Enrique is ok. There are better left backs about but worse players in our team. Can't agree about Johnson if anything he is over rated not under rated. He is superb going forward but his attacking instincts get the better of him. Constantly caught out of position and is pretty awful defending corners and crosses. The 3-4 goals he creates or scores for us per season are outweighed by the goals he costs us in my opinion. Exciting to watch but a luxury we can't afford.
I know it's all about opinion but I don't agree with any of that about Johnson. Constantly caught out of position? A luxury? Back on Enricky my biggest issue with him is his unbelievable lack of ability to play even the simplest of passes with his right. He runs around the ball often just so he doesn't have to use it. Players who play football every day of their lives but can't use both feet should be shot at dawn and put into a Findus Lasagne.
There is no way, even now, that I would have sold Arbeloa to buy Johnson as Rafa did a few years back. However, now we have Glen, there is no way I would swap him for any other right back in the country! He does get caught out occasionally but he works hard to get back and make up for it. It often covers for the CB's when they make an error too which goes unnoticed by most. He makes some cracking challenges although I will add that some of these are the result of him having to track back having been caught out, but at least he makes amends! I repeat, I wouldn't swap him for any other right back in the country!
Arbeloa was apparently home sick. Rafa signed Johnson because new Eufa rules said teams had to have a certain number of home grown players in there squads for each European game. After missing out on Barry he had to resort to signing a foreign player for that role so RB was the only other position where he was able to strengthen and add British. Johnson was the only decent English rb back then.
That rule had been announced but didn't come into play for another season or two. However, if Arbeloa was home sick and forced the move then fair enough, but £17m (or whatever you believe) is hell of a lot for a FB when we clearly needed reinforcements in attacking areas. I understood the signing though, Rafa was struggling to get a quality winger because of the Rick Parry barrier and opted to get the width from the FB's instead. Shame he blow such a load on a RB but the LB was lacking so much too, equally as much a shame was Aurelio's injuries too mind.
