Two young lads in their first PL season, Having presumably never played together before in the youth teams. Being now ruthlessly thrown into the deep end of high-pressure games, simply because there’s no-one else left to play in their position.
And you know what? They commit mistakes. They don’t always move like one man when the opposition attacks. Oh the Shock! Oh the Horror!
In my book, they do a great job, just like the Kabak-Phillips pair did a good job too. Sink or swim, isn’t that the motto? They are both swimming quite well given the extravagant circumstances. They do far better than Fabinho when he had to play as a center back.
Thank God we have these two allowing the latter to play his natural role in midfield again.
absolutely, I’m not being critical of them. we’re going to get scored on through moments of good play by the opposition. I think they’ve done an excellent job deputizing and by all rights if VvD, Gomez and Matip all heal up over the off-season it will be interesting to see what Klopp and Edwards will do to solidify the back line for the next season. I dare say they’ve earned their spot in the lineup, if anything our poor period of Jan-Mar was due to a lack of effective scoring and NOT defensive liabilities.
I don’t quite get this. No one has said they’re bad players or incapable of doing anything for us, just that they were at fault for this goal - along with Trent and Fabinho. To me the primary responsibility is on Williams for stepping into no-man’s land and then Phillips for failing to read the true danger.
We all know these things happen in a split second and it is nit-picking to look at the fractional turn of a head and say “that’s the error” but ultimately in the Premier League those are the margins. I want them to improve by cutting out these mental errors, I don’t see the point in ignoring them and going “Ah well they’re trying”. Pretty sure the coaches won’t be. I believe they are both better than they showed on Sunday.
They certainly don’t. Fabinho’s put in flawless performances against Chelsea, Bayern, Leicester, Ajax, Wolves. Phillips was abysmal against similar level opposition as was Williams against United in the Fa cup.
Fab’s had a couple of rocky games recently at centre back but he’s still a far superior player to these two.
Of course mate. I wasn’t thinking of you when writing this. Most goals in the PL are the product of good forward play and defensive errors, mostly committed by several players. Williams and Nat (and Trent, and possibly Fabinho) are at fault on this occasion, I don’t dispute this.
It’s just that I keep reading posts like ‘Oh well, they are not good enough for us, not fast enough, not this and that enough. We’ll wish them well when they’ll go in the summer. Bye’. I have a bit of a problem with this kind of posts to be honest.
They are both young for CBs and as you say, are in the midst of a huge learning curve. That means that they are far from at the end of their development, and I’m stunned that people keep writing them off despite of them consistently showing that they have a mentality allowing them to swim in such a difficult environment as ours, and not to sink like stones, as they could easily do.
At this point, I’d simply acknowledge that yes, they commit mistakes at times, as any inexperienced pair of defenders would do in their place, but they compensate this with huge mental qualities allowing them to still do a job for us.
That’s what I meant. Lately, Fabinho has been inferior to the two as a center back. His overall level as a midfield player is very near to world-class, that’s not in discussion.
His level as a centre back is still a lot better than these two. None of the 3 games he’s played recently were anywhere close to being as poor as Phillips yesterday.
Incidentally I don’t think he’s playing particularly well in midfield either. Not a great run from him at the moment.
I don’t agree with that. He lacks the ability to deal correctly with aerial balls or incoming balls from set pieces. That’s a huge weakness which was exploited both by Leeds and Newcastle in those regrettable draws, when Phillips was injured.
He’s not a good CB in my book. The matches you talked about were in earlier seasons, playing alongside VVD. But anyone would look good alongside the big man to be fair.
Yeah you’re right. Then again, his partner during the games when he played well was Matip, a tall, highly experienced quality CB, and very strong on aerial balls.
Look, my point is just that Fab has been poor when playing CB recently. That was when having to play alongside Williams, and then Kabak (not sure if he played alongside Phillips though). In this games, he didn’t offer any kind of leadership at the back, and we conceded easily avoidable goals. On the other hand, the Phillips-Kabak pair have done well mostly (of course, a few errors here or there, as had to be expected), and now that Kabak is out, the Williams-Phillips pair does well enough in order for us us to win games. Surely Phillips can’t be that bad then?
The difference lately is that we’ve found a way to score again. We’ve still conceded 3 in the last 2 games and before that Alisson had to break a record amount of saves to keep a clean sheet against Southampton.
The lads are doing their best but if you judge them objectively they’re still not playing at a high level.
Looking back at the WBA game, they had 9 corners and both Nat & Rhys with their height were instrumental at us not conceding from these and other set pieces. When we had Jordan & Fab tat CB, their lack of height made us vulnerable to set pieces, which in the past, pre VVD, we were susceptible to.
hes a lot better than i gave him credit for and i think youd have to listen to the idea that keeping him is not off the cards if we are thinking of buying Konate and Kabak.
hes a lot closer to the level required than i originally thought.
that said, cant help but feel he wont be the defender he is right now without a run of games.
to come in and do the stuff Klavan did, for instance, is reallt really hard task for a defender. most need a run of games. and that wont happen here for Nat unless we have the same scenario again next year.
Grew into the game and finished very strongly. Excellent goal, was much needed a second one and he got it right. Off the line clearance. Happy for him.
Maybe I need to rethink my ranking order for the 4 centre backs next season after tonight. Brilliant performance from big Nat. Another big performance needed on Sunday though.
Seeing people saying sell Nat and buy Kabak as backup for next season. What do yous reckon? I don’t see the point of signing a lad when we have Nat who I personally think is better than Kabak but free and English (homegrown quota).
No next season though!
