These 2 games have highlighted a serious issue with our squad. We are a one man team. We just cant win with out him! We have a clear over reliance on Jon Flanagan. Doom and gloom. The sooner he is back the better.
See, this is somewhat tongue in cheek, but he's the most inform defender we've got aside from Sakho. The other options are awful. Johnson has to play and he's the worst of the lot. Hope we buy a fullback this window.
I know what you mean, but he didn't do anything wrong before he was dropped, unless he has a slight niggle that we don't know about, but if that's the case then surely he should be fit to play now as he hasn't started a game for a while now. I still want to see Toure and Sakho start as our CB pairing.
Yeah, I'd go with that. I do like Skrtel, but we have no leader at the back and Sakho > Skrtel. I'm not sure we have a choice now though. Any news on Sakho's injury?
You joke, but after yet another disinterested, dallying performance by Johnson, Flannel has to be a better choice for right back. Johnson's trump card has always been that he is brilliant in attack but he has done sweet FA this year. And once again has gone missing in a big game. At least Flannel plays for the shirt. Can anyone who watches the reserves tell me about Smith? I guess he has impressed recently to get a position on the bench and BR must rate him to give him the nod ahead of Alberto, but boy was he out of his element tonight.
This thread put a smile on my face JK...unfortunately it was wiped off when I realised you're not far off the truth. Not sure where the suggestion comes from that Sakho is in form though TGOA he's looked as wobbly as the rest of them so far.
As defenders go, he's been our best this season. A dodgy 15mins against City and I think once or twice today he stepped up when he shouldn't have is about all I have against him.
But being the best of a bad bunch isn't necessarily being in form. He looks error prone just like all the others. That's not meant as a criticism of the lad, he's come from one of the easier leagues in Europe (relatively speaking) into one of the toughest. He's a young lad who will take time to get those errors and dodgy patches out of his system. He certainly hasn't been helped by BR's decisions to play Cissokho and Agger at LB. He will be a beast for us and I hope he keeps playing but in order to cement his place he needs to get better, the whole of the back four do. My worry is that the way BR is determined to play we'll never learn to shut games down. I'm not suggesting we play Maureen style anti-football as soon as we go one up but we really need to grab these opportunities and apply more pressure to the opposition (mainly by not giving the ball away as easily as we've done these last few games). It's a tough balance I know, none of us were complaining when we kept battering away at the spuds and ripped them a new arsehole but it's going to be vital if we want to win things that we learn how to control games against the big teams. That's twice now in a number of days we've gone a goal up and then completely lost control of the game. We really did seem to lose the physical battles in way too many areas today.
Smith has only played on the wing once for the U21s this season I think. Should've been Alberto... maybe Smith's pace was a factor, seems he was told just to harry Chelsea.
Felt bad for him. He made careless mistakes as he was desperate to show something. Hopefully he chalks it off as experience and improves.
He''ll be grand. Tough debut. Don't think anyone in the dressing room will be pointing fingers at the kid tonight. Much more worthy candidates to blame. I'm desperate to see a bloody settled back two. And just draw straws to replace Johnson. The mascot will do.
