We've been through tis a few times in the past
He's a defensive midfielder, he does his job excellently.
His lack of shooting ability doesn't affect his tackling and breaking up of play.
Why pick fault in something that doesn't need to be picked at.
Morgan can't shoot very well either, i don't see you slagging him off
I think you are SOOOOOOOO wrong with this one - of course it matters.
Despite the solid chacteristics Monty has, his workrate, his loyalty(?), his tackling etc. he is a highly one-dimensional player and this is at the heart of why we haven't progressed in recent seasons. Playing in central midfield demands more from a player than any other position; they have to be athletes, they typically cover more distance during a match than any other position, they have to be able to tackle, they need to be mobile and they need to win the ball, they need to read the game quickly and have a great positional sense in terms of their own game but especially in relation to their central midfielder partner. They need a great first touch, the ability to pass, short and long and the ability to shoot.
All good teams have good central midfielders.
At the moment (and for as long back as I care to remember, certainly since Brown and McCall) we have had a severely handicapped central midfield.
Essentially at the moment Monty does the graft and either Quinn or Howard is expected to provide the creativity because as we all know neither of them is much kop at doing the spoiling work - But this is so weak and limiting - it doesn't work. Good midfield players are versatile, they can do it all and when you have this the whole team looks better balanced. They create space for each other, they can pick teams open, creating chances for themselves and others, they cover for each other. None of this happens very often for us at the moment, in reality we have 2 half players in central midfield and until we replace both of them we ain't going anywhere.
The best defensive midfielder playing in England at the moment is Essien, he's got it all and it's laughable to suggest that it would not be important to Chelsea if he couldn't pass, had a crap first touch and couldn't shoot. If he sees an opportunity to attack he will take it, forcing the opposition to close him down thus creating space for Lampard, Ballack etc. safe in the knowledge that they can also cover him if things break down.
When Monty gets the ball, far to often he will either play a poor ball and lose possession or he passes about 5 yards to (usually) Quinn or Howard, they are closed down at once and the quality of ball that is delived is often poor and our play breaks down. This basic pattern happens so often it is utterly unbelievable that it hasn't been the number 1 priority for the manager to correct. The fact that he has not successfully done this makes me and plenty of others think that, despite results, he isn't up to the job. If we were to get promoted without solving this we would come straight back down again as we did under Warnock, who also failed to replace McCall and Brown. Ironically Robson saw this and in Hendrie and Speed he bought 2 all round central midfielders who could have bossed our play but circumstances contrived against us and it was never allowed to develop.
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