 Welcome to Toffey TV. Today we are going to have a chat about this man. Hames Rodríguez, who has been fantastic since coming in from rail and did obviously a lot of chat about whether or not he will be able to cut it in the Premier League. There was obviously some worries over injuries and everything else but it's fair to say he's been rather good this season. Technically, technically one of the best footballers I think I've ever watched in a blue shirt, if not the best. Technically. People try to kick him and say things like, they kick him on the pitch but try to kick him off it by saying he doesn't do this and he doesn't do that. But with players of his quality, don't you just have to accept that? That's just part of who they are because it's all the good stuff that they do. Outweighs the other stuff. Do you think that's fair? Yeah, I think you've got to appreciate the moment he is in his career, where he is and why we got him and what he has to offer us and take the positives and put them next to the negatives. And I'm sure that that's what we're going to look at now and understand that the positives massively outweigh the negatives. And when you've got a manager that loves a player, that understands his role in the team and that moment. And I think as well in the dressing room, and I think this is really important, I think in the dressing room you have to have a set of players that also appreciate a player and also know that they might have to just do that little tiny bit extra because of what he doesn't do maybe defensively. Maybe after seven, eight games the deficiencies of him being in the team and other teams working it out started to creep in but then we had to go away and maybe look at the situation and obviously we did and he didn't play in a lot of games over December. So it's been a laying care for a lot of people but I think when you've got a player like him, he's your talisman and you've got to cherish that I think as a football club. Yeah, 100%. He's been fantastic. Let's just get on to his actual overall stats for the season. So he's played 20, he's been involved in 21 games. He started 19 of them. He's scored five goals and has got eight assists. His passing accuracy is 87% and his average minutes per game is 78 minutes. I mean when you've got five goals and eight assists from midfield I mean last year we'd be moaned at, didn't we? The other thing as well which I think is really interesting is look at this. This is his heat map which for the season so far which basically he's... He's on fire. He's literally on fire. He's literally on fire. He's all over the pitch isn't he? Absolutely. He's literally on fire. That's incredible. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. I see him like that, like you said, there are five goals and eight assists. I mean we sat in the summer and went through evidence midfield last season. You know, Bernard I think was the top goalscorer of him with three goals and he had two assists. Nobody else. He got a penalty light on in the season and took his tally up to three I think for the season as well. After that, you know, one and none for the rest of our midfield. And he's like, oh he's with no goals and stuff like that. So to bring someone in who's that creative, that was including the wide players as well. Not including the Charleston because he was up top at that time, but including people like Theo Wolcott, Alex Obobi himself, Anthony Gordon who played a few. To bring someone in who's already had that kind of impact with those goals from midfield. And a couple of key goals at Old Trafford, which brought it back to two-two, was an important goal. Well all those goals have meant something haven't they? They've all won us points. All those goals have won us points. A couple against Brighton and a goal against West Brom and a goal at Old Trafford and a goal against Leicester. They've all meant something. They've all won us points. They've all been hugely important. He scored the right times and there's been moments where maybe he could have scored more or keepers made a good save or whatever. But I think having that ability to have a midfielder who does actually stack, who is creating something, who can change a game, that's the most important thing. It's a player who can change the game. He's seen that from day one at first. A player who's suddenly changed the way we played and there hasn't always flowed like that this season. And the manager's now starting to pick moments when to play and when not to play and when it's more valuable than others. Again, I think that keeps moving on. I think the team's starting to change as well. We've seen that heat map then and how it starts on the right and then starts slowly drifting over. He's at number 10. That just happens to start on the right for us. Now that might start to change as we start going maybe as other players. The defence starts settling down. We had a three strong midfielders when Allen comes back and maybe he can sit in front of them. Maybe the full backs can do the wide work and then that might allow for two up front and suddenly he's got two options. I think he creates a very flexible situation around them and it's just about getting the most out of them, it really is. Definitely. You're talking about his position there. This is the game so far. 21 games. He's played 30 in a dose at right forward, off the right hand side. He's played four in that number 10 position. He's played two just a bit further back as one of the three midfield players and he's had two substitute appearances. From that, this is his assists. From right forward six assists have come from that role. The number 