Weekly News Roundup- auf Wiedersehen Misimovic- Diego vs Misimovic !

So we have been spending the most part of the week training our eyes on the nothingness of football’s “Inter-lull” due to the first round of EURO 2012 qualifiers. The only important news of note is the departure of Bosnian playmaker “Misimovic to Galatasaray on the final day of the transfer window. In a way, seeing him leaving is not a big shock to the fans as we already knew that signing Diego will surely limit his playing time/role within the team. As I mentioned before, it seems like McClaren/Hoeness prefer to bring their own players and may be they envisage the urge to kick start a new cycle with this team.

The question now what fits the team better? , the playmaking skills of Misimovic or the Brazilian talent of Diego? On the one hand, in terms of stardom criteria, Diego checks all the marks ,at least on the Bundesliga level if not the international level. He performed consistently well in his three years with Werder Bremen and showed up in the Champions League and that’s the place where the Wolves aspire to compete on regular basis. Diego also looks like a more proactive than Misimovic when it comes to scoring goals a point I will revisit later in this post. On the other hand, Misimovic creativity was a a perpetual source of goals, particularly during his Wolfsburg days, and he struck perfect understanding with the prolific front pairing of the last three seasons of Dzeko & Grafite. The figure below clarifies the goal and assist records of the two players in the league over the last four seasons.

From the figure above, it is obvious that Deigo’s record was superior during 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 season but we have to note that while he was plying his trade in Bremen, Misimovic was a playmaker for much lesser teams; Bochum and Nurenberg respectively. Moreover, the stats prove that the 4-4-2 system deployed firstly by Magath and later by Veh made great use of Misimovic’s ability to create goals especially last season where he assisted 18 goals. In a way Diego’s goal record,with the exception of his aberration of a season at Juve, classifies him as a striker or at least as a deep lying forward who is playing in the hole. Conversely, Misimovic can be regarded as an attacking central midfielder who plays at the tip of midfield diamond.

Conclusion
McClaren looks set to use a 4-2-3-1 system regularly and he sees Diego as the attacker in the middle of the “3″. His dribbling ability and his eye for goal arriving late into the box should ensure plenty of goal scoring chances but whether this system would make the full use of Dzeko’s ability remain to be seen even if they combined superbly to destructive effect in the first half of last week’s defeat against Mainz.
Let’s hope our wait for the Bundesliga to resume will end very soon!
Cheers!

Category: Wolfsburg Team News