Problem

With our search for a defender there seems to be a contradiction.

If we sign someone like Vertonghen, then his arrival must be foreshadowing Colo's departure.
If we sign a defender from the Championship, he's only coming as cover and is therefore not good enough.

So what do people actually want?

 

vertonghen and colo to stay.

 

someone like Douglas would be good but id be happy with Marriapa

 

Better than Williamson would be a minimum requirement, imo. No point signing players worse than what we have

 

This!

 

This.... Not exactly hard is it?

 

Can i ask... who has Ashley sold that he has been an unreasonable transfer that did not make sense?

 

Or we could just buy a young defender with potential as cover until Saylor is fit again.

 

Shefki Kuqi, we'd be top of the league if they gave him a contract.

 

Jesus does everything NUFC does have to have a problematic slant to it? So it would be impossible to sign a good quality CB for competition now? And obviously if we do have a bit of ambition and try to sign someone good then it OBVIOUSLY means our captain (who still has 18 months or so on his contract, has said he's happy here and never even given the impression he wanted to leave) is on his way out?

This isn't a pop at you personally btw tomtom, just sick of this "zomg something must go wrong sooner or later!" attitude that seems to surround us as a fanbase lately.

 

Nah we'd never play them, see Kadar.

 

Is that what your lass says?

 

The Saylor and Colo combo gave us the best defence in the entire league alongside Man City, and that was WITH two very average full backs. It was all down to that partnership.

He's our first choice by a mile imo, with Williamson providing decent back up. So really we need to find ourselves a 3rd choice centre back, so I ain't expecting much in the way of pure quality.

 

Simple enough. We have a great partnership which lacks cover.

Colo (ball playing CB) and Taylor (powerful, wins headers CB)
We have no player covering Colo but have Williamson to cover Taylor, he does a very similar job.

What we need is a young player who is not necessarily a commanding player, but who plays similarly to Colo and could cover him short term, maybe even replace him long term (by which I mean 5 years hopefully).

This would leave us with 2 ball players and 2 commanding players, perfect balance. Good mix of experience and youth as well.

 

I know this was discussed a while ago but will Saylor be back before the end of the season?

 

He's aiming for the Olympics. If he is back it wouldnt be for more than 2 or 3 games IMO.

 

Such a shame.

Think we would be in the top 4 now if he wasn't injured.

 

I read a few weeks back when we were linked with Vertonghen that he isn't interested in signing for us, but would come for talks. That is what Gervinho did and we told him to **** off, so if he doesn't want to come then he can **** off.

Someone like Mariappa/Tomkins/Williams/Bates would do me. All we need really.

 

Taylor does a lot of running, coming up for corners and putting his balls on the line on the goal line.
He's a player who will save with his face if needs be, wins headers and has pace enough to get back if he messes up higher up the pitch.
Coloccini is the ball player, passing out of defence, moving with the ball and putting his balls on the line on the 18 yard line.
I don't think Williamson covers either of those roles. He's more an intercept and lump it far away type of defender who protects his balls.
We need first team cover for Colo (due to age) and younger / reserve team cover for Taylor.

 

Williamson isnt as good at blocking as Taylor, but no one in the league can match him for that. Broadly they do the same job on the pitch, win headers from long balls and leave the distribution to Colo.