Da Squad - Part III

Time to turn to the midfielders.

Sixten Boström's idea of playing football is 4-3-3, always, where the three midfielders are all playing centrally, with three very defined roles: a holding midfielder that is the link to the back four, the running midfielder who is a box-to-box player who needs to go deep and he is supposed to get into a finishing position centrally, and a playmaker.

The beginning of this season will see us play with the same three as we did most of last season, i.e. Kihlberg, Bedoya, Gerzic.  But I think we may see more rotation as the season progresses.

Holding midfielder:
First choice: Magnus Kihlberg. "Kihlen" is not getting any younger. Rather, he will be 38 when the season is over.  I don't see him play anywhere near 40 games before then, but Magnus is the backbone and we should use him regularly until his replacement is ready to fly.  This, together with the Wowoah's defensive game, is probably our weakest spot this season.  Kihlberg tends to play with constant feet injuries which hampers his otherwise good shot, and he has no pace at all.  But as long as he wins the ball, balances the midfield and distributes the ball with easy passes, we should be ok.  And you can trust him to do that.

Second choice: I will put Emil Berger here and Erik Nilsson elsewhere, although this may be Nilsson's ideal position.  We will see, at least Boström seems to have opted for Berger here in the pre-season.  Berger is not yet 20, and a big talent who we hope to see more of this season.  Will he be ready to fill the shoes of Kihlen already this season? Too early to tell.  I guess Boström may still prefer Nordback in this position, but I hope Berger gets chances early on.

For the less Örebro-knowledgeable, Emil has an interesting story to tell.  He is the son of Henrik Berger, legend of local rivals Degerfors IF. Signing for Örebro is not populär out in the wild west of the region, and Degerfors were quick to ban Emil from playing last autumn after he signed for Örebro 2011 already last summer. Last time Örebro signed a player from Degerfors it was Daniel Tjernström. I'd settle for a success like that.

Running midfielder:
First choice: For as long as we can keep him, Alejandro Bedoya.  Apparently the recent rejection from U.S. coach Bradley did him good - Alejandro made a man of the match performance against Elfsborg yesterday and is looking promising, very promising, for this season.  In particular, he did this, which is exactly what he did not do enough last season.  Don't listen to them, Ale, you can hit the ball quite neatly.

Only problem here is Alejandro is likely to leave us this summer, and I'm not sure how to deal with that.  Hopefully we should get a good amount of money for him, €1.5 million or so (that is a lot for our club, trust me).  But finding a replacement for a central position midseason is far from ideal.

Second choice: It is hard to say a bad word about Fredrik Nordback.  The Finn has proven his loyalty over and over, and I think he will not have a big problem spending most of this season on the bench.  But is he ready to step in as a regular if Bedoya leaves this summer? Not sure.  He can run forever but he is not a high class footballer, and we need quality here.  Perhaps Berger/Nilsson can take this position, although they are not natural runners in the same way.

Playmaker:
First choice: of course Nordin Gerzic.  He has not had the best of pre-seasons with an anooying virus that clearly hampered him during his first spell with the national team.  But he created Hysén's goal for Sweden against South Africa  and he set up a goal yesterday.  Lot's of pressure on his shoulders, but he should be happy to have the new quality players around him that he has asked for.  We are just waiting for an extension of the contract, very soon.  I don't think Nordin is going anywhere this summer if he just gets a slightly bigger pay check.

Second choice: It seems as if Erik Nilsson will get his chances here if/when Nordin is injured or suspended (he tends to get a few reds and yellows).  And Nilsson's pre-season shows that his left foot has developed and that his self-confidence has grown.  But he is far behind Nordin still, and over all more an all-rounder midfielder than someone cut for this position.

Overall, our midfield will be top notch if we have Bedoya and Gerzic available.  If one of them is absent, this is our weakest link.