I near as damn it made this thread this week in the build up to the WBA game but thought it was a bit harsh. Now after yet another blunder I cannot help but think he has all the hall marks of the Ginger one. Great in the air. Decent first touch. Seems capable of chipping in with a few goals from set pieces. Has forwards in his pocket for virtually the whole game ... then loses his head and gifts the opposition a goal. What do you guys think? Is he Ginger in disguise/better or worse?
As good as his potential is we can't afford his mistakes this season - not when we don't have proven PL experience up front to fire a few in..
just posted this on a different thread but here it is again: are people purely basing their judgement of de laet being poor on his three mistakes costing us goals? having seen all four games so far this season i'd argue he has been very good for 99% of each match. the lad is very talented but he is still young and has been sent out on loan to us to learn about the top flight. he is not the finished article but then none of our players are! if they were they'd be playing for man utd every week. the unfortunate thing for him is that he has fallen into a 'john ruddy situation' from last year - every mistake he makes costs us a goal. i've been impressed with him so far and he is definitely better than both whitbread and ward, but the boy is going to have to sharpen up his concentration levels - that is all he is lacking - and i think too many fans are looking for that one player to jump on and criticise as is often the case. i won't be one of them.
I've no doubt he will be a great Championship defender when all is done and dusted. His touch is good and he suits our style of open passing.Just needs to build his confidence.
If he is the next Ginger Pele, all we now need is another Craig Fleming who had the art of giving away penalties with his arm off to a tee
I feel that for every mistake he makes, he makes up for it with something good. He will learn to cut out the mistakes. He was signed by Manchester United so he will become good.
He has managed to make a lot of good tales and blocks, remember his nightmare start and then redeemed himself very well. As for the next ginger pele, I never realised that he had a decent first touch, I must have misssed the one time that happened. Seriously De Laet is significantly better than Doherty, by a Norfolk country mile.
I wouldn't put them in same bracket really, De Laet is quicker and technically better from what I've seen. Doherty was an absolute doughnut at times and it often shocked me that some City fans held him in such high regard, I used to be close to having a nervous breakdown when he was on the ball. The only thing they have in common is poor decision making.
Don't think confidence is his problem Sheffield, it's his concetration whats needed to improve. He just seems to switch off at any given point, early in match(WBA) in the middle(Wigan) or at the death(Chelsea),he's Russian roulet in your back four!
I really don't get this criticism for Doherty. Yes he had his fair share of bad games, but he wasn't awful. I remember a game, I forget who against, but Doherty was brilliant then on Canary whinge a few callers had a go at him saying he was awful. I even remember one caller asking why was he just kicking it up the field! Even Neil Adams thought he played well and deserved man of the match.
the thing with doherty was that he was always playing in a struggling side. i always felt he gave his best and he was certainly a very loyal servant to the club, but in the back of my mind i always had the thought that there must be someone out there who would do a much better job for us. he left the club at exactly the right time.
You're perhaps right about him leaving when he did Super. Definitely a great servant to us, and a great leader.
He made a lot of us feel nervous and seemed quite reckless. I wouldn't fault his distribution he made some bad decisions and lost his head a bit. I like to see defenders that are self-assured and neat, he didn't fit that bill at times. By all means his not our worst ever player but I've never used to get some city fans defending him so fiercely when he was at fault.
Cracking article Chris, I've been thinking something very similar myself but had identified the big difference between the two is that I get the feeling De Laet will be allowed to get away with making horrendous blunders and won't bare the wrath of the Carra Rud faithful because people seem to have fallen in love with him already whilst The Doc only needed to sneeze too loudly and he was immediately cast as the villain and blamed for all our woes. And Northampton's comments confirm my suspicions beautifully. Now I'm not saying the guy is hopeless, far from it as he has looked solid 90% of the time, but he has made some glaring howlers already in the first four games that have cost us points - in fact he's probably cost us more points than Doc did from all his supposed howlers in his last two years with us. But some people still don't see it. Ah well. In my mind The Doc was a better and more reliable CB for us than de Laet has shown so far, hands down in my opinion and I will never ever understand the criticism he used to get. Not going to dig that one up again though as it's pretty much been done to death over the past fews years but there's my opinion anyway for what it's worth.
Neil Adams never had anything but praise for The Doc, he knew how important and what a good defender he was for us - regardless of the boo boys - and there is a man who clearly knows what he's on about and has an opinion I trust amost 100%
I can assure you from someone who used to pretty much watch his every move during games he really wasn't that bad either.
I have never been ' anti Doc ' but if he was still that good when he left us why is it that 12 months or so later he can't get into the matchday squad of a League One Team? De Laet is a young talented player who because of youth and inexperience will make mistakes - the same could not be said of the Doc!!
Maybe the team is not right for him. It was right for him at Norwich. An example being Torres, great for Liverpool, crap for Chelsea.
