Contriversial opinions on some of our team

[Paxtonite]

I will probably get shot down for this, but Zokora has improved and yesterday's efforts for most of the match deserve praise rather than the criticism he constantly gets. Put in a strong player along side him and you will see him flourish - he seems to be left too isolated and alone and then cant do two peoples jobs.

I happen to agree. This Zokora bashing band wagon has gathered pace unfairly. The guy busts a gut for us which is more than i can say for chimbonda, lee, huddlestone, kaboul, dawson, berbatov, bent and defoe at the moment.

He is often exposed by the lack of running from others and the mopping up he does a lot of the time is incredible. People need to wake up. He is not the problem.

 

[lukespurs7]

Agree with everything you say, I owe you a blowjob

cheers mate

 

[lukespurs7]

i pretty much agree with everything except the dawson-kaboul comparison.
dawson IS as you say the slower, more aggressive defender, but Kaboul is NOT like him at all. he is supposed to be in the king mould - quicker, better on the ball, good reader of the game, and that's why king-dawson made such a good partnership.

but this is where the problem is:
kaboul's reading of the game is poor due to being young and inexperienced and so he cannot compensate when daws throws himself into everything leaving kaboul exposed. it will come to kaboul in time, but it's just not working now.
having seen this, i'm sure that a king-dawson partnership from before 2004 (when we got naybet) would have been a complete disaster as it was only after we got naybet did king's reading of the game improve so drastically.

The point about Dawson looking good along side King is a very valid one. They compliment each other well. Alot of people forget that football is a team sport, you need the correct balance, correct types of players and you need them to work well together as a team, our defence are individuals, individuals don't help, but they need to learn to be more of a unit.

We could do with a few more normal basic footballers, Chimbonda has his strengths but he also has a fair few flaws and as i said before doesn't release the ball fast enough, often taking too many touches and losing possession.

Defence,Midfield and strikers all must form partnerships and units which is why for example:
Howard
Hibbert Yobo Lescott Neville
Carsley

Will keep far more clean sheets than:
Robinson
Chimbonda Dawson Kaboul Bale
Zokora

The everton defensive line has a far greater understanding, all of their players are normal footballers, can head,tackle,attack and defend and pass, individually you'd say our defensive line is stronger and possess more talent especially our two full-backs, however as a unit they have far less confidence in each other and understanding also, they try to be too clever and give the ball away and make silly mistakes and are regularly out of position something you rarely see the like of Hibbert,Neville,Carsley do etc.

I think an idea defence for us which would be realistic would be:
Robinson
Hutton Rocha Laursen Bale
Butt

Portsmouth are another example of a team who don't nesseccarily have great individuals but they have players who do the simple things well and work well as a unit:
James
Johnson Distin Campbell Pamarot
Davis
3 of these players we used to bloody have and said weren't good enough!

anyway we can say all we like about our defence, about injuries etc until we start actually keeping some clean sheets and getting some confidence then we will never improve.

 

[knilly]

i cant wait to see bit tony, the king and RR fit.

how much more experience will we need then

 

[mkkid]

After todays match, i feel a horrific refereeing decesion, some sloppy defending and bad luck cost us the game.

We must IMO do two things, 1 improve as a team defensively and 2 if we are to go the places we want to, then buy a few new players especially defenders, a few players in our team below i feel are either over or under-rated:

1.Robbo-UNDER-RATED->I actually think Robbo is a decent goalie, he's a decent reflex goalie/shot-stopper and his kicking is phenominal, has been poor on occasions for the past season and a half but mainly due to a lack of confidence and an absoloutely exposed defence, when teams attack us they get golden oppertunities.

2.Chimbonda-OVER RATED!-> I think he is very athletic and his heading ability is out of this world, but positionally he's not great, defensively 1 vs 1 he's not the best, attacking wise he posses a decent threat BUT his crossing is below-par AND i've really noticed time and again he takes too many touches and loses us possession of the ball. I feel Stalteri may actually be better-see, contriversial.

3.Dawson-OVER RATED! -> He's really been exposed lately, i used to think he was a top class CB, yes he can head, but too often he fouls, he's quite slow and lately especially he just makes far too many sloppy errors which a top class CB wouldn't make.

4.Jenas-UNDERRATED -> His work-rate is brilliant, he wins alot of tackles, missplaces few passes, has some decent movement and his positioning is very good. If he has the right CM partner either a very attacking creative player i.e Riquelme who'd let him do a more all-round job, working hard and doing more defensive work and simple passing then he'd flourish OR another all-round box-box player i.e Mendes, Poulsen, who can defend and attack so Jenas can do his box-box role and which ever he's doing(defening or driving forward) the other guy would be comfortable with doing the opposite, again he'd look like a top class player. Zokora is too limited a partner IMO Tainio would be best and has proved it in the past. We lack energy and fight in the CM without JJ and some people just don't notice what he contributes to the team.

5.Malbranque- VASTLY UNDER RATED! -> the amount of tackles that he wins is unbelieveable. He can head a bit for a small guy, a bit one footed but usually creates danger with some lovely through balls and he pops up with a few goals every now and then, he's also a tireless runner.

views?

