We are not going to find a better CB this late into the window. Not urgent for me. Other positions need bolstering, our CB's just need more drills.
I'd be very concerned if we get to 1 Feb having not signed a CB. But forward players, at least two, are still a bigger priority in my view.
If we made do with Yoshida and Stephens from Jan last year on wards, I think we will be ok with Hoedt, Stephens and Yoshida for the rest of this season.
From memory last year, we didn't have too many away games post January against sides from 8th downwards. But in what we did have, we still conceded three against Watford and two against Swansea. Sunderland and Boro were pretty dire, particularly in attack. This time, we've got some monumentally important away games still to come against such sides. They might not look at attack us at SMS, but they surely will at their own place (as I have just said on the matchday thread). Yes that should help us to score, but I'd still rather go in with as strong a defence as possible in order to try and combat them coming at us. (And besides, Maya - and for that matter, Romeu in front of them - isn't playing at the level he did last season. Firmly back to his old, error-strewn self I believe)
"Made do" is the right verbiage, though. There was a significant difference in our defensive performance with and without VVD last year: 23 goals in the 21 matches he started, 25 goals in the 17 matches he did not. We had better really improve our attack if we're comfortable leaking goals at our current rate.
Make do with our defence which has got considerably worse since we sold a guy that leads the back four isn't a good thing. Cb and two attacking players please
Our CB errors aren't purely down to skill level, it's obviously poor positional coaching etc. Wouldn't matter who was playing with some of the mistakes that have been made.
‘Considerably worse’ - Van Dijk was crap this season anyway. We could do with another CB in the long term, but Hoedt, Stephens and Maya are better than almost all the defences down there in my view. Bednarek is still here also. And Gardos. Not good obviously but we have numbers there. Plus McCarthy has given me more confidence.
It's unfortunate that we'd be panic buying, rather than having anticipated this need and been in on such a creature long before VVD was sold.
We bought Wesley Hoedt. And we either show faith in Jack Stephens or we let him go. Defending is something you do as a team anyway. Having the right keeper, and the right guy to sit in front of the back 4 is equally important as the right CB pairing. With the emphasis on pairing.
Van Dijk really wasn't crap from what I saw. He wasn't as good as the first half of last season when he was bloody brilliant but he was far from crap.
