Lyanco

[CB Fry]

31 minutes ago, Simon3737 said:

I’m no expert on our finances, but would we pay £7 million for a 4th choice CB? My guess would be that they expect him to be good enough to play (at least to be in contention for the first team)

Well, we paid £5m each for Bednarek and Gardos both a few years ago and inflation has happened since then.

And we paid £18m for Vestergaard and £16m for Hoedt.

So thats why I think we should be expecting something similar to replace the front line CB we've lost.

 

 

[Turkish]

21 minutes ago, CB Fry said:

Well, we paid £5m each for Bednarek and Gardos both a few years ago and inflation has happened since then.

And we paid £18m for Vestergaard and £16m for Hoedt.

So thats why I think we should be expecting something similar to replace the front line CB we've lost.

 

 

AGENTS FEES 

[Mr X]

We should be spending every last penny of the vestergard money on getting a quality replacement that offers some Ariel threat... Not these cheap deals in the hope that they will come good over time.... We don't have time... I seriously think we are in danger of relegation this season...we have such a poor team on.paper 

[Teddeer]

5 minutes ago, Mr X said:

We should be spending every last penny of the vestergard money on getting a quality replacement that offers some Ariel threat... Not these cheap deals in the hope that they will come good over time.... We don't have time... I seriously think we are in danger of relegation this season...we have such a poor team on.paper 

Exactly right. The total money we received for Vesergaard should have been used to buy as good a replacement as we could get not some basement bargain signing. If you budget for the Championship you'd better believe that's where you'll end up because there is no place for penny pinchers in the Premier league.

[OttawaSaint]

3 hours ago, Mr X said:

We should be spending every last penny of the vestergard money on getting a quality replacement that offers some Ariel threat... Not these cheap deals in the hope that they will come good over time.... We don't have time... I seriously think we are in danger of relegation this season...we have such a poor team on.paper 

Yeah we gotta teach that red haired half fish freak a lesson. Probably Pompey with all those scales...

Edited 22 August, 2021 by OttawaSaint

[ChrisPY]

7 hours ago, Mr X said:

We should be spending every last penny of the vestergard money on getting a quality replacement that offers some Ariel threat... Not these cheap deals in the hope that they will come good over time.... We don't have time... I seriously think we are in danger of relegation this season...we have such a poor team on.paper 

She’s big, strong and hungry as well 😉

[Far que]

Don’t change saints bargain basement all the way to the championship and no one else to blame 

[Mr X]

3 minutes ago, Far que said:

Don’t change saints bargain basement all the way to the championship and no one else to blame 

It's like we don't want to take a risk to stay in the Premier League and are already planning for the championship. 

[bennyev]

Palace have spent on two proper CBs. Each about 17m. Speak English. Have experience in English football. That’s the way to do it. We’re here trying to bodge our way through due to Gao desperately trying to save himself a few more pounds. 
Can’t wait till the day he (insert word here) off. 

Edited 22 August, 2021 by bennyev

[waylander]

11 hours ago, bennyev said:

Palace have spent on two proper CBs. We’re trying to bodge our way through due to Gao desperately trying to save himself a few more pounds. 
Can’t wait till the day he (insert word here) off. 

Be careful what you wish for. There are worse owners than Gao out there.

Edited 22 August, 2021 by waylander
Typo

[lambtiss]

47 minutes ago, waylander said:

Be careful what you wish for. There are worse  owner than Gao out there.

True, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't bemoan the fact that one of our main issues for several seasons is at CB and we appear to be trying to sort that issue out on the cheap whilst selling one of our two main CBs from last season.

 

[derry]

Interesting that Watford, owned by the owners of Udinese are trying to buy Lyanco as their first choice. If he really was poor their Italian contacts would surely have advised them.

Edited 22 August, 2021 by derry

[Convict Colony]

Di marizo saying medical is done

[Nolan]

Sofascores stats are actually good for Lyanco. ahead of Vestergaard in defense and Tactics, technique and creativity. only behind on attacking.

[Ivan Katalinic's 'tache]

1 hour ago, Convict Colony said:

Di marizo saying medical is done

Good stuff. Was he at the game earlier I wonder?

[Saint86]

I'm actually finding myself slightly enthused by this transfer.

We've got a fit Romeu in central midfield - and when he is back to his best he is a rock for us.

Salisu is a beast of a defender and is only going to get better.

And our wing backs and wing play is actually quite tasty now, we certainly carry a threat.

What was evident today vs United, was that we struggled to create much from the CDM positions on the field, and players such as Romeu, Salisu Djenpo etc were giving away the ball when the middle became overwhelmed.

lyanco addresses these problems directly. He's very good on the ball, can spread play or do tidy passing, and can bring it upfield. I can see him able to step up to support Romeu/jwp from deep and give us that extra support in the centre.

All I can say, is that Ralph/Semmens etc. certainly no how to buy players that fit the roles we need. They've sold players for good money (all things considered this summer), and spent it to put round pegs in round holes with players that excel in the strict attributes they really need for those positions.