I feel that aswell as our team balance not being quite right, we could do with a new RB and 2 CB's and Robbo just needs his confidence back as remember when we first signed him, he was 3rd best goalie behind Cech and Van Der Sar, and we were keeping clean sheets for fun when we nearly came 4th with a defence of:Stalteri,King,Dawson/Lee.Y.P

Robbo underated have you ever seen a keeper beaten by more shots from distance than,i ever seen.It only because hes England number one he get away with it.

Chimbonda ,i have to agree with!

Dawson needs a experienced head next to him.

Jenas,is truely a pile a shit he makes J Dozzell look like Maradona.
He is an outstanding player against Derby/Wigan and any relgation fodder,Birmingham must have been devasted that he never played yesterday.

Malbranque,good player too slow though!

 

[LadieK]

I just want to say that I wholeheartedly agree on Steed. I absolutely love the guy, he runs his socks off and NEVER gives less than 100%. What a fantastic buy that was!

 

[Andy]

I never noticed how much Malbranque ran until i noticed him yesterday and i think with him Jenas Lennon and Zokora make up our first choice midfield which isn't that great tbh,but good enough to get us out of the mess we are in,
I think Dawson should by now know that king isn't gonna be in the team regularly and should be taking the reigns as the experienced defender and helping other players,
It's a shame that for a guy with a few years premier League experience still can't read a game that well and still makes the most novice-like mistakes,
I can see why Chimbonda is recieving the stick he is and thats due to his dwelling on the ball at times,
I can't see how Ramos is going to sort out the defence with the players he has,
I know he said he doesn,t really want to go out and spend big during the winter transfer window but i think he needs a leader in the centre of defence,
Whether King can come back and do it is asking a hell of alot though.

 

[LadieK]

I never noticed how much Malbranque ran until i noticed him yesterday and i think with him Jenas Lennon and Zokora make up our first choice midfield which isn't that great tbh,but good enough to get us out of the mess we are in,

Definately disagree with you there! 4 fantastic midfielders - teams are screaming out for Lennon and I imagine if Steed was for sale, he's certainly have a high price now too.

Our midfield in my eyes is the best thing about our team (seeing as our strikers moan so much) :lol:

 

[sidford]

what we need to do is go back to basics and put our two most defensive midfielders in the centre, hudd and zokora and try go from there. if needs be put jenas on the right and malbranque or lennon on the left. i know people on here like jenas but the defence needs all the help it can get at the minute and having two defensive players in front of them might get a couple of clean sheets which will bring a bit of confidence back

 

[Teemu]

That's funny, he managed it twice against the Spammers.

It's called narrowing the angle, and standard practice. Why do you imagine keepers aren't allowed to move off their line against a penalty?

Thing is though there's a limit to how close you stand. Too far back and there's too much angle to cover, but too far forwards and you've got no time to react. As long as the shot is hard enough it will go in, and that's exactly what happened for the second goal. Granted it was a good finish and it wasn't exactly a howler, but still if he hadn't been standing so far forwards I expect he may well have saved it as he could have reacted. I may well be wrong but for the saves he made against Wham he wasn't standing 10 metres off his line for a shot from the edge of the box!

 

[Andy]

Definately disagree with you there! 4 fantastic midfielders - teams are screaming out for Lennon and I imagine if Steed was for sale, he's certainly have a high price now too.

Our midfield in my eyes is the best thing about our team (seeing as our strikers moan so much) :lol:

I suppose what i should have said was that we don't really hae much strength in depth where it comes to the midfield Tainio seem to live in a hospital most of the season,Huddlestone can't finish a game let alone a half at the moment,
Routledge has gone further backwards and i think Ghaly has been shot,
What i meant is yes they are good midfielders it's just there not good enough even on top form to fit into a top four side,Lennon apart,
I suppose Everton have got the two midfielders i'd want in a spurs shirt atm and thats Cahill and Arteta along with Lennon and a more solid version of Zokora(dare i say Kaboul could be that one?)sitting behind them three,it would be amazing to watch.

 

[tony0379]

well the defence is shit thats obvious

 

[tony0379]

I thought robbos despairing looks like a man stuck in glue dive for the 2nd goal yesterday was borderline pathetic.

other than that dowd had one of the worst games ive seen froma referee and what was he listening to renie for to sendd off keane?

and, why was renie pissing himself laughing when the scored the 3rD?

coz hes frim birmingham

 

[General Levy]

Alan Hutton seems like an increasingly good option at RB now. Chimbonda is an immensely talented footballer but sweet Jesus he takes more risks game by game it seems.

Daws is a certain 'type' of centre back, in the Terry/Vidic/Pallister mould. It's no coincidence that each of these players was/is partnered by a totally different type of player at the back. For Terry, see Carvalho. For Vidic, see Ferdinand. For Pallister, see Bruce. Every one of these partner-players was one who was comfortable on the ball, relatively quick, and most importantly an expert at reading the game and predicting attacks.

Sorry to be pedantic but Bruce was the slow defender and Pallister had the pace.

 

[Lesion]

andy gray is a c**t

 

[Andy]

mate, if your gonna type that word you have to put **** like that as typing any part of that word will see you get a ban for 24 hours :up:

 

[martinsjollyboys]

maybe he didnt want to say clot????