Alright lads, Sunderland fan in peace Saw your game against City and thought Davies looked decent at LB, but I think he was only covering while Danny Rose was injured... My question is, do you think Davies has done enough to stay as first choice once Rose is back, or is Danny likely to come back in? This question may be fantasy football motivated...
I think he is first choice for now. Rose has not been that great this year so far and took a fair battering on Thursday. Our manager seems to be giving Davies a run for now. I'm sure Rose will get back in eventually, but not for a while IMO.
I’ve always rated Rose above Davies, but Davies has established himself in the first team. He has been reasonably good going forward, but the big difference, I think, is that he can be relied on to carry out his defensive assignment and is less likely to make a spectacular mistake of the kind Rose is prone to. It’s a bit of an unlikely development, because Rose might have been our fourth best player last year, after Kane, Lloris and Eriksen. Without Son in the lineup, I think we need him to provide pace, but I expect Davies will continue to start, especially since Rose had a gruelling game against Monaco.
Davies is maybe a bit steadier even if Rose is actually the better player. I get the sense that Davies inspires a bit more defensive confidence in this teammates than Rose and that lifts everyone, particularly Verts. Perhaps a classic example of picking the best team rather than the best individual players?
Rose is definitely the more attacking of the two, and whilst Davies seems to be the more solid in defence, even he's managed to assist in attack effectively in recent matches. I'm very happy with the competition in that position. They both seem to be improving each other in their weaker areas. Rose clearly became better when Davies arrived. For fantasy football though, the player that seems irreplaceable in our defence is Dier. Played as a midfielder but still counts as a defender. Allows you to get another midfielder on the pitch. Alderweireld also seems to have goals in him.
Neither are great, but Davies has so far proven to be by far the better FB, as Rose is calamitous defensively. Rose actually made a really good intervention on Thursday night, but regularly goes missing and gets caught out of position. He certainly has more pace than Davies and more attacking intent and poses more of an attacking threat, but when he gets into good positions his delivery is often poor. Personally, wouldn't have put Rose in our Top 7 players of last year (the above, plus Chadli, Mason or Bentaleb would get my vote ahead of him) but he does seem to divide opinion on here more than most. IMHO, there may be games when we can afford the defensive risk of playing Rose, but the more that Davies continues to improve his all-round game, the fewer opportunities for Rose will arise. But he may be a late developer....
In the team of last season when we had less attacking options working Rose was important. This season his attacking instincts are not so important with the additions to our squad of Ali and Son and Dier allowing other midfielders to get further forward. The balance of the team has changed (for the better) and Rose is a casualty of that, for the moment at least.