10, which was an assist, which was around the field of the weekend. But he's been involved, that's that at the bottom. He's been involved in 17 goals so far this season that I haven't scored, which is incredible. He's joined top of the pre-assist list, which is obviously the pass before the assist. You're talking there about obviously him drifting inside. We'll have a little look at that in a minute, which he does well. But there's also been a little drop-off from him because he's had injuries. He was injured by Van Dijk in the Dabi and the Datswchham. He was out for a few weeks with Dan. He seemed to take a bit of time to get over that and then he came back in and then he's had another couple of things and he was out for a, you know, missed a lot of games over Christmas, came back on New Year's Day. And he's had obviously the calf injury of late. Do you think he gets enough protection from referees? Because we've seen notably, like Fulham at home and Newcastle at home, they quite clearly targeted kicking him. I mean, Newcastle took it in turns to put him on his backside in that game and really tried to ruffle his feathers. Do you think he gets enough protection or do you think that's just something that's highlighted of late? No, he doesn't get enough protection and this is what makes you laugh. You watch other teams and their players and their platoon style of letting the referee know what's just occurred. He gets kicked all over the place and he gets, okay, he might get the odd foul or the referee, you know, might say, but seeing it in Newcastle, there wasn't, the referee didn't sort of understood what was going on. And now they were taking turns to break it up and stop our best attacker or playmaker, whichever way you look at it now, and he doesn't, he doesn't get that at all. And I think the problem is, I think the opposition will probably feel, we've seen it, Liverpool one's the real key one and it makes me laugh and it still makes me laugh how certain people thought it was hilarious. We've seen it this way, we've seen Robertson say it away, go in and there is no protection and it's laughed off as well by the media and it's laughed off by commentators or letting them know he's in the game. You can't do that anymore. It's not the 80s, it's not the 90s. You can't let people know you're in the game. You can't go over off the ball and elbow somebody. And yeah, people keep on doing to him and it's, I think it's that idea of, if we get under his skin early, he will not want to be part of this game. He's not, he's not one of those players where it's like, get into him, he'll go round and do something stupid. He's not that kind of player. I think the idea is, start kicking him and he might not have a sulk. I think that's the wrong way of looking at it. I think he's the kind of player that someone keeps kicking him, he's probably just going to go, what am I going to do? Or, because of his injury there, it's like, well, I can see what's going to happen. These are going to kick me until I get an injury. And we've seen that for Columbia, haven't we, when he's playing Columbia, when he's playing? When we signed him and obviously he had a few Columbia games early on and we were all watching him and we were like, nervously. He does get kicked all over the place but I don't think it's the case of he goes down to him like that, but he does, he's a player who picks up injuries and you've got to be very careful with him and I think that's that thing of, I think he went, who did he go off against? He went off against Fulham, I think, and people criticised him. I'm not sure if it's just done him. And actually I don't even think he wanted to come off, I think the manager just took him off. But I think it's that thing of, if we kick him long enough, they'll have to make a decision because they don't want him to be out of games because he is susceptible to injuries. And he's such a good player that if we can get him taken out of the game by the manager then we've done what we've done and that's where he doesn't get the protection, that's where, as I said, that little shit house the other day for them. I don't know, that's what he is, we all know who he is. He done that straight away, he's in to say, and Van Dyck done it. So clearly he's been targeted in both games, home and away, and the one at Godderson, it did have an effect on him. It's a terrible talent. Yeah, it was. It was done twice in a couple of minutes. Van Dyck could have easily been sent off. And if it had gone on, if Van Dyck had gone on during the game, it would have been interesting to see. But obviously we know what the narrative of that, and it happened against Liverpool at Amfield. He tried to do him straight away, as in to say, I'll show you. And luckily enough it didn't really have an effect on him. But it did for weeks after the knickers, obviously. In the home game, yeah? He was injured, doesn't he? You just touched on something there, about the way you play. So just wanted to have a little look at this. And there's obviously Everton, a flat line up there. And that's the idea, isn't it, for Hammers to drift into that central area there, to try and get Leucadine coming on that side. And then hopefully the Charleston joins you with things. And this is something that we've seen him doing regularly. He likes to find that pocket of space there. So he moves into that area. And I think the only... I think it's great, because I think it becomes really difficult to pick him up and to mark him when he drops into that pocket of space. The only thing we found this season is obviously Seamus Coleman has no way of being very able to use more attacking. Mason