No One Tells Alan Dzagoev What To Do

By: Daryl | November 27th, 2008

So this Alan Dzagoev kid is giving me trouble. I wanted a young and exciting attacking midfielder, but what I got was a surly teenager who speaks no English.

Or so he says.

I’d mentioned previously that he’s trying too many though balls and giving away possession, and that the fans regard my decision to spend £6.75m of their hard earned beer money on this punk as “an aberration”.

So I very politely asked him (via the “preferred moves” category) to “play a more simple passing game.” Here’s the response I got:

After being encouraged to take up a more simple passing game by manager Daryl Grove, Alan Dzagoev responded in a negative manner.

Dzagoev revealed that he doesn’t believe learning such a skill would be beneficial to him and that it wouldn’t improve his game much at all.

Pretty eloquent for someone who allegedly speaks no English, eh? But eloquent or not, both myself and the fifty-odd thousand Geordies who pay to watch you play think that you not giving the ball straight to the opposition every time you get it probably would be beneficial to your game. No?

So, I tried a different, more direct approach and asked Dzagoev to stop playing attempted through balls. And again, the response was:

After being encouraged to stop playing attempted through balls by manager Daryl Grove, Alan Dzagoev responded in a negative manner.

Dzagoev revealed that he doesn’t believe learning such a skill would be beneficial to him and that it wouldn’t improve his game much at all.

Maybe a spell in the reserves would be more beneficial to you Alan?

But I did come up with a compromise. Rather than asking Dzagoev to stop doing what comes natural to him (even though I want to break his face every time he does it) I’ve just asked him to try something else altogether. My third and final request is that he put his dribbling skills to use (he has a 15 rating for dribbling and is only 18) and run at people through the middle. I figure he can’t do that and try a through ball at the same time. Response from Alan:

After being asked to run with the ball through the middle by Daryl Grove, Alan Dzagoev has responded in a positive manner.

Dzagoev said he will work on this aspect of his game over the coming months in order to hopefully expand his game.

You do that Alan.