Imagine it.... Yedlin and Ritchie on the right Anita and Gouffran on the left? That would mean we easily have the strongest wings in the league. Dummett is not good defensively, he is error prone and he doesn't often add much to the attack. To be fair he did put a couple of great balls into the box yesterday but that's not enough for me. We need a good defensive fullback and Dummett is not that.
Absolutely not he's got to wait for rb which is now yedlins place to lose Sorry that's just the way things should be
No. I'm one of the few who don't hate Dummett. Also don't like square pegs in round holes. Anita has been good but he'll have to wait for his chance again
Anita offers something very different to Yedlin, as Anita is extremely defensive minded, whereas it's in Yedlin's nature to charge down the wing and try to put a cross in. As much as we're liking the excitement Yedlin brings in, the simple fact is he does leave us quite exposed - see yesterday when Norwich were exploiting the freedom they had on the wings. Anita should go back into right back for me, Yedlin should be impact sub.
I've got a revolutionary plan, bear with me. I think we should put the left back we bought Lazaar, at er, left back.
The captain is spot on. Run it like a football club and make Anita wait his chance now Yedlin is in possession (and doing quite well).
Dang I'd forgotten about Lazaar...as had plenty of others I'm sure. Atsu needs to get some starts as well, he's looked sharp when he's come on.
Play Anita when the other team has a strong left side. Otherwise, stick with De Yedlin. Bring on Anita for De Yedlin or Richie on 75 min when we're winning. If anything Anita should play alongside Shelvey if Tiote doesn't step up and compete with Hayden...Colback I'm sorry..don't really know what he does better than the others without being worse discipline..and physically. Maybe give Colback a chance further up the pitch in Diamé role in a cup game? Colback used to be quite good for the mackems, but he's rarely impressed for us in my memory. At best he got stuck in.When you're fighting relegation getting stuck in is great but when you're trying to win a league getting stuck in means you're taking the place of someone who can actually change and win games. We've finally got a proper squad going, so this is a luxury problem. Yesterdays game was quite bizarre, in that the amount of straight balls over the top by Shelvey and Clark/Dummett kept reaching the quite short Gayle. Either Norwich is so bad at defending those balls or Gayle is so good at getting into space or Shelvey is an absolute god dropping in those balls, I don't remember ever quite seeing that tactic work so well for most of the game. Also injuries...we seem to have very little since Rafa changed the training and training pitches. So for 10 years we have terrible injuries season after season. Rafa comes in and...? Magic. But injuries will come during the season so its good we have strength in depth in regard to this league at least.
Part of the injuries thing is that we are a winning team at the moment. For some strange reason injuries seem to exist more and last longer in losing teams.
Anita is a RB or CDM. I've had enough of bunging players wherever we happen to have a spot. Players should only play in their specialised positions. With our recruitment policy over the summer, we have 2 for every position so As both Dummett & Lazaar are fit, one of them plays at LB
No way should we ever stick someone who isn't a left back at left back again (barring injuries to all our left backs). I have always been against sticking people out of position. It's not about playing the best 11 players, it's about playing the best team. Dummett should hold onto LB until Rafa is no longer happy with the job he is doing, or until he feels it is time to rotate in another LB (Lazaar or Clark). I would even go as far as to say that if all three of those were injured, but we had an available youth left-back, then we play the youngster.
I don't see how Dummett has impressed at all in his LB spot. Anita has played both fullback slots and done well.
Dunno what you're worried about. If you can bank on 1 thing is that Rafa will rotate. I can assure you Gayle will not start the next game, Perez will, along with Hayden, Tiote and Mbemba.
Nothing against Anita, infact he's grown on me. But Yedlin is playing well and helping us create more chances (which was my whinge recently). So he should keep his place. Anita on the bench. Similar with left back, except different - a change is due. We really need to put some games to bed by half time. Our squad strength will hopefully get us through the winter months where injuries will need us to use our full squad - including a returning young man in January.
Anita is the better all round RB IMHO. Forget playing him at LB. Not sure it's really worth discussing who will have the shirt because Rafa will continue to rotate players game by game as he has done all season so far and said he will do going forward.
If you have a manager who can make it work I like the rotation. Keeps the whole squad ready to go and players on their toes as the place is never theirs regardless. Also I would think goes some way to keeping spirits up in the camp. Less sulking about no game time
