What did he do well Saturday? Everyone in front of him put a shift in for a change which minimized his liability factor. I remember Coates making some great tackles. The fact we only conceded 1 goal seems by some to be put down to this mythical 'O'Shea organization' bollox. Midfield were slack against Exeter and look what happens when he has to try and defend. He's utter garbage.
He kept the defence organised and captained us to good draw, won 100% of his aerial duels, and provided 5 clearances. Stats aside watching it you could visibly see he improved us at the back. Unless you didn't see us against Norwich and Leicester I don't know how you couldn't see the the utterly blatant improvement of our defence against Swansea. He wasn't fantastic, but decent he was most certainly was, not only that Squawka, sportsmole, Chris Young, Goal, wearewearside, readsunderland, vavel, sky, every media or fanzine outlet who watched the game and compiled player ratings agree with me. Quite a few have even given him a 8 which I think is a point to high. Only Durham Times and Northern Echo gave him a 6 but even they state how much he improved us that game.
I agree with this. JOS's organization is his most important role. As a defender, he's sub par, we saw that against Exeter when nobody seemed motivated so he was actually tested a few times. If everyone's on their game and listening to orders then JOS is invaluable imo.
What was he doing for Swansea's goal? Drifted into no mans land helping nobody and left Coates exposed to Gomis. He could have just got close to Gomis and cut the option to pass off. Won every header? Didnt win the one where gomis nearly scored. Everyone in front played much better which is why we drew, most importantly Catts n M'Villa. Not Oshea's "organizational" skills.
He may have been in no mans land but he had no responsibility in that goal as the mark he left played no part in the goal, he was drifting across because PVA was out of position and Gomez was 100% Coates man. The Gomis Header he didn't participate in a duel according to opta and looking at the chance I agree with opta, as Gomis headed it Ayew was going through back of O'Shea. O'Shea should have done better the yes, but I'm not saying he was perfect am I. You seem to see a couple of isolated incidents, view them in your away then judge an entire performance on those incidents alone. We'll have to disagree, I'll stick with the consensus on this one. I think he had a decent game, just wish he had more of them because it's bad **** when he's our best defender.
