Before you face palm, its not steven taylor thank fook Dummett has signed an extention as approved by Benitez, current contract runs until summer 2017 but Benitez has been impressed with the young fb's performences since returning from injury.
Excellent news. Good player. I see him long term as back up CB and back up LB. Just the kind of player we need in the squad.
Good utility player. It also looks likely we'll be going down so he'll be really useful in the championship. One of those players who is not good enough to be a regular starter in the PL, but is a cut above the league below. I'm sure if we did somehow stay up, benitez would buy a full back and use Dummett accordingly.
I like him as back-up, can generally defend, and is the closest thing to a lb we have. Just wana see less of him hoofing it aimlessly
I remember people calling Simpson limited but he's just won a medal. A defender first and foremost needs to defend and Dummett does that
Pleased with this, would say he has been one of the better players this season - I know it doesn't say much but gives 100% all of the time even though I don't think his natural instinct is to drive forwards regularly. Will make a good CB in the future and for now gives us good cover for an already stretched defense.
Could have just stuck with the bit in bold This has Simpson and Hughes all over it again with some of our fans, although he is not as good as Simpson or Hughes. The point is he is a decent option to have in the background. The reason he gets exposed in the PL with us is he is used like a first team player and probably out of position. This is due to us having not invested in the defence and having the hapless injury prone Haidara as our sole left back option.
Injured players would look like non-league. Thing is he struggles to defend and has no attacking presence at all. He is too slow to be a full back.
I reckon he defends better then most left backs in this league. Not many can beat him on a 1 on 1 situation.
He is pretty solid defensively actually, positional sense is good. He offers nothing at all going forward though at this level. In our situation though its horses for courses. As shown with Janmaat on the right, we don't actually have good enough players or control of games to play attacking full backs. They are really the last thing you add when jumping up levels. We need good defenders and I don't think anyone would dispute that for us Dummett is streets ahead of Haidara defensively. What we really need is a better defensive full back than Dummett, who can offer at least something going forward. I wouldn't want an all attacking full back, we're not good enough. But I would like to see Dummett used the way he should be at PL level - which is sparingly and as a utility player covering injuries and suspensions. Haidara should be sold to West Allotment Celtic to find his level
Haidara will come back and haunt you! Haha! Dummett is **** - if he was that good defensively he would have been used more at CB but he hasn't. Though I will admit he has been better under Benitez!
Haidara is an absolutely shocking footballer. He gets the basics all wrong. I am not surprised though. We signed him from a side that was heading down to Ligue 2 in France. That Nancy team he played in were bloody awful. I can only suspect that Graham Carr must have been turned on or something. He is not and never will be good enough for the PL.
The hoofing upfield thing is an issue but they are all at it so I can only assume Rafa is telling them to get it up to Cisse quickly (which is also why Mitro should be playing). Mbemba is the worst and looks like the new Mike Williamson in that regard. As for actual defending, Dummett is pretty decent and makes far fewer mistakes than he did when he first came into the side. His pace was mentioned by someone but wasn't there an Opta stat where he was shown to be the fastest player in the league or something?
Paul Dummett still has the fastest recorded pace over 30 metres of any sprint this season apparently! The only stat we should be worrying about is that he's been back for 4 games (I think) and we're unbeaten in 4 games. He makes a huge difference defensively.
