For what it's worth... Berge

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BobblesBlade said:
He was gash. Doesn’t press, tackle, pass very well. He runs away from play.

Every game the same.
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Wrong!! He is avery good passer of the ball. Weight of a short pass is everything and it's one of his best attributes. He does that like a 20 million pound player. Pressing well.... got to say your right, he's poor at it.

But for the 50% of the match where he is good- he is good - for me he was a 7 against Sunderland- read the Sunderland fans comments they thought he was brilliant.
 

Blade58 said:
For some reason and it's been plainly obvious as far as I am concerned, is that half way through the second half, in many games we appear to run out of steam. McAtee, Doyle, Berge and one or two more look like they are blowing out of their arses.

Now I know this should be the same for both sides, but I take notice more of our players than I do the opposition. Last night even Ndiaye almost went into a jog rather than a sprint when chasing down their players late on. McAtee had his usual cramp attack. Berge slowed down to a jog. I'm not blaming them, just how I see it
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It's generally true. Another reason why January signings would have helped.
 
sitwell said:
Lowe is marking the wide man, Michut is Sunderlands defensive midfielder, he is Berges man, how obvious does it have to be.
He doesnt have his eyes closed just his mind.
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Sheff de party said:
Egan is too deep. Lowe is where he should be to mark number 10. Berge should move forward and cut it out.

Sent with my eyes closed.
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The desire to blame Berge for Robinson's mistake is astounding. Michut is in Robinson's left centre back channel. Robinson is not. Berge could do more to make up for that but essentially you're asking him to play centre half because the centre half isn't there.
 
Balham Blade said:
The desire to blame Berge for Robinson's mistake is astounding. Michut is in Robinson's left centre back channel. Robinson is not. Berge could do more to make up for that but essentially you're asking him to play centre half because the centre half isn't there.
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That's an odd view. Football is a fluid game, and players (e.g. Egan in this case) get dragged out of position to chase something down. Good players react by filling in the role. In this case, JLT reacted by moving to CB to cover Egan (which was the correct decision). Berge did well to track back and help Egan win the ball, but should have been aware enough that more cover might be needed. No player should EVER think "I'm a midfielder, I don't need to mark a forward".
 
Balham Blade said:
The desire to blame Berge for Robinson's mistake is astounding. Michut is in Robinson's left centre back channel. Robinson is not. Berge could do more to make up for that but essentially you're asking him to play centre half because the centre half isn't there.
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If the passage of play before it had the whole team in a conventional shape then I'd agree. The problem here is that Berge and Egan both ran past the eventual goalscorer.

There's the argument that Berge went and won the ball in the first place, but that doesn't absolve him of the responsibility of being aware enough either to tuck in for JLT or just tell someone he's ran past a spare man (Lowe or Egan could have both been told).

It's not as simple as "he's a midfielder so he doesn't have to do JLT's job", Hecky talks of players being 'brave' and 'responsible', here was an example where Berge could have taken responsibility for a situation, not entirely his fault but still partly culpable in my opinion.
 
All the screen shots put up have one thing in common, the united players are all ball watching, there all guilty in one way or another for the goal being scored. Some perspective to the debate is that only Burnley have left in less goals than us
 
Jon Bon II said:
My missus was taking the piss out of me last night after one of my outbursts. She was going "Do you want fucking fries with that fucking burger?" "Yes, I fucking do. Can I have fucking cheese on the fucking burger as fucking well please?" 😆
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It's called Blades tourette syndrome .. UTB
 
Balham Blade said:
The desire to blame Berge for Robinson's mistake is astounding. Michut is in Robinson's left centre back channel. Robinson is not. Berge could do more to make up for that but essentially you're asking him to play centre half because the centre half isn't there.
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That's exactly what Berge should do in that situation, especially as he can see where the space is and where his teammates are. However, it's on the centre halves to see that and communicate it as well. If I'm Robinson in that situation I'm looking round and screaming at someone to fill in at LCB (either Berge sits or Egan stays left). It's impossible to tell what communication there was though, if any.