Holgate doesn't really overlap. So I think that's maybe an area that Everton needs to look at. And I'll link to it Max Aran. That's why, I mean, I've consistently shared, I think we need a right back to come in who can get up and down. Because look at the minute he goes in there, look at all that space that's going to create on that right hand side. Well, yeah, well, just say you're on just the direction and you can talk, because this is where the highlight is. Well, look at that, just say to where you can see that. Look at the way, yeah, look at the way Dean. And we've seen, I think we've seen against Fulb, how well it worked when we had a Wobie playing sort of as a wing back. And a Wobie took that space in really well. And a Wobie can do that. I think a Wobie can do that, but... Could a Wobie could be converted to a right back? Cos I think that could be an ideal position for him. But it shows there, Dean, we've seen against Fulb. A Wobie would start on the outside, on the right. Come in the inside, he'd give it to Hamas o Rodriguez. And then look at Dean was bombing wide. Then you had Richard, sitting in the box, you had the Corey bombing into the box as well. And suddenly you've got an overload. You've got an overload on both sides. And I think this is the way we're missing out on the right back at the moment. Because Sheamus Coleman in the early games, you could see that's what the plan was. And it was brilliant. But the problem was, Sheamus Coleman's body caught up with him. And he clearly can't continue doing that. Mason Olegate is a defender, a proper defender. You'll sometimes hit that space, but he doesn't know what to do with the space. If you've got someone going forward, and then someone like Tom Davis can drop in it right back, then suddenly we're overloading on both sides. And because he's so talented as a football, essentially, then he's got options right and left. And the opposition wouldn't know what to do with them. He's got Dominic Arvind Llewman, he's got Richard Lawson ahead of him. Suddenly that's the ideal scenario. The opposition wouldn't know what to do with that scenario. And that's what we've got to start creating. But that will only happen with better players, I think. Yeah, definitely. I mean, we saw that earlier in the season, West Brom and Jalvin around when he drifted into that and played that rainbow pass to Retialis and he knocked it across and Dominic Arvind Llewman scores. But he does cause the opposition a problem when he's on the right because he does drift into that area. And it is the case if do I go with them as the left back, or do we pass them onto them in the field? And I think, if Everton did have that three in midfield and the core, he could go and join that space as well, it really would clog up where they wanted to, who they are to post them up because the core, he could act as a distraction. But in that area, in that pocket of space, he's a handful, isn't he, because his ability to pass the ball. You've got it. The way you've got to look at it is I think is when we play with three off front and it is a proper three and you've got a proper midfield, you shouldn't be asking any of those front three to come back. You should have enough in midfield and enough defence early to cope. Because they should occupy four players, really. So really they should be dragging people back. The thing is, he goes wandering, and that's fine because when he goes wandering, he's taking people with him. But you've got to ask somebody who goes past them and nearly on it worked perfectly. Opposition teams didn't know what to do. But then when we played Liverpool, you could see it straight away. He just started overloading, he was coming now and he wouldn't come back. I think the problem has been is the rest of our midfield has been when it's not made up of energetic players or players didn't know their roles properly, it was getting on top of them. So when we had Alan Decore and said Gomez, Gomez is he lumbers, really doesn't he lumbers on the team. He doesn't really sprint anywhere. When Tom Davis is sitting in front of the back four and you've got Decore, and you've got two people who know the jobs, now if you get Alan in there as well, suddenly you've got two players who are pressing, someone who's sitting, and it makes it hard, and we've seen how well actually Tom can sit in front of the back four and take the ball off the opposition and get us going by a simple pass. And it's, we've got to get it, and this is why I think I write back some importance, we've got to get it so that we're the ones with the advantage, not the disadvantage. And there has been times where playing Hammershead Vigas looks like a disadvantage, but it's not, it's just that, the make-up of this to the team, we saw this against Fulham, it's so slow that the players can't get back and that's where we need energetic players. Definitely, I mean, you just touched on it there, you know, the game, the Godderson Liverpool a target, that was Saturday, so it was brilliant from anti-lots, it was in Jamie Carrick who broke it down in his Coleman's position and he put Hammers as the split striker. Basically, and obviously, looked at that part of the space which we had before, and now you've got it. I mean, look how many, he's already attracted three-day midfield plays to the ball and then he's got that ability, Ritialasyn knows he's got the ability to feed it in and we know what happens. He slides that ball between Cavach and Henderson, Ritialasyn goes round the back and we win a moment. He's used in tandem with Ritialasyn's pace and movement, that gets us the goal. When you've got, and look at