I remember Bramble as having all the physical attributes of an awesome defender and some technical ability but no discernable brain. When paired with Woodgate - who used to organise the defence - then Bramble looked very good and at times when given a specific job like "man mark that player all game". When he was left to just generally follow team instructions his positioning and decision-making were so shambolic you had to watch him from behind the sofa. ps. There was a crazy statistic along the lines of over the course of 2 years us having a clean sheet in 60% of the games Woodgate started and 0% in the games he didn't. I can't be bothered to look it up tbh but my point is that he wasn't 1 player he was our entire defence and organised players around him, making them look very good (Bernard, Bramble, Hughes, etc).
I assume you mean Krafth and Burn? Our 2nd choice LCB and 3rd choice RCB... Obviously Botman and Schar are an improvement, even in our next game just having Burn and Schar is an improvement not least as they have played together more. Longer term we obviously do indeed need a new first choice RCB (then having Schar and Lascelles as the back-ups), I think our LCB slot is good/decent though (Botman, Burn, Kelly). A lot has been made of our pursuit of Guehi but I don't think that was our key problem this Summer, not getting Aderabaoyo from Fulham was more of an issue as not only would we then have him we'd have presumably made RW our main priority for that £60m. It's notable that some of our purchasing hasn't felt very joined up. We've signed all 3 of those LCB's but no RCB's since the take-over, LW and RW are a similar story.
In other news, things have got so **** at Man U that Casemiro's wife is now weighing in: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cdxlp5jke9yo
He also gave away possession almost every time he touched it and cost us a goal.. he needs replacing. He's not fit for purpose these days... he's like a nice boat with a gaping hole in it.
I blame Chelsea, partially, for the fact he hasn't been replaced already... Or at least given serious competition.
Newcastle try to play out from the back with a keeper that is completely incapable with his feet. He's got to go..the club can't move forward with a keeper that belongs in the 90s.
Will probably be upgraded relatively soon, if the rumours we were originally considering Marma were true. Should have some serious funds next summer, but we've got a lot of strengthening required.
Yeah there's also quite a lot of the dross contracts run out. Next summer all the spoilt brats will get what they want.... they'll cry all year like the Saudis owe them something.
TBF Woodgate is probably the best CD I have seen play for us. If only he wasn’t a walking/limping medical basket case.
