Just another thought, as to why Ron puts Yoshida in for Cedric, other than tactics. Maybe, just maybe, he is nurturing Cedric, protecting him from burning out, in the same way as Tadic did last season. Play him in most, but take him out for an occasional rest, so that he will last the whole season. Ron has already said that Juanmi needs to grow and develop into a Premier League footballer, hence being on the bench and starting in the cup games. He has also recently said he will judge Tadic's belief that he will last better this season, in December, saying that Dusan was good last November and still has it all to prove. I think Ron learned enough about this league, last season, to recognise that even strong players, such as Pelle, will hit the wall at some time, in the first season, so if benching Cedric for the odd match is his way of helping him adjust to the quicker pace then who are we to argue?
As I said in my earlier post "I get the impression that some would blame a Saints OG, from any other player, on Yoshida having hit a misplaced pass 5 minutes earlier, rather than accept he is a very capable player." If the cap fits....
It's getting rather tiring on this forum, with people not allowing discussion. The whole point of a forum is to talk, not to all agree and say "it doesn't matter, we won, Koeman is brilliant" all the time It's a fair point that Yoshida isn't very attacking and severely limits us offensively, I don't see how anyone can question that. A backup RB is required in january if we want to keep progressing IMO.
I have no issue with Yoshida, but I have with you trying to portray him as a attacking fullback, which is clearly rubbish. See, now you've distracted me from abusing Yoshida on twitter, so I'll immediately get back to it.
Eh? Nobody is blaming Yoshida for anything. Bertrand got forward more than Yoshida. That's just a fact.
Tell that to the people on here who spent the 90 minutes yesterday making Yoshida jokes, sarcastically blaming every possible bad outcome on Yoshida as if that's what everyone who was against him playing at RB would do (so similar to Badger's post). Unfortunately, not one of them seemed to understand that we didn't have an issue with Yoshida as a defender nor were we blaming him for anything. We were just pointing out that he offers us very little going forward, so seeing him at RB rather than Cedric was disappointing - and any beef which I had with that (I can't speak for anyone else) was laid firmly at Ron's door not Yoshida's.
We may be reading too much into Yoshida's start yesterday. Most of the time Yoshida only plays at RB when someone is injured, or due to some kind of tactical substitution. So it may not be the case that Koeman thinks Yoshida is better than Cedric or is our new starter. It could be he wanted to give Cedric a break because he's been hurt a lot. Or it could be a recognition that Sunderland's main threat was going to be long balls to Fletcher, and they were going to park the bus on defense, so it would be better to have a tall, physical player instead of a speedy one. If Yoshida starts again the next game, then perhaps there is cause for concern/serious debate but there are all sorts of reasons why Yoshida might have been used for just one match. As for Martina, perhaps he was someone who the Black Box/E Koeman identified as someone with a bit of untapped potential. It was worth taking a chance on and seeing how he'd develop, and in the meantime he could be useful cover. At the time, Bertrand was out and we thought we would be playing extra games in Europa so there was an opportunity to get him some games.
This is generating much more heat than it deserves. The problem, as I see it, is that some people on here decided (and in some cases predicted in writing) before the game that having Yoshida at right back would lose us the game. That's fine but when it doesn't pan out the way they have predicted there isn't a general sigh of "OK, Ron got it right" (or my preferred version "We must have won because Maya was selected") but a chorus of reasons why it was still a bad decision. Cedric's definitely better going forward but possibly Ron's thinking was "Let's get a draw and hopefully a win" as opposed to "Let's get a win and risk a loss". Given the avalanche of people who were terrified before the game, I'd have thought that the first of those would have been much preferred by people on here. Vin
Here we are from the Saints Twitter feed yesterday: Today's attendance is 41,781, which includes 941 #SaintsFC fans. Thanks for your support!
Predictably enough, if you read the Sunderland board, all 941 were soft southern ****ers/boring/rubbish and deserve beating up.
Yeah, they weren't impressed. They don't seem to realise a trip up there for us isn't attractive as what is for them coming down here; not necessarily referring to the respective merits of the areas charms or weather, rather the reputation of the respective local brands of football on show.
Its perfectly logical to question why we are playing a CB @ RB. We rarely did this last year when we had clyne.
Well I agree that there is a lot of heat raised here-although we have seen worse! Now i didn't play much football, other than games with jumpers as goalposts. Because of this, I don't tend to make many posts about selection, formations or tactics. I am happy to leave that to others. The point is though, these are just matters of opinion, not facts. If you post opinion expressed as fact, then you must expect to be pulled up on it if events don't bear them out. Why not express opinions, as opinions and simply agree to differ? Expressions to the effect that the other guy must be blind, stupid or both for holding a different view only fill up the board with handbags. Ironically, some of this heat comes from positions not really that far apart. And all after we have just won a game of football. Brw, anyone who disagrees with me is a complete tool.
Last time I criticised the selection of Yoshida at right back he went and bloody scored, so I don't know what to think! I didn't see the game yesterday, but I do know it's frustrating having Yoshida at right back when we're playing a team defending deep because the full back role becomes more about attacking than defending. So the longer the game stays 0-0 and you have a very good attacking full back sat on an out of context car seat, it can get us twitchy. For those that do criticise the selection of Yoshida I would ask them to think about the positive aspects it gives to the rest of the team to have a more disciplined right back, rather than making it a Yoshida v Cedric debate. Look at it as a attacking v defending full back debate. With Yoshida at right back, our midfielders don't have to think about covering those surges forward. This means that they can afford to push higher up the pitch to support the attacking options. This would give us more forward passing options in the midfield and give us a better chance of maintaining possession.
Because Koeman has come to realise he is not willing to trust Martina in this league, or he dosen't offer Ron the defensive solution he seeks as alternative to Soares (which is the real issue, Coco being a rare mis-step in recruitment) So where he would rotate the 2nd choice RB on occasion with Cedric (until he is fully acclimatised to the PL) he opts to play Maya there. The fact Maya is a competent CB "being play out position," the rather compromised clunky squad rotation perhaps over-emphasises this problem. We well surely go for a recognised RB in January. Until then MY will be play there and do his best when asked.
Maya might not be the best when it comes to full back responsibilities, but he's a good player to have on the pitch over Cedric in certain respects. Defending corners, for example.
Discipline (of the positional type). I don't know for a fact, but I get the impression that Ron is not confident in Cedric to make the right defensive decision. When I watched Clyne, I always wanted him to push further forward when the ball was on the left, because as a fan I want to see goals. Cedric actually takes up those possessions that my tactical genius had been telling Clyne to do all of last season, but if we lose the ball then suddenly our opponents have a man free behind Cedric and he is struggling to get back. Clyne and Bertrand seem to have that awareness and balance between attack and defence which Ron likes. Cedric is yet to find it.
Clearly Ron is playing Yoshida out of position; it's obvious he should be playing 'inside right' in a good old fashioned 2-3-5 formation!
