Anyone else wondering how long it might be until Shaw is given a chance at left back? For me, everyone played their socks off against MCFC and MUFC, but Fox has looked a concern since the back end of last season. He often gets pulled across far too central and gives wingers a lot of space. Looking at the impact James Ward Prowse has had, and Nathanial Clyne who (although much more experienced) is a similar kind of age, is it time Shaw had his chance? I dont think Fox is the end of the world, and dont agree with the "we will go down with Fonte and Fox in the team" brigade, but perhaps he needs some competition, and there is no reason why Shaw cant make a big impact.... Anyone go to Stevenage - how did he look?
At Stevenage, he looked nervous and shaky. To be fair, his man was their MOTM, but stick with Fox for now, against teams not quite as good as the Manchester teams. He has potential, but I am not sure he could handle the big stage right now. We could stick him in against the (no disrespect) the Reading type teams.
Just got to keep working him through slowly until he's ready. Hopefully a long cup run will do him a world of good!
Fox is a Scottish International pick, so he is well regarded in some quarters, quality left backs aren't two a penny these days. He still has the best dead ball delivery in the team and that's worth a place. My own view on his performance yesterday was, that in the 1st half he was not closing Valencia down quickly enough, but was trying to channel him inside rather than tackling for the ball, trouble is, in this League if you commit yourself and get it wrong you will be punished. 2nd half he went missing for a period, but I guess was trying to pace himself to get through the 90 minutes, did get forward late on and we were unlucky not to capitalise. He may not be great, but is the best we have for the moment, Shaw will undoubtably improve with experience but far too raw at this stage. JWP was outstandingly mature yesterday, we will struggle to keep him if the vultures come hunting.
The players are what we have now until January and Nigel will need to work hard on improving one or two of them but overall I am pleased with the business we have done. I'm sorry we missed out on Buttner and if rumours are to be believed we also missed out on another good CB. But hey come on look at the quality players Nicola has brought in for us.. PS The whinging moaners, early leavers and boo boys are not going to help us in way.
I think a lot of Fox's poor 'positioning' is team tactics rather than his own poor play. Against City and United, whenever they had posession we just made two narrow defensive lines on the edge of the box, to understandably stop them from being able to play through us. Then whenever they passed it out wide we would spread out to them. Clyne did the same thing for the majority of the game, the difference being is that Clyne is so quick that he can still get to his man, whereas Fox was always a few yards off. I think he was still bad overall, but I think some of the blame should go to our system and to Adkins (I know that's a terrible, terrible thing to say on here), rather than Fox.
Nat Clyne has been excellent since his arrival. I really didn't quite know what to expect at the time, apart him being mentioned by Adkins in a post-match interview where, ironically he talked about Lambert exploiting a weakness Clyne has..! In a sense, in falling over [not his fault at all] Clyne was demonstrating the weakness Adkins had been referring to. Up the other end, Lambert showed us precisely that, when it comes to dealing with himself, plenty of defenders exhibit that weakness. After a season of watching him, I still haven't made my mind up about Fox. There's something lacking about him, but he can be very good too. There are times when I think he's probably a better left sided midfielder, who can defend, rather than an LB who can overlap. Clyne has instantly showed what a true sided defender can do.
I cant be complimentary enough about Clyne - he looks a brilliant player. The timing of his challenges is superb, great on the ball and quick enough to recover when he gets himself in the wrong positions.
I do think now that it is a tactic, I think they want crosses put in which should be easier for Jos and Jose to deal with rather than passing through us at speed. 2 goals yesterday we from a cross and a corner so that kind of pisses on that theory. Shaw needs to play games, other option is to play Clyne on the left and bring in Richardson. I always think its best to have your best fallback on the left, as generally the best wingers in England are on the right