I wasn't too keen on Lyanco previously, but as i said, i now find myself strangely optimistic about what he'll add to the side 😅

[MarkSFC]

6 minutes ago, Saint86 said:

I'm actually finding myself slightly enthused by this transfer.

We've got a fit Romeu in central midfield - and when he is back to his best he is a rock for us.

Salisu is a beast of a defender and is only going to get better.

And our wing backs and wing play is actually quite tasty now, we certainly carry a threat.

What was evident today vs United, was that we struggled to create much from the CDM positions on the field, and players such as Romeu, Salisu Djenpo etc were giving away the ball when the middle became overwhelmed.

lyanco addresses these problems directly. He's very good on the ball, can spread play or do tidy passing, and can bring it upfield. I can see him able to step up to support Romeu/jwp from deep and give us that extra support in the centre.

All I can say, is that Ralph/Semmens etc. certainly no how to buy players that fit the roles we need. They've sold players for good money (all things considered this summer), and spent it to put round pegs in round holes with players that excel in the strict attributes they really need for those positions.

I wasn't too keen on Lyanco previously, but as i said, i now find myself strangely optimistic about what he'll add to the side 😅

What information/video caused the change of thought? 

[tajjuk]

30 minutes ago, Saint86 said:

I'm actually finding myself slightly enthused by this transfer.

We've got a fit Romeu in central midfield - and when he is back to his best he is a rock for us.

Salisu is a beast of a defender and is only going to get better.

And our wing backs and wing play is actually quite tasty now, we certainly carry a threat.

What was evident today vs United, was that we struggled to create much from the CDM positions on the field, and players such as Romeu, Salisu Djenpo etc were giving away the ball when the middle became overwhelmed.

lyanco addresses these problems directly. He's very good on the ball, can spread play or do tidy passing, and can bring it upfield. I can see him able to step up to support Romeu/jwp from deep and give us that extra support in the centre.

All I can say, is that Ralph/Semmens etc. certainly no how to buy players that fit the roles we need. They've sold players for good money (all things considered this summer), and spent it to put round pegs in round holes with players that excel in the strict attributes they really need for those positions.

I wasn't too keen on Lyanco previously, but as i said, i now find myself strangely optimistic about what he'll add to the side 😅

I kind of get your point, but I am still worried that he is a defender, who will need to do some defending and doesn't appear on available evidence that great at it.

But who knows, very difficult to judge, maybe he'll turn out to be a steal. I mean Lovren came off the back of a similar awful season IIRC with Lyon, hadn't he had like 4 or 5 reds or something and their fans hated him. This guy might just slip into the league and suit it down to the ground. 

Plus it is a good point about his ball playing ability, especially if we use a back 3 a bit more, one of those centre-backs is going to need to step out more and be involved more in build up play, and none of our current ones are great at that.

And I do have a soft spot for Harry Maguire, just because I like his little bursts out of defence, partly because it looks so odd a great big lump like that ghosting past people but also because it causes problem, a centre-back breaking the lines like that can disturb defensive set ups. Its how Sheff Utd were so successful the first season they came up with their over lapping centre-backs. From the youtube this guy reminded me of that, looks like he can do similar. 

Edited 22 August, 2021 by tajjuk

[hypochondriac]

I think everything seems more positive after a good result. I still think we need a decent vestergaard replacement but maybe we can muddle through and Stephens might show some signs of improvement. 

[S-Clarke]

1 minute ago, hypochondriac said:

I think everything seems more positive after a good result. I still think we need a decent vestergaard replacement but maybe we can muddle through and Stephens might show some signs of improvement. 

To be fair to Stephens I think he's improved massively under Ralph, he's the only defender we have with a bit of bollocks to his game. Prone to the odd lapse but he's light years better than he was under Puel and Hughes etc.

[SuperSAINT]

2 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

To be fair to Stephens I think he's improved massively under Ralph, he's the only defender we have with a bit of bollocks to his game. Prone to the odd lapse but he's light years better than he was under Puel and Hughes etc.

He has improved.  So happy Cavani wasn't involved today, though.

[hypochondriac]

5 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

To be fair to Stephens I think he's improved massively under Ralph, he's the only defender we have with a bit of bollocks to his game. Prone to the odd lapse but he's light years better than he was under Puel and Hughes etc.

I agree but I meant more improvement. I'd like to be confident that he's good enough. 

[sadoldgit]

13 hours ago, bennyev said:

Palace have spent on two proper CBs. Each about 17m. Speak English. Have experience in English football. That’s the way to do it. We’re here trying to bodge our way through due to Gao desperately trying to save himself a few more pounds. 
Can’t wait till the day he (insert word here) off. 

Do you honestly think that Gao is involved in choosing which players we buy? As for speaking English, there are plenty of players born here that I can’t understand what they are saying half the time. It has been made abundantly clear that the Board are running this club, not Gao.

[Matthew Le God]

 

[Uncle Albert]

For those who want to learn a bit more about the fella then I would recommend listening to the latest episode of the Total Saints Podcast, they had a fella on their who explained a lot about his career so far and why Saints have brought him, so if you know nothing about him I would say to give that a listen.

