They just don’t learn from their mistakes. Letting Romeu go/not replacing him, over reliance on Downes, sending out Charles and loaning in 1 CDM. Don’t get me started on strikers.
Well no as he's got plenty of international caps for Poland. Just needs a leader alongside him. But he's proven he can form a good partnership at PL level with the right player alongside him.
I think Bednarek is ok. He is a committed player and we would be in a worse state without him. Wonder what Romeu must think. Bednarek is probably the only player we have of that ilk.
He’s ****. Sorry to break it to you. Poland aren’t a good side either. He is not a premier league level centre back. He is a poor leader, doesn’t read the game well, bad first touch. On his absolute best day, maybe he could be good enough for a relegation threatened side. But majority of the time his level is championship
I think a lot of CBs would look pretty **** under the last few managers we've had tbh. Martin was putting the CBs on the ball all the time, and making them play risky "brave" passes under pressure. Juric plays a 5 (I feel like Bednarek and THB are much more comfortable in a 4), has got his dumb man marking thing going on which is dragging players all over the pitch, completely wrecking any normal shape, and regularly leaving Bednarek as the deepest defender and last man. Pace isn't one of his strengths so he's kinda hung out to dry. IMO he does pretty well under the circumstances and it's no surprise he makes mistakes. If we want to improve on our CBs next time we get promoted, great, we can probably do better. But I'm in the boat the Bednarek is good enough for a lower half PL side, but would do much better in a more traditional back 4, with actual midfield cover rather than the gaping holes we regularly leave in front of the defence.
Bednarek could have walked out of Saints last month and got a better offer in Italy. He chose to remain and fight it out. I think that says enough about him.
Or Steve Davis. One of his talents was picking up the ball on the edge of our area and knowing where everyone was. He could pick out the right pass to turn the team to transition and get us going forward not back. He also had players around him who could support that. RM would have loved him A big issue during RM our midfield meant passes from GK and CBs would just be returned, putting them under pressure. Stevo wouldn’t have done that Currently we need to at least get Adam in the team to do a bit of this Our midfield has been a big problem since Oriel went as others say
Although I respect Bednarek for sticking around this time, he did also jump ship a time before and that was probably a factor in staying this (learning from past mistakes) Simply in terms of football ability he just isn’t good enough though. THB & Edwards in a 4 all season together next season at a level down excites me with us rotating Wood & Kayi-Sanda. Need to buy a real leader at CB to guide them all on a return to the Prem though.
I don't think Bednarek has really proven himself at Premier League level and I wouldn't be particularly worried if we sold him. He first regularly played for us in the 2018/19 season (25 appearances). Our defensive record in that period is: 2018/19 - Goals conceded: 65. Ranking: 13th (i.e. 12 teams conceded fewer goals, 7 conceded more) 2019/20 - Goals conceded: 60. Ranking 14th 2020/21 - Goals conceded: 68. Ranking 19th 2021/22 - Goals conceded: 67. Ranking 17th 2022/23 - Goals conceded: 73. Ranking 19th (was on loan to Villa for part of the season) 2023/24 (Championship) - Goals conceded: 63. Ranking 14th 2024/25 (so far) - Goals conceded: 57. Ranking 20th Obviously you can't say that our defensive record is only about him but but while he's been in the team it's been pretty poor. Strangely, those two first seasons when we weren't awful we didn't really have a first choice defensive pairing. It was a real mix of Yoshida, Bednarek, Stephens and Vestergaard playing. It's also worth noting that 19/20 was the Covid season when pausing the games helped our form enormously. The season was paused after 29 games and at that point we'd conceded 52 goals and only Villa had conceded more.
