Honestly, l do not recognise this player from the woefully inept individual l have wrung my hands and nashed my teeth over before this season. For starters he was utterly incompetent trying to head the ball, positional play was non-existant and not forgetting error prone... its an incredible transformation which can only be put down to having his hair cut. If he shaved it all off, l think he will become an absolutely awesome defender.
I was at Cardiff for Ralph's first game and Vestergaard was awful - made a horrendous error which resulted in the winning goal and just looked so dodgy. I'm just so pleased for him. Unlike that idiot Hoedt, Vesty has a great attitude and I think he's taken on board what Ralph (and his coaching staff) have said to him and he's massively improved. Mind you we said this about Stephens last season and he's gone backwards this season.
We played Wolves just afterwards and he should have been red-carded after five minutes. As the game wore on, a bloke next to me. who'd said nothing throughout a dire performance, just muttered "Shame that useless piece of piss didn't get that card." Summed up perfectly how we all felt about Vesty , and now ... When Everton finally woke up at SMS I thought he was immense. Interestingly, Klopp thought Vesty a good signing. Mind you, be bought Van Dijk and sacked off Lovren, so what does he know? Stephens may just be a blip. FLT will argue he needs a run of six games, and if Beddy is injured he might get it!
On the (rather flimsy) basis of what a hair cut has done for Vesty, maybe Stephens just needs a short back and sides. Or a mullet.
Got to admit I was a pretty fierce critic of Vesty but the last couple of games he's been immense, lets hope it continues. The thing I do like about him is of all the back four he's the one that's looking to play the forward pass and is also capable of finding a teammate from distance.
sorry that’s just not true. He gave the ball away twice in and around the D yesterday and was woefully out of position without the legs to get back on at least a couple of occasions
The first goal was caused by JWP giving the ball away on the edge of the box and Vestergaard not marking Mings properly. No one seems to be blaming either of those though.
I think Armstrong isn't up to speed yet especially with his defensive work. Teams will tend to attack our right side of defence as KWP is perceived as being weaker then Bertie especially with the hard working Redders in front of him so he has to work harder to support Kyle
We’re 5th in the league with a chance to go top on Friday. Why the hell are people trying to pick out scapegoats???
As mentioned above it was Armstrong. He gets away with it because he did some fantastic things (assist for Ings goal, for example). Stephens looked a liability thoroughout. Vesty gets away with it because he was otherwise excellent, until Stephens came on and suddenly looked less sure. Bednarek next to him gives him the added boost of knowing he has recovery pace next to him which all great (slow) centre backs have relied on in the past. I’m not one to scapegoat but anyone who says we look solid with him at the back is delusional
I didn’t say we looked solid, but as I said on Sunday, he came on cold with Villa starting to get their act together. With the quality of their attack, it wasn’t surprising they unpicked our defence at least once. They scored one good goal, were gifted a penalty from a blatant dive, and then had a freak deflection go in right at the end. Anyone who thinks that was all down to Stephens is delusional.
My idea of a miracle will be winning more than we lose. Its all Ive wanted for Xmas for the last 5 years. Optimistically we might do a bit better than that.
Agreed. That was two very fortunate goals. Nothing wrong with Mings other than Vestergard got the wrong side of him. It should have been 1-4.
It is possible to be simultaneously both happy and critical. If Ralph isn’t critical of the team following the last 15 minutes against Villa I’ll eat my own face
