Maybe everyone is right and Firpo will never be good enough but currently he's the best option we have and therefore should play. Definitely should start against Brentford and then let's see where we are after that. Potentially the lad has a goal in him and maybe a few assists as well so let's hope his positive contibutions at least cancel out any defensive mistakes. For the record though all defenders make errors, it's 100% inevitable and goes with the territiory, the best however manage to keep them to a minimum.
But…. We might as well play another left sided midfielder, very rarely will you see Firpo actually in the position you’d expect to see a LB when the opposition is in attack, maybe it’s the coach telling him to do this. For me, his worse attribute is positional sense and meandering back when we’ve lost possession
I think when Cooper is fit, we'll see Cooper at LCB and Wober at LB. Obviously both carrying knocks at the moment but I think that will be the preferred left hand side of defence.
I wonder how many games per season does cooper miss through injury. Seems a lot. Thirty percent maybe. Hard to get a settled Defence when lads are missing that often
The biggy for me is that not only injuries but he gives penalties away and gets himself booked a lot which means suspensions too.
Alan Nixon stirring the Joffy pot today by saying Wigan deal not done yet and he’s never seen a list as long as this for a loan player. He said these clubs need to get real if they want him and offer serious cash for the loan if they want to beat Wigan?
Considering had to basically give him to us for near nothing as they were skint you’d wonder would their finances have improved much in intervening couple of years. Can they afford him and also don’t see what he’ll gain from playing at bottom team in championship
Yeah, he misses a few and Marsch said in a presser last week that they 'manage' his training schedule to give him the best chance of being available. So it sounds like he misses training, or some aspects of training, just to try and get him on the pitch on Saturdays. That's tough. Missing sessions and then trying to play at your peak on a weekend. Paul McGrath did it for years but let's be honest, Cooper is no McGrath. Sounds like I'm ****ting on Coops there but it's clear that he's a good honest pro and a great skipper. He's just struggled at this level and to miss sessions doesn't help him try and survive in the PL. Maybe Wober is the long term solution at LCB, I dunno tbh.
My gut when they signed wober was stop gap left back for the remainder of the year, longer term left cb… with the flexibility to cover both and emergency dm duties. Nothing wrong with most of that, just feel we need a dedicated left back option…. Marsch likes his full backs to create overloads, so they need to bomb forward and back… can’t see Max doing that efficiently at this level.
Just on the basis of our time in the Premier League (including this season) Cooper has played 62% of those games Koch has played 55% Llorente has played 54% Struijk has played 77% Ayling has played 80% Firpo has played 50% Dallas has played 77% (obviously no games so far this season)
Then he needs replacing because, without wanting to sound brutal, he isn’t good enough to warrant that kind of treatment.
Decent stats Aski as usual but would add that Koch and Llorente were always competing for the same birth and factor in Struijk who has played at DM and LCB so explains his higher output. Basically we have too many CBs competing but when Cooper fit he tends to play I suspect if we had one less CB you would see a much higher number for whoever that was?
We must be mad if we sell Charlie The future of the club is in younger rather than the older ie those who lack pace and have to resort to shirt pulling those who are taking up valuable wages etc
I don’t know if we sell cresswell or even want to, but to be fair, the club see these guys in training every day and have a better idea who will make it than we do. How many of the guys we’ve let go have ripped up trees elsewhere? Still time for that to happen obviously, there’s always the odd Newcastle/Ivan Toney example… but not many that we’ve voluntarily let go that have gone on to great things
Or maybe something to do with headcount, salaries or potential upside in sales? Always remember Orta saying that Chelsea have revenue stream from their academy….. it sounded like he was a bit envious?
yeh Doc,, Orta's mentor was Monchi at Seville, and his philosphy was build up the academy and develop a huge scouting network... with a buy young and upsell strategy. Orta tried to bring it in at boro and then did bring it in here. I'm sure he is jealous of chelsea's revenue stream but fairs fair... i think Orta has done well with the youth. I think most of us assumed that cresswell was a 'keeper' who was going out for experience to come back and either be integrated into the first team squad or sold for a profit... same with drameh, hjelde, joffy, Bate maybe... then you have some where it feels like it's just a shop window thing.. Poveda? And others where it's just a pre-cursor to moving them on.
Pace isn't Charlie's greatest attribute either mate. Not sure if we will or even should sell but, I think he will have a decent career. However, didn't cause me to go wow like the first time I saw Woody play
Cresswell for me was a brilliant replacement for Hugo Diaz and his partnership with Casey was a solid wall. Drameh on his right and Huggins/Davies on his left was a fantastic hurdle for opponents to try and breach. Charlie is a born leader and very competitive. However as Eire says and Marcos hints at, we just don’t know if he is what we need in a year or two? So if we get a decent cash offer then it would be wise to sell him and allow him to make his own career work for him. if he goes no doubt he will leave with the best wishes of the fans and club
