Take us down? I've never known us have such poor centrebacks. Even Titus would grace our team. Offensively we're ok but on the offensive were a car crash waiting to happen! I feel gutted tonight.
To be fair to Shambles, he was a pretty good CB who had lapses in concentration. Pity really, he could have been a top player. Don't think you'll go down. You never do
Last season when we gave JOS a new contract that was the decider for me not to renew my season ticket. Two seasons on we still rely on JOS. He's been a liability for at least three seasons. Unfortunately our defense is populated by total donkeys. Sam will have to do his best till the window and get new defenders. For me, if we keep the same defence we go down. Johnny Evans was £8m and apparently Alonso could leave Fiorentina for £2m in the summer. We went for neither. Defence has been our problem for ages, not attack. Our attack never gets the chance to shine because its so demoralising playing in front of that defence. Costel needs to start having good games as well. Did well in the derby but just been average/poor in other games. This was the same keeper who had the best shots/saves ratio in the league last year.
I can count on one hand how many decent cb's we've had . Varga, Thome and Bould will probs be in the top 3. Why the Feck did we renew Brown and Osheas contract ffs??
Our centre backs are way too slow. As said above with that defence we will go down. Need to make it to january then add some pace there.
Agreed Tees. But we knew that 3 months ago. We have to live with it and set them out with what we've got. January can't come round soon enough.
We need to sign Ron Vlaar, I know he's currently injured and he might be a bit rusty, but he's a proven international, and hard as nails too. Coates is just too soft imo.
Go completely along with the observation of Pants. His efforts today were weak as he was dropping to his knees when one on one, not coming out to attack the high ball and too fond of remaining on his line. For me two or three of today's goal were down to him making it easy for the scorer. We were turned down by a 10-15mil defender in the summer and hanging out for him possibly lost us Evans, if we ever wanted him or he wanted to come. Either way we contributed massively to that score line today.
Couldn't disagree more Nostalgic! Pants was to blame for the 5th for me. He should have made himself bigger! Tough for a 6ft 8in guy, but he should have. That's called hindsight though. He did what he thought best at that millisecond moment so I can't knock him for that. I don't think he was to blame for the other five though. Blame the defence for them!
The first stage in goalie training is to stay on you feet and force he attacker into a decision but don't make it easy for him. Second stage is to take command of space behind your defence, he did neither today and for me could/shoudl have been faster off his line even if it means clattering the attacker.
I can't argue about what goes through a man's mind in that split second Nostalgic. Like I said earlier, I think he could've made himself bigger for the fifth. But it's easy for me to say that sitting in my kitchen at 8:40 tonight. I won't blame him for any of the other goals though. I'm sure he's hurting tonight after having 6 put past him but I still faith in him as our best goalie .
I think we are getting exactly what's to be expected in a premier league campaign when we have Jo's, Wes, seb and Kaboul as our pool of centre backs.
To be honest Vergini would have been a better option today. Brown is done after 50 minutes today he looked finished. Coates looked lost next to Brown. Do we have any young pacy CBs that could make the step up until Jan. Vlarr is a must, we must sign another too and release Brown.
O.Shea. Brown. Kaboul and the other useless twat would struggle in the scottish highlands league. That is most certainly not prem league quality. Throw Jones and PVA into the mix and then we really see how weak the defence is. The only positive thing is. There is goals in the team. Enough to counter act that abortion of a defence?
On the plus side, having to sort out a defence or goalkeeper (not that we need a new keeper) is the easiest position to recruit for on a budget. £10-15m goes a long way for mid-table class defenders. £10-15m goes nowhere higher up the pitch.....especially in January. You mention Thome, Varga and Bould. Thome and Varga were really good but how amazing was Steve Bould. Steve Bould was such a good defender. He was probably the same age as J'FFS'OS (as I call him) when we had him but the difference is that Steve Bould was easily twice the defender O'Shea ever was. The problem with O'Shea in my eyes is that he takes TOO much responsibility. He always trusts himself to make the tackle or mark the best striker but as his ability and pace has gone he gets found out all the time. I admire his attitude of not shirking things, but the thinking player, the real pro, would see his shortcomings and tell his partner to do the stuff he isn't capable of anymore. Fair enough he doesn't have the best partners but O'Shea should just be a delegator who organises and barks the players into formation, and just relying on positioning. Coates showed us at Arsenal how good he can be. He was the South American defender of the year for god's sake, we're not talking about Vanuatu player of the year. If he was along side JOS as an organiser I think he'd be very good. Kaboul is a good player who is being shown up by those around him. If we can get just one central defensive leader and one left back (actually left footed) we will be fine. We haven't owned a left back since Danny Collins. PVA is a left winger. We should have got Alonso for £2m, he was great for us. For me Alonso was just slightly worse than Danny Rose overall (only slightly) but a better defender than Rose. Alonso was a solid left back who was big enough to be a threat from corners and being able to stick in a perfectly decent cross from deep. Such a shame Lombaerts failed that medical. He got voted Zenit's greatest ever player shortly after........and we are talking Arshavin having played for them, and he was Russian. Sam is a defensive manager. He'll see right through our defensive passengers and get them changed as quickly as he can in Jan.
