Originally Posted by
Don Corleone
What is the point of this thread? That none of our defenders are good enough for the Premier league? I think we all suspected that when we came up, the players did an amazing job getting promoted last season and unless we were going to do a Wolves or Fulham and spend £100mio plus ( and it's not working out too well for Fulham is it) then we had to go with the players that got us promoted. It's one thing to debate whether Manga should play right back or centre half but to say we need to drop three of our current back four is a bit silly isn't it, we don't have anyone else
We are struggling defending set pieces which was a real strength last year but I'm pretty sure the delivery in the premier league is a lot better than in the championship. We could certainly do with a new right back, one with premier league experience would be good, then we can experiment with Manga partnering Morrison or Bamba. I didn't get the signing of Cunningham at the time as Bennett was as good a left back in the championship and didn't see the need for another one when we desperately needed a right back as Peltier was always going to struggle with the jump up.
I also think in the last 2 games our centre halves have been exposed even more by players running directly at them straight through the middle of the park and not being picked up by our midfield. A lot of this is probably due to energy levels dropping just a few percent throughout the whole side which was what we were relying on heavily in previous games ( first time this season a Man Utd side has outrun the opposition!)
We also need to shore up the middle in front of the centre halves to stop them being exposed, easier said than done of course