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[Legend10]

Technique is a very easy to gage physical manifestation of a players ability to to work with the ball at his feet from the point of control to the way they move with and manipulate the ball. Walker has the poorest technique of any player in our squad right now.

Someone said the other day said he's not been great going forward and he's been a bit dodgy defensively but apart from that he's been a revelation.

I'm not exactly sure what has been revealed ?

I accept the premiership has been a bit bereft of young stand outs this season but Personally, I don't get why Joe Allen didn't piss it. Is he too old ? He was 22 in March ?


This was your post BC where you defined what I termed as a ridiculous definition of technique, looking at it again it's actually more ridiculous than I remembered, labelling Walker as having the poorest technique in our squad. Easy to gage physical manifestation of a players ability work with a ball at his feet blah blah, what are you even talking about?

Technical ability as a footballer isn't complicated it's as simple as ABC, it purely refers to a players ability to do the games basics. Control, passing, tackling, heading, shooting, dribbling etc etc, these are all basics of the game but how good they are at these basics make up a players overall technical ability. Players don't have to and indeed rarely are technically excellent at everything, a good Spurs example of this would be somebody like Ardiles, you wouldn't describe his heading or tackling as being technically excellent, however his ability to pass a ball, control it, move with it etc was top draw, add in a footballing brain that ticks way faster than the norm and you have a world class player.

Let's be serious about this very very few Premiership players are technically poor, their ability to do the games basics have been drilled in through years of playing and training on top of in some cases natural ability. But of course it's only part of the package as there are technically very good players at all levels including non-league, once you start adding other abilities such as physical, mental etc etc you will determine the quality of the overall player.

Bringing it back to Walker he is far away from being technically poor, having poor technique or whatever else in this area you want to throw at him. He is a very technically sound and competent player who also has great physical attributes to support this. Where he will improve as he matures will be in the mental side of his game, the odd lapse in concentration etc will happen less and less and experience will help him to improve in pressure situations and to cope better with different problems that the opposition will pose to him. Gary Neville not long back made an interesting point about the unique problems (I think it was Juventus) used to pose him and even as a very experienced player how it took him it took him 3 or 4 games against them to solve it, this will happen with Walker as well.

 

[ultimateloner]

If Walker is sh*t we can't top the league in clean sheets. For defenders it takes only 1 mistake to lose a clean sheet.

All this talk about intellgience etc for a fullback is icing on the cake. First and foremost he has to defend so the clean sheet is the most important statistic. He is a player i'm happy we have.

 

[Legend10]

BCs not here at the mo L10, don't bring him into it!

I'll give you my idea on technique and intelligence, if I use any buzz words then I apologise, to me they're just words I'm not entirely sure why they offend you so much! I know what you mean in a way I guess, lots of armchair theorists and this is why, as I've discussed with you, I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is as a coach!

Walker is fine technically, as are most Prem level players, for me player intelligence is decision making, the ability to scan the pitch, particularly before receiving the ball and when defending before the ball is a danger to you, so you are aware of space. This ability informs your technique, because if you know xyz is 10 yards away then you are relaxed when you take your touch, because you've built up a picture in your mind. This is why the very best players seemingly have so much time when they get the ball, because they are always building a better picture every time they look around the pitch. Ball watchers can have a good technique, but it's undermined when they don't have an appreciation of space, they are less relaxed and panic more on the ball. It's why Huddlestone and Alonso are where they are with very similar technique, it's football intelligence that separates them.

That to me is what I would define as football intelligence. Good players react to whats happening on the pitch well, the best players know what's going to happen next on the pitch. For me, Walker is in the former category at the moment.

Walker can be a bit of a ballwatcher at times, not always, but this is why I think he makes sometimes basic mistakes like bad passes, defensive lapses, arriving in the final third and not looking once to see where he's crossing it. This is not scathing criticism by the way L10, I've noticed an improvement in some of this kind of play and he is certainly not a bad player, a liability or anything, but there are areas for improvement there.

Firstly let me say I find questioning a players intelligence or lack of it even in a footballing sense should be done carefully and not by people who think they know better spouting pontificating nonsense, which is what we usually get. Buzz words don't offend me, I actually find them kind of amusing, people hear Mourinho was it say pivot and double pivot in an interview and next day theyre on message boards saying Capoue or whoever can be one of our double pivots or doble pivot that we are so badly missing, combine the that with Eriksen as our triquartista whilst exercising the press and we'll be fine, there now people will know how football intelligent I am! Er actually no, they could say holding or defensive midfield player, playing in the hole and squeezing the game and they won't sound like they're swallowing every word they read on certain shit football websites. My personal favourite buzz phrase is 'playing between the lines' ooh sounds so clever!

Moving on to what you've said I agree with some of it and disagree with some, IMHO I don't think it's correct how you are defining an 'intelligent' player, you are describing little more than a basic ability to be able to read a game, be a move or 2 ahead, virtually all top level players are doing this. Good decisions are precisely that good decisions as poor ones are poor ones, however players aren't constantly making poor decisions, if they were even if they had great technical ability they wouldn't be playing top flight football. For me personally if you want to talk about 'intelligent players' these are the players who have the know how to control a game, to dictate the tempo and to keep his team in control, I find that very different to what you are describing in decision making in the particular moment. For example Andros Townsend is never going to be an intelligent player, there's no requirement for it, as there isn't with Walker, they just need to read the game well and execute well. We are looking for 'intelligence' from the likes of Eriksen or even Dembele where they can set our tempo, dictate and orchestrate our performance. I prefer to see it as controlling the game, the old saying of 'he's running the game' is what we are surely looking for. A good example of somebody like this would be Roy Keane, for me wasn't a gifted player but just controlled football matches and orchestrated his team despite there being far mire gifted players on the pitch. At the next level you can look at the likes of Xavi, I remember 7 or 8 years ago when a Spain beat England 1-0 in Madrid, I've never seen a player dictate an entire football natch so much, he was in control of everything, it was almost like no player on either side could do anything unless they asked Xavi's permission first! For me this is 'intelligent' play, to have the brain to be fully in control of the match and not for example deciding whether to cross or not.

