Quote Originally Posted by HughieG View Post
It’s fair to say that Tonali can do it all as well. Most knowers describe him as a mix between Pirlo and Gattuso as he is just as skilled going forward as he is in the defensive part of the game. So it would be a shame to look at him purely as a holding/ball-winning midfielder, but I agree that he should be positioned at 6/DM as a point of departure.
Agreed, he looks like another Bruno (or did in the little time we got to see him), but his play against Villa first game of the season was box to box.

I think that might be why midfield balance looked off for most of the time he did play… with Bruno / Tonali / Big Jo all looking to go forward and all looking to defend it was never clear who should do what… a bigger Gerrard/Lampard problem?… so it never looked like Howe has a clear No 6 role for Tonali while he played.