Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa joins AS Roma then Lyon

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Williamson in general is a terrible player, Taylor is acceptable with comedy moments.

[r0cafella]

Williamson lumps it when he's not even pressed and has passing options.

 

He's the most blinkered player I've ever seen to be honest.

[Cronky]

There's no way Williamson's better on the ball than Taylor, like. Taylor's passing's actually come on a tonne.

 

Well I'm not sure about that, but as I said, that's not a big issue for me. My main point is that Williamson actually defends in a different way. You haven't commented on that.

 

 

[Ronaldo]

Williamson defends like a Championship player with arthritis. Happy?

[Cronky]

Williamson defends like a Championship player with arthritis. Happy?

 

I'm looking for some indication that you've actually understood my point about Taylor's style of defending, but disagree with it.

[Ronaldo]

Taylor will make mistakes but he's physically decent and won't bend over for the opposition like we saw last night.

[alexf]

Thinking back to the last time we were decent defensively in the 5th place season and it's easy to forget we had two stay home full backs in Simpson and for at least about a half of the season R.Taylor.

We also had Cabaye who apart from the odd occasion later in the season played very deep and made plenty of tackles. We had the good version of Tiote before he turned shit. We had Jonas who was playing as a very defensive winger most of the time and doing a very good job of it (stoke away as the perfect example).

 

So when you compare that to now it's easy to see that there are far more elements to this poor defence than simply saying our centre backs are poor.

 

Hate to drone on but again most of this is down to the manager and how he setting up the team.

We can still field Williamson/Taylor, Colo,Santon,Krul, Cabaye,Tiote and Jonas from those that were here in a defensive sense from the 5th placed season. It is not the personal it is how they are being set up and trained. 

[Segun Oluwaniyi]

Taylor will make mistakes but he's physically decent and won't bend over for the opposition like we saw last night.

Yeah he was brilliant in his last performance. I cannot wait until the guy returns so he run around consistently hurting the team, puffing his chest out, playing to the supporters, and suffering another "unfortunate injury".

[The College Dropout]

I could go on all day about that side's simplistic greatness. Including having strikers that can win a header/hold up the ball.

 

But moreover - that side was organised and worked very hard to a man. Real spirit. That's gone.

[Ronaldo]

Taylor will make mistakes but he's physically decent and won't bend over for the opposition like we saw last night.

Yeah he was brilliant in his last performance. I cannot wait until the guy returns so he run around consistently hurting the team, puffing his chest out, playing to the supporters, and suffering another "unfortunate injury".

 

Who would you play at CB?

[Dave]

Both have played well in our shirt in the past - Taylor more often in the top flight for obvious reasons - but ultimately neither are good enough. Taylor's much better on the ball and offers some semblance of a threat at set pieces, Williamson is relatively dependable at the basics, decent at winning defensive headers and is more acutely aware of his limitations.

 

Doesn't really matter tbh, we'll just be cycling through them all during the season because we're crap.

[Segun Oluwaniyi]

I could go on all day about that side's simplistic greatness. Including having strikers that can win a header/hold up the ball.

 

But moreover - that side was organised and worked very hard to a man. Real spirit. That's gone.

We had a very different aide with an entirely different style of play that managed to win something 8 out of 11, six matches in a row, and beat Chelsea (away) and Liverpool in that same season. Stop referencing things from this time like they actually have any correlation to now. The vast majority of those players are still here as well.

[Segun Oluwaniyi]

Taylor will make mistakes but he's physically decent and won't bend over for the opposition like we saw last night.

Yeah he was brilliant in his last performance. I cannot wait until the guy returns so he run around consistently hurting the team, puffing his chest out, playing to the supporters, and suffering another "unfortunate injury".

 

Who would you play at CB?

I think you are overestimating the deficiencies of the two players on one ridiculously poor performance. These two are still our best option. I wish we had a quality player to challenge them but there isn't one. As I said, Taylor was terrible in our first match and has been terrible many times before at a fairly consistent rate. I would change things if there are more performances of this nature or to accommodate Yanga-Mbiwa moving to right back if Debuchy returns to form, but I would rather not.

