You are 100% right. Clyne was at fault for Bale's goal. Not heard the "ghosted" expression for ages; perfect description. When you can give such a good analysis as this one, why do you have to be a prat with all the other posts. There is no negativity in your post, just an opinion and analysis. Also, Clyne did ok apart from that and the two times Bale skinned him. Why do you expect a player to play 90 minutes without any errors; it doesn't happen.
Quite clearly the OP has never played football. I as have stated on here previously played as a full back at a high level in Belgium when I was younger, he is good enough to be playing PL football and our best LB. I have found those who have criticised him generally have no idea about tactics in football.
I played at a high level on Sark , what the hell does Belgium and having played a high level there ? Is that the spiritual home of left and right backs ? If you think Fox is a premiership quality player you need need to stay of the Poirot , give up the chocolate and get to Hamburg or Amsterdam as Brussels is obviously boring the crap out of you and you have to come out with a pearler like that
All previous years of Southamptons strggles in the premiership we have had a Ruddock , Monkou , Osman now I know people will go for Claus/Svensson etc etc but I really dont mean them , I mean a hard , a real hard centre back , thats what we miss and we miss it bad . Someone who can dish it out and have a scrap , someone who can inspire the team , someone who can laugh at a busted nose and wipe the blood away and ask for more , we dont have that , we have choir boys , what we need is a player who can take a whack get up and dish it out , this will always inspire those around them . So what we need is a belting big huge ugly brute of a centre back , he does not even have to be that good at football , does not have to be that pacey , he just has to be clever and hard , for this we may have to gamble on the lower Leagues , Everton did it with Jagielka and it worked a treat so we need to get looking now .
You are right that we don't have one, but the game has changed. I'd like one of those, but it wouldn't be long and he wouldn't be good enough. A lot of teams don't have one of those anymore.
Gom quote:- "So what we need is a belting big huge ugly brute of a centre back , he does not even have to be that good at football , does not have to be that pacey , he just has to be clever and hard , for this we may have to gamble on the lower Leagues"; sounds like a good description of Gyepes
Fox is a better footballer than Benali but Benali is a far better all round player . My point is our old team of Benali's would hammer this lot , they are better footballers but they are lightweights and naive , Stoke succeeded in their way , West Ham will this season as well , Wigan have done it and so have Sunderland , we just need this season and then we can start thinking about the academy and its players mixing it with the 1st team .
If you think fox is good then your an idiot I could make a DVD of his mistakes this season and If you don't think he is **** the next game is on tv and if he plays just watch HIM! I was at the spurs game and poor old Lallana had to work so much harder doing fox's job!! I say through shaw in!
See that's interesting because the games I've seen, Fox is usually left exposed by Adam doing his stuff all across the pitch, which by the way is the same as last season but the opposition weren't good enough to do anything to punish us.
I agree flt but the million dollar question is how do we fix it without restricting the creativity of Lallana in the right half of the pitch, answers on a post card to N. Adkins c/o St Mary's I suppose.
Don't agree at all. When you pick a player like Clyne who is very weak in the air you must understand his limitations. It was a great piece of play from Bale. Look at the replay and he came very quickly around and almost over the top of Clyne. In fact when Huddlestone played the ball Bale was 5 yards away from Clyne and ended up infront of him/over him as he had a run up to leap at the ball. Look at the replay and the way the ball was looped Clyne couldn't attack it as the ball would end up over his head if he moved forward which is why he back peddled slightly. The way the ball was headed into the corner was unstoppable. Starting outside the post. Some of you need to hold your hand up sometimes and say good goal rather than having a go at a player on our team.
Clyne should of been aware where Bale was and made it difficult for him to rise like that , his reaction said it all , I suppose at least he knew he ballsed up .
I haven't seen it on the tv yet, but will do. Watching it at the time I felt that Clyne could have done more to block Bale, but as I said that was based on a one time viewing at the ground and not on tv. I don't slag the players but will point out if I think something was wrong. I may have to nibble some humble pie once I've seen it again, but for now that is my opinion.
I think Lallana has showed a willingness to get back and defend, he blocked two attacks within 4 minutes of each other in the first half on the edge of our box. A defenders main job is to defend and unless a centreback is covering the winger then Fox should not be more than 10 metres from his man, esp as he is not the quickest of guys, his problem is when our attack breaks down Foxs man is in acres of space and Fox can not get back to him
Lallana has a better defensive contribution than Puncheon on the whole although he is erratic and can go wondering extremely central, that's when we have big problems. It's a different type of defensive contribution to Puncheon who stays right. Perhaps Davis or Morgan ought to be wider to the left when Lallana starts to get frustrated and play more central. I think you are all missing something important however. Fonte is playing RCB and is pretty mobile. He's always been very good at covering the right back whether it's been Richardson or Clyne. He is better at covering for Clyne than anyone that's played LCB has covered for Fox and by a mile at that. Clyne is also much better at scrambling back and recovering with his raw pace. Fact of the matter is this is our play style. Fox is getting caught because he's obviously getting forward on instructions of Adkins. He just can't recover as well because he lacks the pace and stamina
I was glad to see Fox back with our injury problems as it meant Yoshida could go back to CB. If anyone can name the top quality PL left back that Fox is keeping out of the team, please let me know. Reeves is being introduced slowly...bit soon to throw him in at the start and lose all his confidence.
