I'm not bothered we have Jack Hobbs to come in yet... Oh wait, Steve Bruce sent him off for next to nothing the ****ing spag That's 2 straight losses then, Alex Bruce will be in.
People saying we shouldn't have let Hobbs go... ...he wanted to go. His reasons were that he wasn't going to be first choice. Even with this, he would have been unhappy despite getting a chance, which may have affected his performances. I would rather have happy players on the bench than unsettled ones.
I think that's a little unfair on Hobbs to be honest. Personally I don't think he would've asked to leave if he had been told that he'd be number 3 in the pecking order behind Chester and Davies. That would've allowed him to play first team football if either of Chester or Davies got injured or fell out of form, which as we can see now has occurred after merely 5 games. I also completely reject the notion that Hobbs, had he have stayed, would've been a negative influence on the dressing room due to his desire to leave. He was a fantastic captain for our club, and always came across well in interviews.
I'm not saying he would have a negative influence on anyone else, but he himself personally might not be happy. He would have been fourth (possibly fifth) choice, behind Faye as well. Figueroa can play CB as well, remember, and he probably would be ahead of Hobbs too.
Personally I'd have played Hobbs in front of Faye and Figueroa at centre back in the Premier League. I still think he's a solid centre back and I'm still a little gutted that we let him go.
Faye is better than Hobbs at this level, both are slow, but Faye has more experience is EPL, to bring in Curtis Davies in place of Hobbs was a master stroke by SB.
CH is probably our deepest position in the squad so the loss of Hobbs is not going to be disastrous. Faye is slow but he's savvy, very strong, and reliable and Davies does a brilliant job of covering. Figueroa is also an experienced CH, and Macca is very underrated IMO. Alex never let us down last season also. I would be a lot more worried if Aluko had a serious injury.
No. There's a lot of competition for both of their positions. If they get called up then great but they aren't in a position to be demanding call ups at this stage. Hobbs is a great defender and overall a better option than Faye but he needed to play games and we had to respect that. Faye would be my option against West Ham. He'll know exactly how Big Sam plans to break us down and will be in a better position than anyone to stop it.
Faye will be a great player to keep Benteke quiet for the Villa game as well, with Davies being able to cover for the speed of Agbonlahor etc.
Its a loss but as we saw against Newcastle, Rosenior can do a job at left back and Figgy can pair up with Davies at CB.
Aren't we using that machine to treat hamstring problems that got Macca and Hobbs back in action in half the expected time last season. Maybe Chessie won't be out for that long.
Can see figgy coming in at cb and sb leaving rosie at full back, with faye on bench if we need his strength
If Faye plays with Agbonlahor and Weimann in the opposition we will struggle. They are both very quick and Villa are very good away from home on the counter. Faye's lack of pace really will get shown up against Villa, West Ham less so but he can't play against Villa. To say Davies will cover is hard, as Agbonlahor will just play on Faye like Campbell did in the game at the end of last season and scored a very good goal as he was never going to catch him. Also Benteke might be injured.
One of the reasons SB played the system he did last season was to give Faye more cover. So if he does decide to bring him in, don't be surprised to see the formation change, possibly with Figueroa slotting inside to make a 3 and Elmo and Brady reverting to their 12/13 wing-back roles.
We've got Spurs away in four weeks. We could be missing Koren, Chester and Livermore. Not looking good.
I didn't realise myself until I asked on the Spurs board about ticket prices, and someone mentioned Huddlestone. I was about to say it'd be typical if him or Livermore scored when it hit me.
