Joao Moutinho

[Quaresma]

Just a question for all of those who have seen him play a few times.

I was recently debating with some people about his overall quality and play, and I hold the firm belief that he will never be a top quality player because of his lack of size.

A few games he seems fantasitc, as some of his performances in the Champions League like vs Bayern Munich, United, and Roma have been very impressive and he showed flashes of real quality..

However in some other matches against tough strong and big midfielders, like vs Serbia when playing for Portugal he just seems to get smothered and literly pushed around.

For those of you who have seen him a few times, for exmaple united and roma fans in the CL etc..

What do you think about him and his midget like status hampering his future?

This isnt in the Portugeuse forum because I want as many broad unbiased viewpoints as possible.

[canadianscout]

I believe that is holding him back, for sure. He is, if I am not mistaken, around 5'7" and that isn't necessarily an incredibly small stature for football. He does seem quite weak on the ball at times, but that could be improved with coaching. Take for instance Anderson and Tevez for Manchester United, both small in stature (although defiantly more bulky then Moutinho) but use shielding techniques incredibly well. Great player though. He could use Fabregas as a model, I found their vision and play fairly similar in their younger days.

[Ricardo Kaka']

Paul Scholes is one of the best attack minded CM's in the world and he's small. Just gotta work around it