If I had to guess it looks like Egan has told Robinson he's swapping back in to position to pick his man up, which is why Robinson leaves him, but it's too late to get back over to the left. If Berge was a bit more switched on he'd have covered the space but to me it looks like unfortunate positioning and then poor communication of everyone involved.
 
Andy67 said:
He has been tracking back all season. His stats second highest distance every game. Unless you think as the ball goes back he goes and runs up the steps at the other end of the pitch.
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Jogging and running are two different things. He gets back, yes, but at his speed.
 
BobblesBlade said:
He was gash. Doesn’t press, tackle, pass very well. He runs away from play.

Every game the same.
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You are of course entitled to your opinion but from the stats and from managers and coaches with international and premiership/championship experience they differ. It costs a lot of money to have technical staff who provide video footage of individual players games and to measure every aspect of a player’s contribution on a pitch and on a training ground. Like I said though it’s your opinion.
 

Geordie Blade said:
That's an odd view. Football is a fluid game, and players (e.g. Egan in this case) get dragged out of position to chase something down. Good players react by filling in the role. In this case, JLT reacted by moving to CB to cover Egan (which was the correct decision). Berge did well to track back and help Egan win the ball, but should have been aware enough that more cover might be needed. No player should EVER think "I'm a midfielder, I don't need to mark a forward".
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And you for one minute think your hypothesis of being a ‘midfielder, I don’t need to mark a forward’ is true. Are you joking?
 
Balham Blade said:
I'd not seen that angle. Wow. I'll reassess; Egan is 4 yards too deep (those stripes are 4 yards across), Robinsons is one position too far over.

Fixed.
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Haha! As pointed out elsewhere - in his defence, Egan had won the ball back in the corner (with Berge), so he was legitimately out of position. Because of that, Robinson quite rightly went across to cover central defence. What should have happened is Egan goes into LCB (temporarily) and shouts to Berge that he's free to push out. Instead, it seems as though Egan ran back to his usual position (except way too deep) and didn't let either Berge or JLT know that he was doing it.

I sat on the fifth row of the John Street Stand for a couple of seasons before Covid. You could always hear the players shouting (Norwood and Henderson were especially vocal), but it always struck me that I never heard Egan.
 
Andy67 said:
And you for one minute think your hypothesis of being a ‘midfielder, I don’t need to mark a forward’ is true. Are you joking?
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The post that I was replying to was suggesting that it's unfair to expect a midfielder to do a defender's job, even temporarily.
 
Lmaobob said:
I thought he was superb last night and one of his best games for us. Maybe he flourishes in a midfield duo so that he's got more time and space on the ball and not being restricted in a compact midfield trio.

Either way, I am a critic of Berge and know many others are - credit where credit's due, he was very very good last night and i think others in the same boat of me should eat a slice of humble pie when he does have a good performance.

Albeit, he still needs to put in more performances like that to justify the £20m tag. Keep it up Sander.
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You must have been watching a different game to me! He was poor in my opinion. Rubbish on there goal ball watching. Walking a lot when he should have been running. Sideways and backwards passing instead of forwards. Pompey was correct at marking him with a 4. It’s all subjective though I suppose.
 
Andy67 said:
You are of course entitled to your opinion but from the stats and from managers and coaches with international and premiership/championship experience they differ. It costs a lot of money to have technical staff who provide video footage of individual players games and to measure every aspect of a player’s contribution on a pitch and on a training ground. Like I said though it’s your opinion.
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With respect the stats on FBRef (as an example) show him as in the bottom 25th percentile of midfielders for passing completion (raising to middle 50 for progressive passes) and tackling so the stats support that opinion really rather well. He's a good progressive carrier of the ball, he isn't really a passing or pressing MF however.
 
robbiez666 said:
Jogging and running are two different things. He gets back, yes, but at his speed.
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Rubbish, I’m sorry to shatter your opinion but his stats,that are strapped to him, say different. I suppose you’ll keep saying it because it’s what you ‘think’ but when you state your opinion remember to add that the stats don’t support your claims so that people can make an educated decision.
 
