Still feel that despite the fact he has now showed he can handle the Prem he will be off in the summer.
Does Poch rate Jos, or does he not rate Fonte? I think it probably is the former, but it could well be the latter. (After all, he could always play both of them. It's not just a case of Jos or Fonte). But either way, I'd be surprised if we didn't sign at least one decent quality CB in the summer. This is a big benefit of beating top clubs at the moment, and, hopefully, finishing the season in a strong mid-table position: come the summer, the average quality of player willing to join us will surely increase. More than just Cortese's words, we'll have hard solid proof that we are still a club climbing in the right direction. From the bottom of L1 to, hopefully, European football.
The Reading owner mentioned that they had hoped to sign more quality in the summer and January....same problem (but to even a greater extent) as us. Hard to attract players to a recently promoted side with an unknown manager. We have to show we are serious contenders in this league...recent wins won't do us any harm...a few more people will have noticed us now. Having Mauricio as manager won't hurt either.
Fair points, it seems as though Yoshi is first choice and Hooiveld is currently getting in ahead of Fonte. Really hadn't considered that Poch may in fact not rate Fonte, but it is a perfectly logical conclusion. Personally I think the three centre backs we have used this season, have all had decent seasons, but I do think it is an area of the squad we could improve. Maybe Forren is the answer, (haven't seen him play, so who knows!) , but I would welcome a centre back that has the talents to improve our first team.
I think Hooiveld is in the team on form right now, he's been brilliant in recent games. Yoshida, for all his apparent faults, has I think played every game since he arrived! That says a lot I think.
I was surprised that Fonte wasn't selected yesterday especially as he did so well against Liverpool. However, apart from the goal I think both central defenders did well enough. It helps though that less crosses are coming in now. There is no doubt that with Shaw and Clyne playing so well plus the defensive contributions from our midfielders, it has helped the central pairing whoever they are.
We judge a player by watching a game once (with several re-runs of highlights). The coaches see a player in training and watch the videos many times and have all the medical data, so may make decisions for reasons not clear to us. I suppose it can also be about the balance of a team meaning that you may not put in the 'best player' in each position.
He does like that 50 yard across the pitch pass, cut it out Jos you are not Hoddle, just play the simple pass.
It appears Fonte is only used as a RCB. Which means shifting Yoshida across to LCB where he isn't as comfortable. With Yoshida being the first choice defender (has played 90 minutes every game since debut) and right footed looks like Pochettino has gone for him as first choice to play RCB with Hoovield a left footer at LCB. In fairness to Hoovield despite all the mistakes early in the season we know how good he is as he was much better than Fonte last season.
Left footed and can play LB as well. Hoovield found form at just the right time to save himself I think.
It's what competition does. Some people step up because they have more to give. Some people are playing closer to their limit and can't make the leap forward. I didn't think Jos had it in him. He's found a way to play against pace.
Just as important as them playing well, is that they are playing high up the pitch. Previously, both full backs seemed reluctant to go beyond the opponents fullback and this I always felt was damaging. Full backs must push forward and try to get beyond opponents and this is also helping preventing crosses come into our box.
Great point. Azpilicueta & Cole getting forward on a regular basis was a big reason for our hiding in the cup game. Until the latter part of the 2nd half yesterday neither full back was allowed to venture forward with any regularity. Yoshida has done well and despite always allowing me at least once in a game to throw in the terrible kamikaze defending joke he always gets his body in the way and his mis-judgements often occur in his eagerness to snuff out danger early. Hooiveld concerns me because he can look clumsy if someone runs at him with pace and he nearly clipped Hazard but he is a tower of strength in the air and has decent distribution.
Yoshida is handy with the last ditch tackle. He also reads long balls and direct attacks well and takes good routes to player and/or ball. He would make a good NFL free safety. Hooiveld is good in the air and has the sort of fearless/recklessness you like in a good CB. He's a good strong presence in the box against crosses played in. Neither one of them is very good at man-marking or close quarters movements or with quick reactions. A good dribbler can beat them, a quick or smart player can figure out a way to lose them with off the ball movement. Also neither one can be trusted to play from the back. Hooiveld lacks the skills and it just isn't his game. Yoshida lacks the game-awareness and makes bad mistakes though perhaps he can improve. They are both sort of throwback defenders to me. Fonte is the most cultured back when it comes to having good offensive awareness and skills and a well-rounded defensive game. He's still the best defender to me, although maybe he does not make for the best defensive pairing. Still think he should be playing though. Between what we have, I suppose our defense can generally get the job done if we mix and match appropriately. In part because Clyne and Shaw are there and we have two excellent defensive midfielders to help out. We did a good job against Chelsea with the whole "bend don't break" thing. When they played long balls that looked like they might be a problem, the CB's or someone else was always there to cut off the easy angles and that forced Chelsea to pull the ball back out and start over, which then gave Schneiderlin and Cork and the fullback time to get back. I think if Chelsea had played Mata, Hazard, or Ba the whole game they would have shredded us though. I still think that it would be nice to have two CB's you could put there every game and not worry about who we play. And it would also be nice if the DM's didn't have to do quite so much defensive work. So I still think we will (or should) be brining in at least one CB over the summer and probably Forren will be getting a nice long look.
Call me crazy, but I consider this to be a minimum requirement for any player on the team. We will get a real CB this summer, and then everyone will talk about how much more solid, consistent and just overall miles better our defense is and forget all about the posts they made saying Yoshida is fine and we don't need a CB.
