As teams evolve, there will always be certain players who get left behind. We saw this with Palacios and I feel this is what happened with Corluka. I always felt he was on borrowed time with Harry because Harry much prefers to have his FB's playing like Glenn Johnson and Kyle Walker, and not the more pedestrian yet more composed style of Corluka. Let's be honest here, when he played this season, Corluka was in very indifferent form and most managers would have done what Harry did and allowed him to go out on loan when the player made it clear he wanted regular football. The problem was that this left us without cover for a player who is now running on empty.
I always thought Corluka worked well with Lennon as Benny does with Bale and added calm to many games. Calm is an underrated commodity in football today IMO. That was always the the overriding sense I remember Bobby Moore for. Not comparing, just the first name that sprung to mind when thinking of calm players. What we would do for some calm players right now. Berbatov for another example and Sherringham. Cool calculating heads. The nearest we have is probably Parker and he HAS made a difference.
To be fair to the guy, he only played 7 first team games, of which were mostly EL. A bit of rotation wouldn't have hurt, should we be playing a weaker team a few days after a big game, he should have been played. Therefore, he would have been fresh for games when needed, as well as Walker not being tired at the end of the season.
I would agree with that. I think he's been unlucky with injuries. But, he's a very useful utility player. Just the sort of thing we could do with at the moment!
sickening. it goes to show how harry's tactics are just bizarre. The deal we got pienaar for was amazing, just like when we signed Nico. - the pair of them are used appallingly. such a waste.
Charlie is a very decent defensive full back, not much pace, not great in the air, but solid and good positional sense. When he was at his absolute best, he was playing behind Lennon, with BAE and Modric on the other flank. This worked well, because Modric's natural tendency was to drift in from the left when we had the ball, and this forced BAE to push higher up the pitch to compansate. And then our CBs would push a little way across to cover the LB pace, and that allowed Charlie to stay deeper and slightly narrower. This worked largely because Lennon has the pace and work ethic to get back to cover Charlie (and of course BAE did the same on the left. We actually played almost a 3-5-2 or 3-4-1-2 with those , and for a while that got the best out of them. But, no one will ever convince me that 'Arry wanted, or told them to, or even noticed that this was how they were playing. It happened because it was the natural way for 4 key and distinctive players to play. Pienaar is not a defensive mid, and never has been. He has a great work ethic, which people often confusive with "defesive", but his game is all about movement off the ball in the last third, and for his style to be effective he neds other players around him working hard to get forward and makiung runs into dangerous areas. Our game, in contrast, is incredibly static in the last third, and we rely on our best players going one-on-one (or more often one-on-two or three) hoping for a bit of brilliance to create a chance. Pienaar was never going to work in that system (if system is the right word for the rubbish we are producing right now). Niko is a different matter again. He is unusually, almost uniquely slow for a player in the Prem. He has a fantastic right foot shot (not bad on his left, either) but offers almost nothing else. All these players can be great servants for clubs with a manager who knows how to piece together individuals into a team, and create a whole that is more than the sum of its parts. Which makes it slightly ironic that they ended up playing for 'Arry.
Redknapp got good performances out of Kranjcar at Portsmouth though, CN. Why he's overlooked the man as back-up for van der Vaart is beyond me, though. It seems like his most natural position to me, though he'd play it in quite a different way to the Dutchman.
PNP - I'd prefer to say that Niko played well for Pompey, and not attsibute this to anything that 'Arry did. Niko was, in some ways, Pompey's "luxury" player, the one who could steal a result for them against anyone (like Taarabt for QPR last season), so maybe he had a team behind him who worked hard to cover his shortcomings and allow him to concentrate on what he did best? I don't know, I didn't watch much of their games. I'd agree that he looks like a natural to replace VDV, but 'Arry prefers to use him as a RW. Go, as the Americans say, figure.
He also only tends to play him on the right wing in a 4-4-2, for some reason. I'm not sure why he thinks he's less suited to filling in for Lennon when we're in the 4-4-1-1, 4-2-3-1, 4-5-1 or whatever.
'Arry doesn't do 4-4-1-1, or 4-5-1, or 4-2-3-1. 'Arry does 11 top, top players on the pitch, all nice lads, never give him a moment's trouble...
Comfortablynumb - good analysis. Corluka - not as slow as people think, but compensated by good positional sense. Certainly didn't seem to be at his best in his few games this season, but I don't think we should draw conclusions based on that. Worked better with Lennon than Walker odes. Pienaar - the rotation argument is fine in principle, but please tell me exactly which games he should have played in and who should not have played instead. Then tell me why that would not have affected the result in that game compared to what was achieved and how it would not have affected any momentum we had picked up from a string of good results... and don't just pick the bad results/performances on the basis of hindsight.
I've said it a few times and it makes a certain amount of sense - if we play Bale as an attacking LB and Pienaar on the wing, we could replicate the Baines/Pienaar pairing that has been so effective for Everton for a few seasons. At the very least, we could have tried a Rose/Pienaar pairing in the Europa League or whatever to see if it would work.
They were both injured for a lot of the Europa League campaign, unfortunately. So were Dawson, Huddlestone, Kranjcar, Gallas and... er, pretty much everyone outside of our first XI, actually. Good experience for some of our youngsters though, I guess.
