Signing Shearer - was it really a mistake?

[madras]

Good points made by t-monkey and i'm in agreement with much of what he says. We were a more fluent team, in effect a 'better team' before his arrival. What i disagree with is the point concerning 'an overhaul of the defense'. Stats-wise we ranked up there with the best, but it can be argued the quality of our possession play and our attack played a major part in our 'goals conceeded' return. The best form of defense is being able to starve the opposition, and it still holds true today. What we needed was a keeper with some 'physical presence', akin to Schmeicel, who could save you at least 5 goals a season.

 

but can you think of 1,man u thought "what we need is an alan shearer"

[tmonkey]

To anyone else who wishes to join in, or just back to Monkey... do you think it was the defensive players themselves that were poor, or was it the style of play that put too much pressure on them? From what I remember of that season, Albert somtimes went on darts forward and our fullbacks were hardly defensive-minded. Was it the personnel or was it the style of play that was our undoing?

 

The right-winger (Gillespie) argument is one I've never heard before and I'd love to hear some other opinions about it from some more that are older than me. The 95/96 is fascinating to me looking back, I was only 9 at the time like, so can hardly speak with authority on that particular year (regarding the defence.) My main defence of signing Big Al is for what he did in those subsequent years here.

 

Well, the main players that I remember:

 

Centrebacks:

Howey - Above average centreback, good when on form, but utterly injury prone. Not a leader at the back, and took time to gain form. Was set to be Adams' partner for England in Euro 96, but guess what - he got injured.

Albert - Quality footballer for a defender, good sweeper, but very average centreback in a back four. Type of centreback who didnt make Bramble-esque howlers, but would leak you goals by not marking well enough.

Peacock - Average centreback, limited player with limited ability. A lower mid table centreback.

 

Fullbacks:

 

Beresford - Average fullback, no real weaknesses.

Barton - Good fullback.

Watson - Decent cover.

 

Although that list might not sound too bad, it needs to be remembered that as a defensive unit, we were pretty poor. At home, the problems werent that big because we were pegging teams back in their own half, but away from home our defence leaked like there was no tomorrow.

 

If you look at any of the top defences in the Premiership today, all of them have one top centreback, who if theyre not playing, the defence struggles without. Chelsea's defence has been piss poor without Terry, ManU have consistently struggled when Rio is injured, whilst Hyppia and Toure are big misses the few times theyre out.

 

Even when we had Woodgate, you could see the difference he made to the entire back line. Average players were made to look alot better, confidence was far higher, and the opposition would struggle to score against us - all because of one quality centreback. Jus one of these centrebacks can turn an average, or poor, defensive unit into a top one.

 

Take away that defender, and even if you have all decent defenders in other positions or filling in, defences have often struggled. Consider that most of our defenders back in the 95/96 team were average, and there wasnt a leader to be seen in sight, then you can imagine why some of us were pissed off that we never dealt with that issue when we had the chance. There were plenty of away games in that season that our defence completely collapsed in, although I cant remember them specifically bar that sickening night against away to Blackburn where we probably lost the title (maybe Wimbledon, where we drew 3-3 when a competent defence wouldve seen a 3-0 win).

 

We honestly had a huge amount of pull back then, and I think the only top defenders we couldnt have realistically landed were ones like Tony Adams or Maldini, the ones who wouldnt want to leave their boyhood clubs. Most other players we would have had a big shot at had we truly made a move for them, and there were so many good players around the globe. There was nothing holding us back from getting some true quality in this department, except for us using all the money elsewhere.

 

With regards to Gillespie's injury, it was a massive blow that always was, and always will be, underrated. The first half of that season, Gillespie was on fire - extremely direct, fast, always looking to take his man on and with very good crossing. The team benefitted immensely, because on the other flank was Ginola, ripping teams to shreds because of his skill and crossing ability. The team therefore could go both ways, and that was our main system of play, a two flanked attack that had pace, skill and great crossing - from which Ferdinand benefitted the most. The rest of the time, Beardo was pulling strings in the middle, with Lee running from central midfield chipping in with goals. It was the most fluid team weve had since the Premiership began.

 

Soon as Gillespie got injured, we had noone to replace him. Ruel Fox, a pacey right winger who was half decent and pretty good for a backup player, had already been sold, the other midfielders were all central ones (Clark, Batty, Lee) so the only thing we could do was play players out of position. Which meant Tino, a "flair" striker, coming in and "unbalancing" the side because he had to play down the right in midfield. Very little came from that flank for the rest of the season, so everything had to come down the left - which pretty quickly led to Ginola being a marked man with the team having noone alternative and no Gillespie to relieve him of the creative burden, and therefore Ferdinand's main supply line was instantly cut off - hence why Ginola and Ferdinand are so often called failures for that second half of the season. The team as a whole lost all of its fluidity, games became harder to win as a result.

 

That injury had a massive effect on us. Its funny (and sad) that the situation repeated itself to an extent many years later, when Nobby was sold - Robert's game went down hill because the team went from a two flanked attack to relying heavily on one "flair" winger to create consistently. Prior to Nobby's sale, Robert was considered by everyone a good palyer for us, mainly because he was indeed a quality attacker when he did something, but if he wasnt doing anything Nobby was consistently playing well on the other flank, taking the pressure and all the eyes off of Robert -  soon as Nobby went and the team lost its balance/fluidity, all the "lazy" or "doesnt track back" comlpaints started to surface. Same thing happened to Ginola.

