Cattermole is ****, he has turned into a angry little fat player who only knows how to foul to retain the ball Clayton and Leadbitter are twice the players, ability and composure Cattermole has never been a PL player, this year was his last chance to prove himself He will prob end up playing for Leeds next year
We've got thre DMs at the club and Catt's is clearly 3rd choice, My biggest question is why the **** are we playing all three at once. We should be playing 1, or 2 should the opposition demands it. Of course Catts was ****e being played that far up the pitch, why ask him to be something he's not, but there's no need to be too harsh on the lad because he's been forced to play out of position, not his fault he's nowhere near good enough that far up the pitch nor is it his fault the other DMs are better than him. My point is the whole discusion becomes redundant in an instant if the Gaffer wasn't making such bizarre team selections. This is the route of the problem. When Kirchoff and M'Vila are fit, Cats should be nowhere near the lineup, his peers in that position are better than him in every way and I hope we never play 3 dms at once ever again but I get the feeling all three will start again Saturday.
As much as I like Catts he did have a stinker on Sunday. If we played him out of position up front on his own I'd expect more from him than booting the ball into the stands every time he got it. He's an experienced player, he should be able to cope with playing a few yards down the pitch. It was only a small part of why we lost though, it was a decent team performance but the team selection and substitutions (or lack of) were more the problem. Mannone should have come off his line for the opener too.
It's not just a few yards up the pitch though is it. The demands of the player change significantly, new skills are demanded. The few yards is actually the difference between Defence and attack, a huge gulf. Catts doesn't have any attacking skills what so every, he's no vision, no composure, he can't shoot, he's a below average passer. He's nothing to offer playing that far forward other than pressing high up the pitch and there isn't always the cause to do this. Meanwhile his strengths have become useless, there's no small area to marshal, no defence to protect. He has to take attacking initiative He's become pretty much hot air since he was moved further forward. Effort he always gives, but it doesn't give him the skills to play where he's being played. Inept at doing what he's being asked to do and it shows. Not his fault though.
I agree that the majority of the problem was the team selection but it doesn't completely excuse him turning in the performance of an unusually fit but slightly hungover Sunday league centre back. Like I say, it was only a part of the problem. I only mentioned his performance in an offhand general list of thoughts about the game, didn't intend him to be a scapegoat.
Well look at the ground he has to cover in his position now. His old postion he only had a small area infront of his defensive line, now he has to cover the whole pitch. It's byond him mate, fish out of water, he's an extremely limited player imo. I think it went wrong as we pushed the defensive line up in search of the lead. Leicester have ran riot exploiting high defensive lines. We've sat deep when we should have and when we needed to Sam has raised the line. First half we'd nailed it. we took it to the middle of the part and though Kante was exquisite, the deep line left no space for Vardy and Mahrez to exploit. Second half the line raised Leicester exploited it, Kaboul was caught flat footed and Vito stayed on his line. From then we were chasing the game and had to go for it. Leicester were always going to get a second. I blame Sam, he's been at fault in most part recently imo.
Really. From my view of the game Catts was the one who was building up into the attacks while Kirchoff played the holding role.
Your view is correct as that's exactly what happened. Why would you move our best player into a position he's never played before, thus rendering him completely ineffective and leaving us exposed in his previous position as Catts is far far inferior? Apart from the fact Kirchoff hasn't got the legs/fitness to press the ball high up it's a ridiculous suggestion.
Then return to my original post about Kirchoff being more use further forward. He has more football ability and subtly than Catts so a role swap may well have helped. Mind M'Villa's contribution was hardly memorable so give Catts some credit for getting fired up rather than finding everything his faults.
You disagree, fine. I'm not going to try and justify my reasons for Kirchoff staying put since they're falling on deaf ears. Read back my posts, I never actually criticised him. I criticised the position he's being made to play in as it's clear he's not comfortable in it. I did however criticise M'Vila's contribution since Christmas as he's been anonymous.
If you beat Norwich next game you will probably stay up . Sam will probably have known who he was going to start against Norwich before the Leicester game . " Cup Final " for both teams . Should be a great game to watch .
Echos of the Friendly Final here, We played Norwich in the Milk Cup final in 1985 which they won but we both went down not long after.
