I know it's a result of these conversations occurring on the internet but why do these things appear black or white? Some people seem to behave as though the only options available for assessing players are "terrible" or "perfect". I'll agree that there are more nuanced views but the polarised ones dominate the debate (because they are polarised, of course; someone who sees grey doesn't really argue to the death over it). So, as a grey seer, I don't care. I thought Vic looked off the pace today but he should have gained match fitness. I thought Corky was excellent but he was against opponents with their heads down for much of it. So, either. Or both. Ideally not neither, though that probably wouldn't be the calamity we might expect. Is that decisive enough? Vin
I've seen mostly reasonable opinions on the matter on this thread and hardly any approaching the subject in 'black and white' manner.
I wasn't going to join this debate but felt compelled to add my 5 pennith in the end...........As others have said it should not be a debate as to who is the better player....Vic and Corky are good at there own specialities.....Vic a bloody good CM that is hard to knock off the ball....Corky is a bloody good CM as well but picks up the loose ball a bit better as he is lighter on his feet! Corky for me has the edge as he has a better passing range than vic. However for teams that man mark Vic in my view would have the edge as he is what he is...a bloody tank! So the reality is for me at any rate to use the well used term....."Horses for courses"........ The reason I suspect Corky did not start on Saturday is probably to give the guy a bit of a break....He's done a hell of a lot of running around in the last 6 weeks or so more than most I would wager............ It was not surprising Vic was off the pace for Saturday's game ......lets face it Fulham would have done their homework and would have put as much pressure on Vic as they could because of his rustiness.
Yawn Neither. Vic can't pass. Jack can't shoot. We need two top quality CMs. Anyone can see that. Where's your ambition.
There seems to have been an outbreak of reasonableness on this forum that was lacking earlier in the season when this subject was debated. I suspect that's because the former prevailing orthodoxy, which held that Victor was a footballing colossus infinitely preferable to the more lightweight Jack, has been disproved. Those of us who were ridiculed for daring to challenge that view are mostly too polite to gloat at being proved right. Anyway, the Cork/Schneiderlin axis is golden in my opinion, and it always was a shame to break that up. The Cork vs Wanyama argument is a bit spurious - we really are lucky to have options, and we'll need them all throughout the course of a season. But as to who's the better player of the two, on this season's evidence so far, it's Jack Cork. Told you so (couldn't resist).
Archers, there is nothing's worse than stepping into a debate, based on 45 minutes after a 2 month lay-off from a broken bone unless you want to seem smug and correct. I was one saying in October that Vic was the one who should be playing and you could not t see how important he was. I stand by that; check our results from when he was out the team. Also, read my comments on yesterday's team sheet. Vic should not have started and Jack should as he has been excellent. I like your posts, but the above is an appalling display of smugness that isn't even justified.
It was a joke ffs. Or taking the piss, if you prefer. Either way, it wasn't meant to be taken seriously. Jesus, lighten up.
Wanyama has done well for us and Mauricio made a manager's call that he was the right player for this game and ready for a come back. No harm was done and Vic has a bit of game time under his belt. I predicted that he is a player who needs settling in time....remember him when he first arrived. Unlike Cork, he doesn't hit the ground running after a long time on the bench. The thing is that MP made changes that worked for the second half. We can't assume that we would have got the goals in the first half anyway...perhaps Fulham had shot their bolt by the second half when our changes were made. I do agree that Cork should have started, but Wanyama wasn't an unreasonable choice bearing in mind his early season effectiveness. He just doesn't have the skill on the ball that the rest of the team have (which can be scary). Thank goodness Boruc was back on song.
He should. This man management stuff is tough...he will make the call based purely on winning the game, but he has to handle Victor so that he doesn't ruin his confidence or hint in any way that the first half against Fulham was solely down to him (which it wasn't).
The way Wanyama plays is that he normally sits deep, which you could argue allows the other players, in particular the full-backs, to push forward more. Against Arsenal, Shaw had pushed up and no one had filled in the gap that he'd left. When we have Wanyama, he tended to sit in with the 2 centre-backs creating a back 3, which helped cover that area.
Wany does have to get some game time...Cork won't always be fit and Victor is a player that needs to be played. He will probably be better for even this 45 min run out. Who'd be a manager?
I said on another thread that this Cork OR Wanyama debate isn't our fault as its only ever been Cork who has been dropped for Wanayama. So MP has forced the debate on us. Last season, centre midfield was a strength of ours and I therefore think it was something of a waste of £12m to try and improve it in the way that we did. The money could have been better spent elsewhere. A Scottish manager at the time said that Neil Lennon should be knighted for getting that kind of money for Wanyama as whenever they played against him they just let him at it because they knew he would never do anything constructive with the ball. Now, if you want to measure a footballer's ability by how DEstructive he can be, fair enough, Wanyama fits the bill. But surely that is a very 1970's way of looking at it. I would prefer to look at how CONstructive he can be. As such I just don't think Wanyama is very good. There were times yesterday where if you told me he was the son of Ali Dia I'd have believed you. As for Cork, I genuinely can't think of an English player who does what he does better at the moment. He needs a goal to get some headlines though. I'm sure that he scored for all the other clubs he played for. Maybe it is the case that the two could play alongside each other. That would seem to make good sense but it doesn't appear to be in MP's thinking. Anyway I'm now sitting back waiting to be thrown to the lions.
Rotation. Tailor the side to the opposition. Yesterday was a perfect day for me. Wanyama sharing playing time with Cork, chambers sharing playing time with Clyne.