JasonEllis said:
With respect the stats on FBRef (as an example) show him as in the bottom 25th percentile of midfielders for passing completion (raising to middle 50 for progressive passes) and tackling so the stats support that opinion really rather well. He's a good progressive carrier of the ball, he isn't really a passing or pressing MF however.
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Yes because he is not used as a pressing player. He has been playing out of position and has been enjoying it but his true position is Norwood’s position, but Norwood has been having a few bad games due to him being pressed and him making mistakes with his passing and going to ground, Berge isn’t pushed to the ground and he can run our with the ball.
 
Geordie Blade said:
Really? Egan is five yards behind everyone else.

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this for me illustrates why we should play 4 at the back. In this screenshot we have the 3 CBs and Berge and 2 Sunderland attackers. One of the Sunderland attackers was unmarked, despite having maybe 2-3 players who could have covered him. Only having 2 players in midfield (Berge had dropped back) meant that the black Sunderland midfielder was unmarked and had plenty of time and picked his pass into the attacker under no pressure. Why have 3 CBs if they routinely only have 1 or 2 attackers to mark and they cant even do that effectively, they also don't overlap or move into central midfield any more. Surely we would control the game better by swapping a CB for a CM?
 
Quality player but inconsistent, but if he didn’t have some flaws he wouldn’t be stuck playing for us.
 
Geordie Blade said:
I sat on the fifth row of the John Street Stand for a couple of seasons before Covid. You could always hear the players shouting (Norwood and Henderson were especially vocal), but it always struck me that I never heard Egan.
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I've had a nagging suspicion for a while that Egan is too passive to really be the commanding centre half his attributes should let him be. I get why we gave him the armband but he's definitely a lead by example captain as opposed to a vocal, organising type.
 
Andy67 said:
Yes because he is not used as a pressing player. He has been playing out of position and has been enjoying it but his true position is Norwood’s position, but Norwood has been having a few bad games due to him being pressed and him making mistakes with his passing and going to ground, Berge isn’t pushed to the ground and he can run our with the ball.
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He may want to play the CM/pivot role, but the only thing he could do there based on the stats is run with the ball - he is great compared to MFs for that prgressive carrues and takeons, but poor-to middling for passing. There is nothing in the stats to suggest that he is a good passer of the ball and compared to Norwood his defensive stats are appalling (when we know Norwoods own limitations at that).
 
Notice how the Pompous Peacock has steered clear of this thread - not surprising after rating Berge 4/10 and Billy's contribution at 5/10 Eh?!!?
 
Andy67 said:
You are of course entitled to your opinion but from the stats and from managers and coaches with international and premiership/championship experience they differ. It costs a lot of money to have technical staff who provide video footage of individual players games and to measure every aspect of a player’s contribution on a pitch and on a training ground. Like I said though it’s your opinion.
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I wonder if the manager and coaches at Utd realise we play with ten men when Berges in the team.
Also I reckon we are wasting lots of money if we have technical staff. We can see every game how players play. Berge for one just doesn’t do enough to be in a midfield that needs players to press and create.
 

I just don't get the view that he is an effective midfielder for us. You can use stats all you want but they are an aid to the management team, not the gospel. Some on here will not have any criticism of him. The usual lines are trotted out...he is played out of position and defensive work is not what he is there for.

We are in the Championship and he rarely looks better than average. I expect that with his ability he should boss games at this level. Sadly he doesn't have the fire within to do that. All we see are cameos.

Great players do work hard on and off the ball they don't just rely on skill alone. I have been lucky enough to see Ray Wilkins, Tim Sherwood dominate games. For work rate and ability to stretch the game Jurgen Klinsmann was tops. You don't see everything watching on TV. Stats only tell a partial story. It's being there live and assessing what you can see with your own eyes, that is how to evaluate a player.
 
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