them, there's only one person in front of them, you've got, you know, it's all, the ball is the pace. This is what, this is what I'm saying, the ball is the pace there, so it's not about people are like, it's a slow play, it slows things down or blah blah blah, doesn't get back. They're the situations you want to create, you want to create those situations, you know, you look at Hannas Lodigus, Dacorey and Seamus Cormann here, if you take Seamus Cormann out of the equation there, suddenly he's got two plays to it and you're opening teams up and that actually, if you add Dom in the picture there and you've got the protection of three players there who are midfielders, then that's actually what's supposed to work, the protection of three, he's the right back Seamus Cormann this was early on in the game this was after the game of head tennis but it's the speed of these, ability will always be pace it does, you know, I know people love to, we need a team full of pace but ability, one pass can take out an entire back four, it does there that's an entire back four, look how narrow it is, there's seven players in that picture and then the goalie and we get the chance so there's eight players essentially in the space and we score and that's because that pass is so good one thing I will say if we get him into those spaces with Charleston's run is brilliant is this something Dominic Halvert-Lewins got to do more of because what I mean is is Dom showing with his back to goalie or is Dom wanting to be on shoulder because we know that Charleston want to be on shoulder the different players, that's where that's where they work so brilliantly last year and I tell you one goal that that showed that, it was the goalie against Crystal Palace to make it 2-1 was when the ball came long, it bounced and Dom just got a lovely little knock on it and he was away because he's forward facing but that's how a forward partnership is supposed to work and it would be interesting to see if we can get that going for the rest of the season all parts of the season, what you do have with Charleston running one way and I tell you another goal the goalie in space that Charleston has scored from the flicker Dom's facing our goal Charleston's facing their goal and it's worked but we saw it in that game also the ball by Sigarton with Charleston again, he's on the shoulder and I would say that is probably the difference between the two of them so that, I know it's all my hammers and diggers but that's something that maybe the manager but he'll be influential in that because he'll be sitting in the tent so what you're essentially saying is what the pitch is yo before is a formation we've got a back four and then we've got a three almost three flat midfielders but that consists of maybe Tom Davis, Alan and Decore then you've got hammers of the diamond really it enables us to play in the diamond I prefer more of a flat three because I don't think a diamond is a four, three, one, two you're looking at it what you're actually looking at is what you want is two three two, one, two you want your two centre backs with Tom Davis because I know I'm not really able to talk about them but Roberto Marner's had this boxed off in a way you had two centre backs with Gareth Barry sitting in front of them that was a triangle essentially you had two full backs okay you had it becomes a three, four, one, two doesn't it then you have the midfield of McCarty as well and then those full backs were always going forward and McCarty would come back and Gareth Barry would take the ball off the back four and that's what Tom Davis is starting to take the ball off the back four so you're already asking your full backs to get higher because he's taking the ball off them he's sucking them in and then he's looking for those options now if you've got Alan and Decore with that kind of industrial Tom sitting behind there would be no need for him to come back those full backs this is where this is where the right back and Max Arons has been talked about a lot someone like Max Arons where there would be Max Arons would change the way we play because he'd always be going that way and would never have we've sat down before and we were watching the highlights of buying Munich playing the Champions League and we were looking you're coming on one side I think for the fourth goal and it was Alfonso Davis was ready to slap it in you've got pace and there's no point of that to go we can hate these because that Davis is always no no if you've got a right back suddenly if you've got a man in the middle of the park and you can orchestrate it all you've got the intelligence to orchestrate how all this works it should work that's what I was driving at with Hammers just to finish off he has got that natural unbelievable ability so he doesn't need to be running here there and everywhere all over the pitch and you can get him on the ball in the pitch like we've just shown against Liverpool and you've got people making nuns for him and in the graphic we put up before where he's got two full backs he could destroy a lot of teams and if people do have to go and shit people on them then there's other people three and that's I think where you need the core eye as well what I actually think is interesting is is that if Everton played say four three, one, two and Everton were defending it would actually you could actually get away with the Charleston being the player who comes back and drops in rather than Hammers or Deegers dropping in so when the ball turns naturally I think the Charleston would drop but not interesting I just think he naturally would come back and defend anyway because he likes