Walker & Rose aren't/weren't more aggressive and more likely to break oppo lines?
Walker rarely "broke opposition lines". Rose goes past people more often than Walker did, but then invariably wastes the ball.
See above... You seem to think I'm talking assists and possession?
I'm not.
No, I knew what you were referring to "less crossing and more penetration and link play" or something to that effect.
None of Walker, Rose and Davies (LOL) do more of this (penetration and link up) than Trippier. He just happens to also cross better than all of those too - normally.
Also, to address your earlier comment "possession and passing for it's own sake achieves little". This isone of those meaningless football pundit cliches. Possession is the method by which almost every great side achieve success (there are occasional outliers) and managers that coach it, rarely do it "for it's own sake". We don't do it "for it's own sake". And as such Trippier is an excellent conduit for that approach. And again, it's not like he doesn't look to be incisive with his passing, only Eriksen in our side makes more key passes.
We have had what I seek in the past, so whether or not I can name a current protagonist is irrelevant.
Moot
I think "OK" sums him up fine (I didn't say he was poor)... But they way you're framing things there's no-one better in the game (see above point when you reject the idea he can be improved upon in terms of his overall game).
No I'm not saying there's no one better, I'm saying there really aren't to many that are obviously better in all aspects, and you yourself are struggling come up with clear and obvious examples, which reinforces that.
I've said for two/three years, I really wanted KWP to be given the rotation place and he might prove to be a better all round package. I've said more recently, I'd happily see Aurier given a run as first choice to see if that works. There are players out there - available to us - ie not at bigger clubs etc - that we looked at - like Pereira - who is great going forward but not so great defending - as we've seen this year at Leicester - and even our scouts/Poch chose not to buy him. There's AWB at Palace - but his attacking/midfield play has a long way to develop. There's Atal at Nice - but he's very much in that Pereira mould. There’s others like Samedo (Barca), Henrichs and Sidibe(Monaco) etc etc, but none are a “fully formed package” per se. Unless there’s others out there from leagues I don’t watch much?
If clubs like ManU have Young as their RB, and are looking at paying 55m for AWB it kind of bears this out doesn't it ? That there's not exactly a wide choice of ready made Danny Alves's or Philip Lahm's out there?
The hypopcrisy accusation is regarding your saying about people scapegoating Trippier, yet you're dragging Sissoko into a discussion that doesn't relate to him just to stick the boot in... Rich as fuck!
Again, further reminder; your hang-ups about Sissoko aren't relative to this debate.
But I'm not blaming Sissoko or accusing him of things that are utter bollocks, as people are doing constantly with Trippier. I've backed up everything Ive said about Sissoko with a shitload of evidence. And I've also proven and evidenced that plenty of the silly shit aimed at Trippier is bollocks or massively exaggerated at best.
I dragged Sissoko in because it was very relevant. Look at that heat map I posted above, see who's the constant closest player to Trippier. The fact that Sissoko sees less of the ball (because he doesn't want it under pressure) means Trippier is covering his arse in midfield more often, not the other way round, and he also gets less protection than he did with Wanyama (massively) and Dier, because both of those were much better readers of the game defensively.
To summarise.... I cited that KTs defensive game concerns me and that I think his crossing game is over-rated (whilst I believe Serge's 'brainfarts' are over-hyped)... You posted a set of stats that compare FBs.... SA scores favorably across the board, yet you feel none-the-less this vindicates your preference for KT....... Fair enough (to an extent), but you're banging on about possession, how shit Sissoko is and implying that KT can't be improved upon....
But Aurier's stats weren't better "across the board" in a couple of the more important metrics they were significantly down, and also Trippier's were over a much more valid control set, Aurier's over a small amount of games. And the metrics Aurier was better weren't significant either.
Again, I've said, I'd happily see Aurier given more consecutive games to see if he can prove to be a consistent and viable alternative. If he can combine being marginally better defensively with being just as good or better offensively, great.
Again, Possession isn't some randomly pointless thing for us, it is an endemic part of our strategy, and again, Trippier uses the ball better than most in our team, and creates more chances than everyone bar Eriksen, so the "pointless possession" argument is moribund on both levels.
Sissoko I've explained again. He directly impacts Trippier's performance. I'll go further and say our terrible midfield this season has impacted the whole team's general performances. It's not a red herring.
