Bassong

What has happened to him?

POTS last year, and deservedly so after coming in and shoring up the weakest area of the team. This year he has become a bit of a liability. Is it the captaincy? Is it the constant changing of his CB partners? Or am I talking total rubbish as we've kept 10 (if memory serves) clean sheets this year.

He always seems to have a mistake in him. The own goal today was straight out of 'How Not to Defend' by Kolo Toure. Last week against Spurs, but for a heavy Adebayor touch he would have handed them a goal.

Should he be dropped? Should Ryan Bennett come in against Stoke? I'm interested to hear peoples' views.

 

Absofuckinglutely he should be dropped.
As you pointed out there's always a mistake in him and it's usually punished with a goal.
R Bennett has to be paired with Yobo for the Stoke game.

 

I'd drop him, give Bennett some game time (who apart from backing off advancing strikers doesn't seem to do a lot wrong to justify dropping him frequently), and give the captaincy back to Martin, now he's getting a good run in the side. Give Bassong a rest, some time to try and rediscover some form, and try and win his place back. Hopefully removing the captaincy would take some pressure off of him.

 

Depends on Bennetts fitness as he has been injured for a bit. Bassong has always had "a mistake in him" his whole career. That is probs the reason he has never established himself at a top club. Although as with most things in football poor team play can make individual errors more common.

 

I'd play R Bennett and Martin at centre back next week, compliment each other and Yobo is off to play for nigeria mid week in the USA so could be knackered/ travelling a lot.

Bassong needs to be dropped just to sharpen his mind again, no doubt in his abilities its the mental side that lets him down too much

 

Ryan Bennett must be gutted, I don't recall him doing anything wrong all season?

 

Personally I'd consider giving the captaincy to Martin. The only reason I agree with the club and team captain thing is because I didn't expect Russ to get nearly as much game time. For me, he shoujd really be the full captain. Bass had a good season last year but he doesn't seem to be much of a leader on the pitch.

 

Let's be honest Bassong was utterly at fault for Villa's second goal - his dreadful slice resulted in the corner where he failed to deal with Benteke. Really frustrating as he is a cracking player but makes really careless mistakes which cost us goals.

If we had a bit more depth at CB I would say drop him but were that to make his head drop and affect his form yet further then it could be counter-productive. Certainly needs a rollicking from CH as that second goal completely turned the game on its head. I think that had we managed to hold out until half time at 1-1 we'd have probably gone on to win as they were really not that good and we totally outplayed them until the tow goals in three minutes knocked the stuffing out of us.

 

Given that we have a club captain for off the field matters, I've never understood why the team captain is announced for the whole season. It seems to me that it would be better to award it on a per game basis. Otherwise you're basically telling one person that you expect them to be ever present in the starting 11, which may not be the right message for them or for anyone challenging for that position. It's impossible to subsequently change the captain without it being a snub, when maybe they need to concentrate on their own game or maybe better candidates emerge as the squad dynamics become clearer and transfers occur. I also wonder if it would encourage better leadership in general if players were vying for the captaincy throughout the season.

Personally Bassong just seems too quiet when the chips are down. We're not overflowing with candidates though, which may be part of the problem. He may have his detractors on here, but Snodgrass never seems lacking in passion and he's no shrinking violet when it comes to taking responsibility. I also noticed Ruddy seemed to be doing all the talking in the pre-game huddle.

 

I think Bassong is a real concern at the moment - totally lost his mojo. He just looks so indecisive when he gets the ball, his physicality seems to be shrinking week by week, and he's certainly contributing to collective defence jitters. When complaining about being pushed for the fourth Villa goal, he just didn't portray the defiant driving captain that the team really needs. His body language sucked.

Still, he'll probably be MOTM against Stoke - he's hoping!

 

Captaincy may be just what he needs to galvanise his undoubted talent - plus it will give him too much responsibility to spend all match sniveling and snarling to officials about decisions and hurling himself to the floor looking to win set pieces

 

Snodgrass was a shoe in for Captain at the end of last season, for me anyway. I was mildly surprised the way it fell in the end but there you go.

 

*shoo-in




Agreed though, I like his tenacity.

 

As I said above, so do I - when it's used correctly. If it was used to cajole or encourage demoralised troops, then great. But when it's used to whine and complain about not getting decisions go for him (not us, but him) he can stick it.

 

Jonny Howson

 

Good shout Munky!

 

I actually agree, but couldn't resist!

 

Personally i wouldn't want Snodgrass as captain, he's not the player that should be dealing with the referee and is as likely to get into and argument with our players than encourage them. Plus at Leeds a 21 year old Howson was chosen over him for the captaincy, there must be a reason for that.

 

To all those who said he should have been dropped today. Bravo. Another in a long line of errors.

I'm sorry, maybe the penalty was soft, but whatever was he doing challenging in that situation?

When you score as few goals as we do you simply can't have a defender who gifts as many goals away as Bassong does. That's the bottom line for me.

 

A foul like that came straight out of the Chinese betting syndicates ''How to give away a penalty'' totally unnecessary. There have been many incidents over the past few games that are unbelievable mistakes from Bassong. Missed tackles and interceptions, poor passes, makes you wonder.
Don't worry people i just live in a society bribery and corruption are the norm, I am just being paranoid. Having said that Stoke were there for the taking, we missed another great opportunity to get 3 points.