Hi guys new to the forum and wanted to ask a debatable question with a handful of Chelsea fans. So here it is

Is Cesc Fabregas an Attacking Midfielder or a Defensive Midfielder. I have a select few friends who debate this question could you all give your opinions.

Thanks.

In no shape or form is he a DM.

 

He can play deep, alongside a DM, but that's quite another thing.

He plays as a CM

Hi dave.

So would you say his an Attacking Midfielder or more or less plays the Box 2 box role. Where his role is to assist attack and defence.

Cheers

Hi dave.

So would you say his an Attacking Midfielder or more or less plays the Box 2 box role. Where his role is to assist attack and defence.

Cheers

 

There are people on here with more tactical knowledge than me, hopefully they will help you out.

 

He's a midfielder, that's all I know.

 

He's a great playmaker but in the tougher games you'd need bodies around him or risk getting overrun.

 

Jose says he can play number 4 or number 10 in our current formation.

 

Arsenal had him playing as a number 8, as far as I know, same position we played Lampard basically.

 

I hope I've got that right.

Difficult to say. He's a deep lying playmaker but he also loves to get involved higher up the pitch.

Normally DLP's  always stay behind the front four but Fabregas likes to act as an attacking midfielder and actively interchange with the 3 AM's. 

 

I'd say he's a deep lying playmaker with the positional freedom of an attacking midfielder, when we have the ball.

When we don't have the ball, he's a DM (positionally). He and Matic sit in front of our defense and protect our back four.

If you had to give him a position, it would be CM. A CM by nature is more box-to-box than an AM or DM because they're typically more well-rounded players.

But as others have said, his role is to make plays, and roles are more indicative of what a player does in a squad than positions are.

We need his creativity in the last 1/3rd (No.10) to open stubborn defences but Mourinho prefers an Oscar in that role in order to press teams higher up the field.

 

I just think we should try 4-4-2 more often and play Fabregas as CM with Remy and Costa running in behind, I really think we should deploy this formation more often next season against weaker oppositions. We should definately fine tune it as a secondary option during the pre-season

In Football Manager terms, he's a deep-lying advanced playmaker.

More or less the same rope Pirlo has for Juventus.

Plays from deep but is a playmaker rather than a defensive role.

As others have said he's a deep-lying playmaker, but he's actually underrated defensively and also in terms of his workrate. Really can get stuck in, but primarily he's there to get us moving when we win back possession and he sits 25 yards out and dictates play when we're looking to break teams down.

Perhaps the question should be what is his best position and are we using him to the best of his abilities? I guess the assist numbers would suggest so, even if there have been some complaints about the lack of goals.

I think he is a lot more mobile than Pirlo to be honest, and while he is good at dictating play from deep, he's definitely not your archetypal 'regista' and he also gets involved further forward more often. He's like a beacon or a relay point, he starts a move from deep and then advances up the field to receive the ball at the end of it or if it ends up going nowhere. I think in most games (unless he is playing further forward or we are playing more reactively) Fabregas will usually be the player on the pitch who has the most touches.

 

He's like a mixture of Pirlo, Modric and to some extent Lampard, a fantastic all-round central midfielder who can string passes from deep, act as a link-up man in the middle or stick in a final ball for a forward to attack, but not as good as any of those three at the specific thing that they do.

 

I don't think you can necessarily pigeonhole players (especially ones as good as Fabregas) into a specific role or a single area of the field. I think the implied staticity of players that you get from the depiction of a team in a picture of their formation or from games like Football Manager lead to a fundamental misunderstanding of what it is they do. In a depiction of our 4-2-3-1 Fabregas might be next to Matic but they certainly don't play the same role, and don't necessarily even patrol the same part of the pitch (particularly on the ball). Take Hazard for example, depicted as a left winger in a 4-2-3-1 but in reality he spends most of his time in the middle of the pitch, the same is largely true of Willian too.

 

Take this picture of our 'average positions' against Stoke, bearing in mind that it's not even the most reliable measure of a player's role itself considering a player might swap positions during a match or might have different roles to play in different parts of the field, but it might give you a general idea:

http://metro.co.uk/2015/04/08/chelsea-star-cesc-fabregas-set-for-surgery-on-broken-nose-after-clash-with-stokes-charlie-adam-5139701/?

Broken nose

http://metro.co.uk/2015/04/08/chelsea-star-cesc-fabregas-set-for-surgery-on-broken-nose-after-clash-with-stokes-charlie-adam-5139701/?

Broken nose

A wonky eye

There is definitely a down side to playing him in a midfield two, particularly in tougher fixtures , because positionally he is a liability, from a defensive point of view.

There is definitely a down side to playing him in a midfield two, particularly in tougher fixtures , because positionally he is a liability, from a defensive point of view.

 

True, but against most teams he's actually pretty good at reading the game, making interceptions and tackles and moving us forward quickly. 

 

It's teams who have a threat behind the striker that seem to cause issues. For those ones we can use someone like Zouma who did an excellent job in the cup final marking Eriksen out of the game.

 

 

Take this picture of our 'average positions' against Stoke, bearing in mind that it's not even the most reliable measure of a player's role itself considering a player might swap positions during a match or might have different roles to play in different parts of the field, but it might give you a general idea:

 

Shouldn't Tibo be outside the box in that picture

A wonky eye

Aaaaaannnnd goooldeeennnnnnn haaaaair

Based on my decade of experience in FM, I think he's best playing as the deep playmaker, pass long to the striker if he spots a gap, or pick up the ball from the defender, the first point of attack, or simply rotate or just  keep the ball. We are not very good at keeping the ball without him.

Basically a roaming playmaker if you want to get football manager like.