Robertson has played most of his career as a LB, not LWB. To me, his defending came on leaps and bounds as a left back when he had a left midfielder in front of him. Someone pointed out that a lot of the goals we are conceding are from the wings. Of course they are, teams playing against 3 5 2, set up to attack the flanks. When Zaha played his worldie against us, a MoTD pundit raised that he is use to defenders doubling up against him. The 3 5 2 system asks a hell of a lot of the wing backs, basically getting little support. They certainly put a shift in, no surprise then that these two are targeted and have been exposed. Someone posted that Elmo gets caught upfield and Livermore has to bail him out, well that is Livermore's job under this system if we want the wingbacks to get forward. I've seen no posts mentioning who's run and then cross down the right side was instrumental in the build up to our first (nor who hit the 25 yard defence splitting pass, but that's another matter), yet plenty about how slow he was in cutting out the cross for their second. Snoddy should have done far better. Initially I wasn't in favour of this system because of this, but it does seem to allow us to get the ball forward more and suited to our squad.
Snodgrass as a RWB? Are you having a laugh? Now Gary Hobson was a good old fashioned left back, but isn't he getting on a bit now?
I am another person who doesn't understand this Mbokani love. I appreciate that he holds the ball up well at times, but he barely ever offloads the ball, he waits until he has three men around it and try and kick it off them. We don't create tons of chances but Mbokani has no pace and never makes any runs beyond the defence. The fact he hasn't scored yet is something that seems to get missed. I don't think he really is Premier League quality, we need a striker desperately. Also, we have conceded 41 goals yet not once has our defence been criticised. Marshall gets all this criticism (Yes Jakupovic deserves a chance), but when you have conceded 41 goals and have the second worst defence in the division how can our defence not receive some criticism? I completely agree, that all three of our centre backs give their all, but there really is something wrong when you keep conceding so many goals. I actually really enjoyed the game the other night, we are just 2 or 3 players away from a decent PL side.
It's a good point about the defence and particularly the three CB's. Dawson made some howlers against Everton but no one ever says anything. It's just easy to blame Elmo or robbo for everything. Comfort zone. A soft **** behind me was still blaming meyler after he'd been subbed. Mbokani doesn't wait for three of theirs, he's usually been fouled and held by the CB and the Barry was wadingin as well as the other CB. They got away with murder. That's what his job is, it's not his fault there's no runners from midfield off him.
So what's your alternative? This goes way back to SB selling Rosie and Macca. We do not have LB and our only RB is injured. The original point was that it is vital to buy a RB, but why is it? Would it not make more sense to buy a RWB? We are playing with WBs. If Elmo got injured, what would be your plan, from the curent squad?
Watching the own goal again on MotD, it looked like Mbokani was partly responsible for throwing Marshall off balance by jumping up and crashing into him. No one else was near him. I don't get the Marshall hate on here, he's made some good saves recently. He has his weak points, like his kicking, but then Jak is a bit iffy on corners and can get a bit flappy on a bad day. I do miss Jak's personality, and McGregors grumpy old man time wasting routine, perhaps Marshall is too much of a blank slate and needs to develop his own "thing" to get the fans to love him.
I don't disagree with the gist of your full post, but this part is the really critical bit - the main reason it is most suited to our squad is down to three very confused windows.
Hell yeah. Great stuff. Always used to like it when he spotted up a goal kick, then had a last minute change of mind and came forward to shift the ball to a new position before slowly walking backwards to take it then when the ref indicated to get a move on, he stopped again as if he couldn't make out what the message was. You can't coach stuff like this, you've either got it or you haven't.
Crikey mate have you rewatched the incident? Mbokani simply jumped up to clear the ball, marshall ran two yards to crash into mbokani Even the pundits where saying why not just leave mbokani to clear the ball its right on his head until marshall throws his arm at it Surely you can see that haha!!!!!
Maybe his 'thing' could be to stop the little, round leathery thing from going into the big, rectangular netty thing.
Brucey himself said he offloaded Rosie to get Dave in. His form at the end of last season probably showed that wasn't a bad call. Couldn't envisage injuries to both him AND Jnr. Obviously Bruce fell out with Macca. I agree though we haven't had enough defensive (esp full back cover) since these two were allowed to go.
The farcical thing about the first goal was that our players were the only ones competing for the ball, no Everton player there! Marshall should have commanded his area and made the shout for one of them to deal with it, simple as!
I agree, but my point is he brought in a decent RB (who took some bedding in - hope for Mason?), but Robbo is not a LB and never will be at a decent level. The whole buying strategy was lopsided and desperate - it still seems to be.
Once Marshall made his mind up to come out for the cross, he should have given a good clear shout, if Mbokani is still there then he has to take him out to get good clean contact with the ball, it looked to me he had his eyes shut and hoped for the best.
My bad when i asked obviously with the change in formation i meant rwb not rb Ooookies back to the original question Who would you play or sign for rwb?
