Once walker comes back to full match fitness and yedlin arrives, our right back problems will also go away and we can have a consistent back 4 for the rest of the season - Davies, vertonghen, Fazio, walker.
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Fazio and Vertonghen have played 14 games together.
10 wins
3 draws
1 loss.
They can mate.Imagine how good the results would be if those two could actually defend well!
They can mate.
So only 1 of those 14 teams we've played can 'take their chances'?We'll see what a team that can take their chances has to say about that.
I don't know what all of those games are, but Swansea and Man U were both creating chance after chance after chance based on Fazio's lack of pace and Vertonghen's strained attempts to account for that space.So only 1 of those 14 teams we've played can 'take their chances'?
Of course.
I was at the Swansea game. Verts was no better, no worse than Faz. He was not 'straining' to account for Faz's mistakes at all.I don't know what all of those games are, but Swansea and Man U were both creating chance after chance after chance based on Fazio's lack of pace and Vertonghen's strained attempts to account for that space.
There's no question of Fazio's aerial dominance, but I have a hard time believing Tottenham can have a top class defense with him in it. It just creates a chain reaction of problems. And then you add in Kyle Walker's defensive frailties and Nabil Bentaleb's fairly middling performances as cover, and it's just too many chances at our fortunately world class keeper.
Walker has been very good defensively the past 18 months, much improved.
Agree he's been injured a good while, but I feel he still gets stick for poor form 3 years ago. The lad is one of the best right backs in the league, we're lucky to have him - spoilt even. Lets hope Yedlin can push him on even further.How much has he even played in the last 18 months?
I'm a huge Walker fan, FWIW. He totally changes your team with his abilities going forward, and I agree he has gotten too much crap based on being a blunder-prone young guy years ago. But fullbacks who are always on the attack present tradeoffs, just inherently. You can't be in two places at once. Frankenstein-sized center backs present tradeoffs too. It adds up.
Correct.Is Fazio better than Kaboul? Yes.
Is Fazio better than Vlad? Yes.
Is Fazio better than Dier? Probably.
End of debate. There is no alternative but to play Fazio and Jan, so bitching about it is pointless.
What do you mean 'present tradeoffs'? Not heard that term before...
You are correct. We have seen many people running at our CB's because Nabil has been quite poor lately. Let's face it he has less presence than Mason and cannot tackle as well. Mason's stats offensively & defensively are good. We need Nabil to step up with more presence defensively, get more tackles in and do a bit more offensively. He has great positional sense, and therefore intercepts a lot but I feel he is only playing there because of his discipline and work rate. He's not cut out for that role. I don't think MP trusts Capoue or Paulinho, has a bit of trust in Dembele and Stambouli has not adjusted to the pace yet.A right back who is going to run up the flanks whenever he gets the chance is sacrificing protecting at the back in those instances. You can't have both, a human being cannot be in two places at once.
Similarly, a big, tall, strong center back is not going to be as swift in chasing people down and closing down space as a smaller, quicker one who might struggle in the air.
If you have Roberto Carlos or Ledley King in those positions, superb, world-class, all-around talents, then you shrink those tradeoffs, but they never truly go away.
My feeling with Spurs currently is that if you want Walker to be free to contribute to the attack (which we do, he's a huge difference maker doing that), and have Fazio to dominate the aerial game (which is a nice thing to have as well), and you also want to be the kind of defense that can credibly challenge for the CL spots, something has to be different in the equation. It doesn't add up currently. Lloris absolves many many sins, but I still think you need either an elite defensive left-back (could Davies be that guy? Too early to tell, IMO) or an elite holding midfielder (I'm dubious that Bentaleb is that guy) to protect the space left by the pieces that we have in place. There's just too much room back there right now.