to go pick the ball up deep so it might actually become almost like a Christmas tree of four, three, two, one with the Charleston him occupying not the same space but because they both split strikers in a way so rather than being wide in a three wide couldn't be narrow so two split strikers and a main striker but that relies on your full backs though that's what he did at my land didn't he brought he had cacher and people won't really cost them people like that in the same team so that probably relies on a right back and it probably relies on having another midfielder who can get round the pitch as well and but he does give it, you said before he gives us that flexibility that we can play him as a wide right forward I think the only thing what we need to do if he's continuing to that needs coming into that pocket then I want to see the Charleston getting closer to Don even if we're playing a four, three, three and let Luca Dean be the wick because we've seen him come in and switch back ultimately you've got to say to the opposition we're better than you so we're going to play and we're going to push you back and once we hit the ball into this lad then he can do what he wants because he's so good and let them worry because I want to see him I do like the idea of the two strikers because I like the idea of it sometimes going longer to Don and he's cushing it down and he's the one running onto it on the edge of the box we know we can crack the ball we know that he can just slide you through and it's a goal but it comes down to pace doesn't it and other areas doesn't it like as I said the left back situation is pretty much shorter because Luca Dean's not explosively fast but he's very good at getting into it he's intelligent and he's good at getting good areas but a right back with pace that can get up but also get back and is always making the opposition think and always creeping creeping creeping so that Charleston and Don can be very central he can be central behind them and then suddenly you've got your full backs mate and that literally that's what Man City did that's what Liverpool do really well or have been doing really well it comes down to having that three midfield you can break the ball up and then having him coming into the coming in it's funny because he's coming dropping off Liverpool did that with Firmenial didn't he in a way he drops into that space and allows the other two to come from wide in I know that wouldn't be quite the same what we're talking about but it does get done Man City do it without a striker in a way so they have gundo on in there so I think there's still plenty to get out of him but he has to have better plays around them when you flood that midfield with Sigartons and Gomez's of the world it's slow and he gets caught up in that and he doesn't have plays run up can imagine he gets a touch and he looks up it's instinctive to give that ball to the Charleston but if the Charleston is not making the run then the seven players you take the Charleston out of that picture by the way he's got seven players around him and what are you going to do with it and that's the thing isn't it so that's where we need to start providing him let's be honest he's an absolute Rolls Royce and if you put your right if you stuck pacing along I'm adding his options the Charleston, Dom, Leucadine you know what I like about it though if you decorate that position for him Sigarton is a good backup that was going to finish because I know we've gone on a bit longer but I think it's worth doing because it's fantastic you're absolutely right there if he's in the squad I spoke to the play actually this morning because I found out the pre-assist stuff and it showed him the formation great and that could easily work but what do we do if he isn't available it's like you change the whole formation you can do, we've been very flexible this season and it's worked brilliantly and maybe that's the way to go to actually change the formation up time to time but you're right, Guilfee Sigarton can play that role and I think a Wobie because a Wobie travels with the Bull the Charleston is our best ball carrier the stats bear that out carries the ball farthest up the pitch so you're also putting two players in there who could also do that if you didn't want to change it up and say oh he's out it doesn't mean by the way we don't go and buy a winger as well in the summer because you want to have that flexibility to be able to go actually we're going to play 4-4-1-1 and the winger's going to be adding two more fielders today he's playing as a split striker and you're the pace you never want to go everything can only play this way to be honest I think that's probably the reason why I haven't won the derby at the weekend because it was something so different flexibility won it he's been absolutely phenomenal this season and due to the only cutting thing is we haven't been able to get in and watch him hopefully that's going to we're going to see a lot more but what a fantastic sign and he's been for nothing unbelievable and long making 5 goals, 8 assists all ready and there's still 14 league games left and a cup game so if he could get another 2 or 3 goals another couple of assists he will have had the phenomenal season for ever in football clubs there you go let us know what you think in the comments section below if you enjoyed watching Hamers Rodríguez this season where do you think his best position is can ever use him differently and maybe get those two strikers up front if you like Hamers Rodríguez give this video a like that's it, it's very simple so far there you go we'll see you later then take it easy adios