centre halves, it’s become abundantly clear that while Jones may possess the requisite physique and skill set to be a perfectly serviceable centre back, he simply doesn’t like the task of defending as much as carrying the ball further up field. He thrives in possession and in the midst of the action.
In short, he may throw himself into tackles with youthful vigour, but when it comes to the basic rules of defending, they don’t seem to be of all that much interest to him. He doesn’t thrive on knocking a ball into touch in the same way that a Jamie Carragher or John Terry do. He’s simply not a natural defender.
The word ‘marauding’ was invented for players like Jones. Anyone that saw how well taken his goal against Aston Villa earlier in the season was will surely concede that the player is oddly comfortable in midfield considering his lack of experience in the position as yet and he boasts fantastic technique.
Jones lacks positional discipline at centre half to the extent where he is a liability. He looks far more comfortable at right back and in central midfield, offering the kind of threat from deep that the side have missed since the heyday of a certain Paul Scholes.
Alex Song also faces a crucial juncture in his career with concerns to his future position within the side. Song was drafted into the Arsenal eleven on the condition that he’d play the midfield holding role. He initially excelled in that position, keeping things simple and tidying up in front of the back four. However, Song has developed into a far better player than anyone envisaged, so much so that a rumoured positional switch has often been mooted.
The Football Manager contingent among you will note that Song has played at centre half before. He certainly has the capability to play there if the occasion requires it, but again, much like Rodwell and Jones, he’s wasted there. His evolution from little more than a midfield destroyer to a player of genuine class hasn’t gone unnoticed.
The trouble with this, though, has been Song’s propensity to wander too far up the pitch in search of the ball, therefore leaving the Arsenal back four horribly exposed at times. As such, Arsenal are in dire need of a recognised and limited holding man of continental class. The move to centre-half has been mooted for Song in the past too, but I fail to see the correlation in granting a player more responsibility in a role that requires it above all else when, much like Jones in that respect, he has failed to consistently show enough positional discipline in the past.
The closest around at the moment to a player of Ferdinand’s capabilities is Jones’s Man Utd colleague Chris Smalling. Smalling, while not as elegant an operator as Ferdinand at his peak was, is no slouch on the ball either and his distribution is excellent. Furthermore, while he may not attract the glitz and glam that Jones’s performances have thus far, it appears as if he actually likes the art of defending more than running with the ball down the wing.
Everyone likes a ball-playing centre-half – over at Chelsea Sideshow Bob lookalike David Luiz goes from the absurdly inept to the bizarrely brilliant often within the space of five minutes. Daniel Agger’s stock has rarely been higher than it is at the moment and there are fewer greater sights in the Premier League at present than Thomas Vermaelen galloping up the field with the ball glued to his left peg.
But that doesn’t mean that we should shoe-horn players into being that most dreaded of tabloid rumour mill clichés ‘the new Rio Ferdinand’. He is a once in a generation player, attempting to make a carbon-copy is a lesson in futility if ever there was one.
Ironically, Ferdinand himself was converted central midfield player and he could have comfortably played there for the remainder of his career, it’s just that it turned out that he was far more key to every side that he played in as a centre-half, which is exactly what pains me every time an ill-informed commentator lazily offers up the likes of Rodwell, Jones and Song as future ball-playing centre-half extraordinaires – nobody denies that any of those three players couldn’t perform in the role, the point is that they serve the side better elsewhere, something which Ferdinand himself found out to his eventual and everlasting benefit.
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