The Ashley Era Best XI

Assume you're talking about Jonas?
If you weren't ignore the following.

Are you ****ing joking? He was awesome. He played everywhere he was asked to play with 100% effort unlike most other degenerates who have played for us.
Not only that he excelled in most areas. Yes he has flaws like all the players playing for us under Ashley.
Not only that but for at least a season and a half he did his job and the job that Jose Enrique was meant to be doing. In fact he did this so well he got Jose Enrique a job at Liverpool where he was soon found out.

 

He's not as good as HBA or ASM though is he, it's not even close.

And he's just not a left back, as much as he did track back.

I know where you are coming from though and i love the bloke aswell

 

Technically not as good but in my opinion better than both.

HBA was a 1 in 10 man. That 1 game though was world class. The other 9 he was either anonymous or ****.

Same can be roughly said about ASM but it's hard to compare with him as ASM stands out due to the pure dross around him.

Jonas was a 7 out of 10 8 games in 10

 

Santon better than Enrique? Enrique is by far the best LB I've seen playing for us under the ashley era, no comparison really.

Santon was a mediocre defender and really a make shift LB cutting in on his right quite often to attack. He was good on the attack but not that great defensively.

Enrique had a difficult start but eventually turned out to be a solid defender. Him, Colo and Jonas developed a really strong left hand side defensively. He was also better than Santon in attack. Didn't score many but his crosses into the box were awesome.

 

I quite liked Santon but he was young when he was here, he hadn't matured.

 

I did toy with Enrique. We've watched a different Enrique though, to me he was actually pretty poor in attack. His crossing was average for me. Hit the first man a hell of a lot. He could be quite mechanical with the ball, his touch very average at times. He was excellent in the championship, but he was helped out an enormous amount defensively by the tireless Jonas in his best spell here.

I'm not having Santon as a mediocre defender when he was with us either, he was far better than that. Very versatile and very very slick. An excellent defender, but he was lightweight and easily injured. Wiped the floor with Enrique going forward, Santon was a quality threat. Just glided around and much more natural footballer than Enrique. As much a threat from cutting and feeding the ball infield as he was for his crossing, because we didn't really play that way.

All just opinions I suppose but I rated Santon highly and I think he offers better quality than Enrique.

 

Fair enough on attack, but I think a defender should be judged primarily on their defensive abilities, and I remember Enrique being solid for his final two seasons. Strong as an ox.

Which is why Liverpool poached him from us.

 

Aye I think Enrique did well defensively after a really rocky start. I just think Jonas takes a huge amount of the credit. Enrique basically had a defensive winger in front of him. Santon benefitted from that at times too but then he'd have a forward in front of him too as we were changing a little.

I did consider Raylor to be honest. I think his time here is still vastly underrated - right and left. Quality on the ball and made more defensive blocks than Enrique and Santon put together. Raylor would chuck himself in the way no questions asked. That run where we went 11 games unbeaten at the start of the season we finished 5th was built on Raylor and Simpson blocks. Simpson was another I considered before going for the quality of Debuchy. In terms of highest performance levels, Simpson defensively has never been bettered by another right back since in my opinion. He took a lot of stick and was limited, but the lad was a great defender.

 

Raylor was a good free kick taker and crosser of the ball, but relied heavily on Jonas supporting him defensively. He was so ****ing slow lol

 

He was slow but then so was Zabeleta. Obviously dead balls etc were great. But to me it was his and Simpsons defending which stood out. People forget. The blocking was superb and its a basic of defending long forgotten at times. Debuchy could be great to watch, but you never got that never say die commitment that you got from those two. I was pleased for Simpson when he won the league title, it really did silence his naysayers once and for all. As you mentioned earlier, first and foremost look at defending, Simpson and Raylor were natural defenders.