On Fox's positioning he very rarely gets tight enough, 4 times out of 5 the winger will get the ball into the box as he doesn't get out to them quick enough. The first time this happened to Shaw on Mon he was touch tight straight away and intercepted the cross. It will be really interesting to see how he does get on if NA decides to start him over Fox.
As I've said, Fox doesn't have the pace to race wingers so he has to tuck in or they'll just go past him. Shaw did do a better job of closing the winger down, but it was late in the game and he had fresh legs, it won't be as easy to do for 90 minutes.
It's obvious it's down to pace. Clyne has pace to burn. It is a team order or individual defensive style due to lack of pace..
Did enough for me today to secure his spot against QPR. There were several times today that their winger would have been away and in the clear with Fox out there, Shaw closed the ground with ease. Didn't look that great going forwards, but not too worried about that, that's what Lallana is there for. He is damn fast too.
Yeah I was impressed, he looks a very tidy defender and has a bit more pace than Fox. Swansea's game-plan in the first half was clearly to attack us down our left side and he coped well. He didn't look brilliant going forward though and his distribution was not great, hopefully he will improve that side of his game. I think it has to be emphasised though that Lallana appeared to do a better job of supporting him than he has done for Fox at times. Perhaps he feels more responsibility with a young player behind him, and I'm sure that did help.
Yeah he seems to be rather under-the-radar in the media, JWP is more counted as the next big thing from us, I think the recent history of our academy, twinned with the rumours in the summer of Chelsea and Arsenal's interest and then the desperation for new blood in our defence has lead to a bit of over-hype about him. Looked good today though, didn't see any real attacking talent but no real surprise there as he was probably told to not be very adventurous, and I didn't see any real spark that makes me think he's of a Bale, Walcott, AOC level of talent, but definitely looked an improvement on Fox defensively in terms of speed and his ability to pressure and tackle, and hopefully he will only get better from here.
I've seen him probably about 20 - 30 times playing in the youth, he is nothing like Bale. Shaw is a very good young Lb, Bale is not a Lb. In my opinion Shaw will be a future England left back I rate him that highly. His play attacking wise is ok and needs improving, but I feel this will come with in time and games at senior level.
I don't see any Bale in him either and see that as a lazy comparison by many, personally I wouldn't really want another Bale (Well, I wouldn't turn one down), because like you say, Bale is in no way a LB. I'm glad you and others rate him, I certainly do too from what I have seen, although like I said, not quite to the level of talent of some of our other products, but hopefully the more I see of him the more I will be impressed. And I really couldn't care less about his attacking abilities, as long as he's a solid defender and not a complete liability with the ball then I'll be more than happy, after all, solid defenders are really want we need right now. Clyne and Shaw future England full backs? Fingers crossed!
Has everyone forgotten Bale playing at left-back for us? He's obviously not one now, but he came through the ranks as one.
As far as I am concerned the boy done good, with a few 90 minutes under his belt he will be even better.
Well of course everyone knows he started as a left back, but he is a much better left mid than he was a left back, that's just fairly apparent. At a stretch he would fit into a top, top team, like Barca or Madrid who's left backs are rarely in their own half, but he is not anywhere near your conventional full back, hence me saying he is 'in no way a LB', maybe I should have elaborated to the point of 'in no way possessing the qualities of a top-level LB'. When Bale came through his best attributes were always his attacking ones, he was fine as a left back in the lower level but when he went to Spurs he struggled there, when he moved up to left mid is when he really flourished at the top level and became the player he is today. Shaw seems to be much more of a traditional full back with defensive qualities (although I'm sure his attacking qualities will come out as he grows into the team), which is definitely what we need.
I had scarcely heard of Shaw before the media starting reporting that Chelsea and Arsenal were after him. Meaning of course that we would never keep him (according to them). Looked impressive for such a young player.
I for one would keep the young man in the team for next week.. He has better pace than Foxy, has better ppositional sense and appears to give Adam greater confidence to play his own game without panicing about running back to cover the LB position whilst Foxy wanders into the left centre half position
I asked earlier why anyone would think he was a better option than Fox. Clearly they'd seen more of him than I had!