 

What needs to be noted also about the Gillespie injury is that when he returned, he was a shadow of the player he was, and became injury prone pretty quickly. Yet we never replaced him, we never bought anyone in who could play right wing - because we spent everything on Shearer. Which meant a whole season, and more, of having to play central midfielders or strikers out of position to cover for the lack of a right winger, or having to switch formation (dropping Ginola) in order to compensate for this deficiency. Again, a reason imo why we shouldnt have bought Shearer - the end result was not only a slide, but the exit of Ginola, who went on to be the best player in the country for Spurs.

 

Regardless of the right wing problems, had we a good enough defence, wed have won that title, because we actually lost some key games because of bad defending.

[madras]

for all that if you take out the 2 games V man u we done better against all the rest of the league than they did.

 

it's very easy to look at our defence then and say good player,average player...doesnt matter,it worked,we were nowhere near as bad defensivly as some like to make out,a team who ethos was to attack,go into the last game of the season with a chance of winning the title,can't do it with an average defence,a defence who as seen conceded a similar ammount to the best.

 

i've told this before and it needs telling again,that summer on hols in crete i got talking to some man citeh fans,they reckoned the media done us in,at home when they went a goal down the crowd got on their backs and they folded,but with us,they thought "match of the day says they've got a dodgy defence,come on"...anecdotal i know but it still rattles round my head

[tmonkey]

for all that if you take out the 2 games V man u we done better against all the rest of the league than they did.

 

it's very easy to look at our defence then and say good player,average player...doesnt matter,it worked,we were nowhere near as bad defensivly as some like to make out,a team who ethos was to attack,go into the last game of the season with a chance of winning the title,can't do it with an average defence,a defence who as seen conceded a similar ammount to the best.

 

i've told this before and it needs telling again,that summer on hols in crete i got talking to some man citeh fans,they reckoned the media done us in,at home when they went a goal down the crowd got on their backs and they folded,but with us,they thought "match of the day says they've got a dodgy defence,come on"...anecdotal i know but it still rattles round my head

 

The playing style definately put a strain on the defence, but some of the games we dropped points in, away from home, the defence was just shiite.

 

I think the stats reflect that fact that we were a top side overall, some games the opposition were lucky to get anywhere near our goal.

 

It also needs to be said that we didnt have a top keeper. Just two average ones.

 

There was a gulf in class and performance levels between the defences of better sides, and ours. For example, Arsenal had Seaman in goal, with defenders like Adams, Bould, Dixon, Winterburn etc, ManU had Schmeical with the likes of Bruce, Pallister, Irwin, etc. The difference between their defences, and ours, was that when under pressure, ours crumbled, but theirs held more often than not, and alot of the time was the reason why they won games.

 

And the reason why we were so close at the end, despite the differences in the calibre of defences, is because our attack was better earlier on, and that 9 or 12 point gap we opened up when the team was at its best took advantage of ManU having a poor early campaign. When it came to the crunch, when ManU hit form, our defence let us down time and time again. I keep harping on about that horrible night at Ewood, but thats the best example I can remember of where our defence collapsed yet again away from home and cost us points we should have won. Hence, the reason why I believe we should have sorted out the defence first, and then found a replacement for Gillespie second.

 

Its obviously opinions and fair enough if you think the defence was good, but would you honestly say that if Woodgate were put into the defence we had during the 95/96 season, we wouldnt have seen a major improvement? Thats what its about for me, why didnt we look to sign a player of that calibre, or near abouts that calibre (certainly plenty were available) when we had the ability and the finances to do so? Answer imo is because we bought Shearer, not because these players were unavailable or because we lacked the money or the pull. We put the signature of one player above everything else.

[madras]

has this run it's course cos we aint going to agree ?

[tmonkey]

has this run it's course cos we aint going to agree ?

 

Yeah. 

[sicsfingeredmong]

Good points made by t-monkey and i'm in agreement with much of what he says. We were a more fluent team, in effect a 'better team' before his arrival. What i disagree with is the point concerning 'an overhaul of the defense'. Stats-wise we ranked up there with the best, but it can be argued the quality of our possession play and our attack played a major part in our 'goals conceeded' return. The best form of defense is being able to starve the opposition, and it still holds true today. What we needed was a keeper with some 'physical presence', akin to Schmeicel, who could save you at least 5 goals a season.

 

but can you think of 1,man u thought "what we need is an alan shearer"

 

 

For arguments sake how old was Van der Sar back then ie. while breaking through at Ajax? Early-mid 20's? Surely if we had looked hard enough we could very well have unearthed a player of similar ability who had the physical presence to match, admittedly though our scouting department hasn't been our strongsuit.

 

Back to the rearguard. I always felt that our centrehalf combination was solid at the height of Keegan's reign. Because of his ability on the ball Albert, arguably our best playmaking centrehalf over the last decade or so - Woodgate ranks alongside, was always a viable outlet for the midfield when the opposition tried pressing up. A centrehalf who when needed can dictate the play from the back is an invaluable asset imo, and it's an ingredient we lack today and hasn't featured in our play for quite some time. Beresford etc provided the necessary grit which was needed to compliment Albert's 'cultured/continental' style of play.