Quote Originally Posted by the other bob wilson View Post
A couple of months ago, people were saying we only had Jamie Collins who could play left back, but with Pagan and Tom Davies to come back, it's going to be the position where, maybe, we have the most depth.

Not seen enough of Jac Thomas to comment on him really, but I was not surprised at the time when it was Beecher who got some game time in the League Cup tie at blackburn rather than Giles, who was also on the bench for that game. We were losing at the time and, from what I've seen, although Giles is very good from dead ball situations, Beecher is the better of the two when it comes to the attacking side of things - the injury which has kept him out for so much of this season has set him back a bit, but he's someone who's always impressed me.

Giles strikes me as the better defender of the two and it might be significant that he's been used in a back three at times by the under 21s , with natural left sided centre backs seemingly being like gold dust in the modern game, I can see him moving across to play there if he grows to be tall enough - that would solve the problem of which one of the two to play if they both turn out to be good enough.

Beecher is someone who could easily play as an inverted, forward thinking full back, but that might mean that we'd see less of his excellent crossing ability which I think of as the most impressive e part of his game currently. Talking of inverted full backs, I was so impressed yesterday with Kpakio on the right, he's a decent size already and looked a natural for the role whereby full backs are expected to spend more time in the opposition half than their own.
I'd agree with all of that. Although, as we have discussed before, I think that Beecher is more of a winger than a full back. When he came on for the 1st team it was as a left wing back. Luey Giles on the other hand plays LCB when we revert to 3 at the back.

I caught up with the match last night. I, too, was impressed with Kpakio. He has really developed this season, particularly physically. He and Spiers are an excellent pair of young right backs and I presume the current Wales U16 incumbent, Noah Williams, will sign on for next season. I think he's from Penarth.

It will be interesting if Tom Davies is offered a new contract. He is a very cultured footballer (as you would expect from a converted midfielder) and a good athlete, but needed to improve his defence. I like Joel Bagan, but Davies has always struck me as a better prospect. Didn't Bulut comment, preseason, about the coaching team being surprised how good he was.

So a wealth of young talent at left back, but do we think JC is good enough to be a 1st choice full back in a promotion winning team? Regrettably not, so I can see the club signing another. Managers rarely look beyond next season, which is one of modern football's worst qualities and why, for us, despite the improvement, on the pitch the failure this season has been that there has been no investment into the longer term. It has been about polishing Bulut's CV and proving Dalman right over Tan rather than a long term strategy.

A club that was in our position at the end of last season should have had a three year plan. But given that we were relegation favourites and under a transfer embargo maybe one season of a hard, pragmatic manager like Bulut was a wise choice.