[Ronaldo]

I think putting Mapou to RB in the short-term is the right thing to do.

[Davey_C_73]

Just an observation......but I noticed that not a single player in our team ever passes the ball to Williamson, I think he received ONE pass in the second half yesterday. Our players prefer to pass back to Krul or hoof it up field, rather than pass to Williamson in space. I was at the Benfica game at St James last season when I noticed this for the first time - they purposely try to avoid passing to him!

 

It makes you wonder what the other players think of him, they obviously don't rate him!

 

To be fair he didn't do too bad when he came on yesterday, but it's obviously a waste of a position in the team if he can't contribute when we are in possession.

[The College Dropout]

I think putting Mapou to RB in the short-term is the right thing to do.

Agreed.

[The College Dropout]

I could go on all day about that side's simplistic greatness. Including having strikers that can win a header/hold up the ball.

 

But moreover - that side was organised and worked very hard to a man. Real spirit. That's gone.

We had a very different aide with an entirely different style of play that managed to win something 8 out of 11, six matches in a row, and beat Chelsea (away) and Liverpool in that same season. Stop referencing things from this time like they actually have any correlation to now. The vast majority of those players are still here as well.

 

I hope this reply makes sense to someone.

[Incognito]

You could even make out a case for playing Mapou at left back. Why he hasn't attempted 3 at the back with a sweeper and wing backs I don't know. Santon and Debuchy seem ideal wing back types. Still I guess that involves the manager doing a bit of coaching .

[SiLvOR]

I think putting Mapou to RB in the short-term is the right thing to do.

Agreed.

 

Whenever he plays fullback he looks far more comfortable to me, he's also decent at skinning people as we've seen* so it's worth a go.

 

*Can't remember the game exactly, but he was left back and he managed to blitz down the wing a few times and offer some actual width.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

It would be overreacting to change the back four IMO. It's more than good enough for a top half, or even top 8/10, team. The problem is that the rest of the team is prone to looking a mess and not providing any protection at times. Personally I would stick with exactly the 4-3-3 that we've been using, we have played our best stuff using it.

[SiLvOR]

I think Debuchy needs a bit of a kick up the arse though, in a similar way to Simpson, he knows he's got no competition so doesn't have to worry too much. Agree though we need to play the 4-3-3, Ben Arfa back on the right where he's far more effective.

[Guest neesy111]

The lack of protection wasn't the cause for 3 of our 4 defenders to have absolute shockers on Monday they all had bad gaes.  Individually and as the unit our defenders/defence has been a mess for over a year now.

[Incognito]

It would be overreacting to change the back four IMO. It's more than good enough for a top half, or even top 8/10, team. The problem is that the rest of the team is prone to looking a mess and not providing any protection at times. Personally I would stick with exactly the 4-3-3 that we've been using, we have played our best stuff using it.

 

 

Nah. Poor marking and  neglectful defending is what cost us Monday and poor marking against Hull too. Even the Benteke goal was poor marking. There is no discipline in the starting back 4 at all.

 

[BrettNUFC]

Yeah but the gap between Tiote/Anita and the CB pairing was criminal at times on Monday, Barkley had all the space he wanted between the two, it was so easy for Everton, ended up 2 on 2 time and time again, no protection from the midfield, well certainly not enough anyways.

[Gallowgate Toon]

It's more than just individual mistakes, pretty much every time we've conceded this season, there have been errors by about 4 players. Even with Taylor back in, we can't let our centre backs become so exposed again, we don't have anyone good enough to play like that.

 

Pardew needs to get back to basics with this defence and get them solid. Neville had it spot on, we should be looking to build ourselves into matches, start off as a compact unit and then grow into the game. I think that's how it needs to be for the next couple of months, then we can look at being more expansive from the off.