Ever Banega could return as holding midfielder against Cagliari. The Argentine has not started an away match since the trip to Palermo. The Corriere dello Sport it raises the possibility: “Banega knows very well that he is not experiencing the season that he imagined and is finding it difficult adapting to a league that gives you less opportunity to think about than the Spanish one, but he is convinced that he can be decisive in the final part of this season and if Pioli will give him a chance against Cagliari, he will try to exploit it.”
Source: FcInterNews.it
The only position he can be useful in – I´d been saying it ever since his first games; he´s passes are great, the long ones as well but he tends to touch the ball 4-5 times before passing it which is a “no-can-do” as an attacking midfielder in Italy!
Playing him as a regista would hopefully help Kondogbia/Mario and Gagliardini out in creating our play and keeping possession.
Banega needs to be played further up the pitch, not further back! He’s a number 10 and needs to be behind Icardi! His issue has been that he isn’t used to working in the tight spaces around the box in Serie A due to the superior man marking over La Liga, but he showed glimpses that he is getting better at finding space against Bologna. He provided the secondary assist for Gabi’s goal by shaking off 2 initial markers, dribbling around a third, then finally beating another two defenders with the pass to D’Ambrosio. We don’t have another player that is capable of beating that many opponent players during a single play, and he could prove to be the difference maker we’ve been looking for. At the very least he deserves a chance. We can certainly afford his minor defensive liabilities against a team like Cagliari, especially if the two pivots behind him are on their game!
He actually started out as a “regista” in Argentina and in his first years in Spain too… the only position I see him in for us, that of the “regista”.
That may be how he started, but that doesn’t mean it’s his best position now. This Inter can’t properly utilize a regista anyway: we’d have to use Kondogbia and Gagliardini next to Banega to make up for his lackluster defense, which would in turn inhibit his passing ability because they wouldn’t get in quality advanced positions. For a regista to truly pay off, you need A LOT of quality around him to do it, and we simply don’t have the proper pieces to make it work.
If we continue to play with 3 at the back that could provide the backing to Banega he needs – Juve with Pirlo as a regista and Vidal/Pogba and Marchissio who all were more box-to-box players and not destroyers…
I don’t believe we should continue playing with 3 at the back: it takes far too much away from Candreva going forward, where he has already been limited this season. You can’t compare Banega to Pirlo or Joao Mario/Gagliardini/Brozovic/Kondogbia to Vidal/Pogba/Marchisio just because they can play the same roles, the quality is why Juve was so succesful, not just the setup.
pissing backward?