Quote Originally Posted by Hilts View Post
I think singling out Mepham is harsh. The Swiss ripped through our central midfield leaving the defence exposed.
It wasn't just about Saturday though. He has no awareness of what's around him and is too slow to react (see the penalty he gave away against Belgium and his red in the play off semis for Bournemouth). I've also never seen a centre back as physically weak as him; he allows strikers to dominate him. I don't want to keep banging the James Chester drum but you look at the way we "defend" corners and Mepham doesn't offer the organization and leadership in the box that he or someone like Ashley Williams did. It seems that under Giggs/Page we select centre halves on the basis of whether they're comfortable on the ball or not, and completely overlook whether they can actually defend.

I would prefer to see Ben Davies in there with Rodon, plus Ampadu if we play a 3. I would drop Roberts as well who increasingly looks out of his depth at this level, and is another who is directly at fault for too many goals.

Only problem is that that leaves us unbalanced on the left with the only option to play a right footer or Norrington-Davies, who seems very limited going forward. Seems like 5 or 6 years ago we were spoilt for options at left back and now (if Davies plays centrally) we're pretty threadbare.