I believe 'intelligence' is a word on here that is used far too often and negatively when describing players, if somebody switches off for a moment and makes a mistake it isn't a lack of anything other than perhaps concentration. Walkers attacking play we could also discuss because IMHO there's a lot of bollocks spoken about that!

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Technique is a very easy to gage physical manifestation of a players ability to to work with the ball at his feet from the point of control to the way they move with and manipulate the ball. Walker has the poorest technique of any player in our squad right now.

Someone said the other day said he's not been great going forward and he's been a bit dodgy defensively but apart from that he's been a revelation.

I'm not exactly sure what has been revealed ?

I accept the premiership has been a bit bereft of young stand outs this season but Personally, I don't get why Joe Allen didn't piss it. Is he too old ? He was 22 in March ?

This was your post BC where you defined what I termed as a ridiculous definition of technique, looking at it again it's actually more ridiculous than I remembered, labelling Walker as having the poorest technique in our squad. Easy to gage physical manifestation of a players ability work with a ball at his feet blah blah, what are you even talking about?

Technical ability as a footballer isn't complicated it's as simple as ABC, it purely refers to a players ability to do the games basics. Control, passing, tackling, heading, shooting, dribbling etc etc, these are all basics of the game but how good they are at these basics make up a players overall technical ability. Players don't have to and indeed rarely are technically excellent at everything, a good Spurs example of this would be somebody like Ardiles, you wouldn't describe his heading or tackling as being technically excellent, however his ability to pass a ball, control it, move with it etc was top draw, add in a footballing brain that ticks way faster than the norm and you have a world class player.

Let's be serious about this very very few Premiership players are technically poor, their ability to do the games basics have been drilled in through years of playing and training on top of in some cases natural ability. But of course it's only part of the package as there are technically very good players at all levels including non-league, once you start adding other abilities such as physical, mental etc etc you will determine the quality of the overall player.

Bringing it back to Walker he is far away from being technically poor, having poor technique or whatever else in this area you want to throw at him. He is a very technically sound and competent player who also has great physical attributes to support this. Where he will improve as he matures will be in the mental side of his game, the odd lapse in concentration etc will happen less and less and experience will help him to improve in pressure situations and to cope better with different problems that the opposition will pose to him. Gary Neville not long back made an interesting point about the unique problems (I think it was Juventus) used to pose him and even as a very experienced player how it took him it took him 3 or 4 games against them to solve it, this will happen with Walker as well.

And you have the front to call me ridiculous. And the hypocrisy to accuse others of pontificating.

Heading, dribbling and shooting are all part of ball manipulation. But they are all specialist areas. I was talking about basic footballing technique, the stuff all players in any position should have. I was wrong to say Walker has the worst technique in our team, that is of course Dawson. And I acknowledge that all EPL players will have a reasonable standard of technique and was talking relatively. And what I have also said many times is that it is more an issue when he is under pressure or in confrontational situations that Walker's basic technique and his composure gets flustered (we saw it a few times today).

 

[Legend10]

And you have the front to call me ridiculous. And the hypocrisy to accuse others of pontificating.

Heading, dribbling and shooting are all part of ball manipulation. But they are all specialist areas. I was talking about basic footballing technique, the stuff all players in any position should have. I was wrong to say Walker has the worst technique in our team, that is of course Dawson. And I acknowledge that all EPL players will have a reasonable standard of technique and was talking relatively. And what I have also said many times is that it is more an issue when he is under pressure or in confrontational situations that Walker's basic technique and his composure gets flustered (we saw it a few times today).

If you were talking about basic football technique why didn't you just say that rather than the nonsense you spouted about ball manipulation and physical manifestations lol. And I didn't call you ridiculous I said your comments about technical ability which you drone on about were ridiculous and the point remains that technically Walker is very competent.

 

[vegassd]

Can't agree with any of that and intelligence is a word way over used on this forum.

I get what your saying mate, but I hope you can see my point at least. I'm not trying to use intelligence as a buzz word cos I think it makes me look cool on the Internet, but it's my honest opinion of Walker. I also said it's maybe best phrased as imagination.

But it is still the one thing I personally think is holding Walker back at the moment - although something I'm sure he will build on over time. He was part of some of our best attacking moves today, but also there were times when he looked up and seemed to choose Townsend as his pass, but then would stop and wait until Townsend became available. Newcastle were tight to him (Townsend) for a lot of the game so it slowed our play when Walker was waiting for that pass.

If he can just keep eyes out for alternative options I think he will really become a dangerous player. It's not an easy thing to do - especially when teams are so defensively tight against us - but it is certainly a weakness. He has pace to burn, a decent cross and will make good defensive decisions more often than not. But I think he needs to be more flexible in his attacking play, particularly in a system so heavily reliant on attacking FBs.