And no, I’m not being paid to say this.😄

[Saint_clark]

1 hour ago, Uncle Albert said:

For those who want to learn a bit more about the fella then I would recommend listening to the latest episode of the Total Saints Podcast, they had a fella on their who explained a lot about his career so far and why Saints have brought him, so if you know nothing about him I would say to give that a listen.

And no, I’m not being paid to say this.😄

[Lord Duckhunter]

12 hours ago, S-Clarke said:

To be fair to Stephens I think he's improved massively under Ralph, he's the only defender we have with a bit of bollocks to his game. Prone to the odd lapse but he's light years better than he was under Puel and Hughes etc.

He was excellent in the run in under Puel. He only came in once VvD got injured and did a good job partnering Yoshida. We had around half a dozen  clean sheets in the 18 or so games he played including 0-0’s against Utd & Liverpool. You’re rewriting history. For a young man replacing the leagues best centre half, he did a fine job. The issue is he hasn’t developed and kicked on from that promising start. 

[Turkish]

4 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

He was excellent in the run in under Puel. He only came in once VvD got injured and did a good job partnering Yoshida. We had around half a dozen  clean sheets in the 18 or so games he played including 0-0’s against Utd & Liverpool. You’re rewriting history. For a young man replacing the leagues best centre half, he did a fine job. The issue is he hasn’t developed and kicked on from that promising start. 

Wasn't that all down to boring Claudes defensive tactics?

[saintwbu]

27 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

He was excellent in the run in under Puel. He only came in once VvD got injured and did a good job partnering Yoshida. We had around half a dozen  clean sheets in the 18 or so games he played including 0-0’s against Utd & Liverpool. You’re rewriting history. For a young man replacing the leagues best centre half, he did a fine job. The issue is he hasn’t developed and kicked on from that promising start. 

He was also really good from Villa away at the end of 2019, until the end of that season where he cemented his place ahead of Vestergaard. The first two games of last season he was off it, Vestergaard came in and did well and kept his place, only because Stephens had been poor. Without Stephens’ poor games, we probably wouldn’t have got £15mil for Vest. When Jack came back in upon Vest’s injury, i’m pretty sure we kept 6 clean sheets on the bounce or something like that? He’s really not bad.

[Uncle Albert]

48 minutes ago, Saint_clark said:

Cushty.😁

Edited 23 August, 2021 by Uncle Albert

[igsey]

I've had a quick flick through this thread, and I'm surprised at the number of posters complaining that we're cheaping out on the Vestergaard replacement.

He's not a Vestergaard replacement, we already bought him in last summer in Salisu. This fella is the Salisu/Bednarek replacement. And that's fine.

[Turkish]

5 minutes ago, igsey said:

I've had a quick flick through this thread, and I'm surprised at the number of posters complaining that we're cheaping out on the Vestergaard replacement.

He's not a Vestergaard replacement, we already bought him in last summer in Salisu. This fella is the Salisu/Bednarek replacement. And that's fine.

It's more disappointment that it's a position we really need to add quality in given the amount of goals we conceded last season and it appears that yet again we've gone down the route of young, cheap, to hopefully sell in a few years time rather than bring in what we actually need. He might go on to be brilliant, lets hope so and Semmens and co can flog him for £60m in two years which seems to be the only ambition we have these days. They were talking about buying a player so we could sell them for a big profit in the future as soon as Vestergaard was sold. I've genuinely never heard another premier league club come out with this sort of stuff. 

[rooney]

32 minutes ago, Turkish said:

It's more disappointment that it's a position we really need to add quality in given the amount of goals we conceded last season and it appears that yet again we've gone down the route of young, cheap, to hopefully sell in a few years time rather than bring in what we actually need. He might go on to be brilliant, lets hope so and Semmens and co can flog him for £60m in two years which seems to be the only ambition we have these days. They were talking about buying a player so we could sell them for a big profit in the future as soon as Vestergaard was sold. I've genuinely never heard another premier league club come out with this sort of stuff. 

But that is what we have done for years Turkish and is the clubs philosophy. You will have to accept it and move on, as I do not think it will change anytime soon.

[Sir Ralph]

Seems like this guy is intended to be back up. That’s fine as long as we use our surplus funds for a LB and defensive midfielder. If Perraud or Romeu get injured we are in trouble. I think a lot of the problems we had last year was missing the holding player and physicality that Romeu has and we need to be able to replace that when he isn’t playing.

[hypochondriac]

28 minutes ago, rooney said:

But that is what we have done for years Turkish and is the clubs philosophy. You will have to accept it and move on, as I do not think it will change anytime soon.

I disagree. We have made necessary investments in players in key positions in the past. Vvd and ings for example. 

[Jeremy Corbyn]

6 minutes ago, Sir Ralph said:

Seems like this guy is intended to be back up. That’s fine as long as we use our surplus funds for a LB and defensive midfielder. If Perraud or Romeu get injured we are in trouble. I think a lot of the problems we had last year was missing the holding player and physicality that Romeu has and we need to be able to replace that when he isn’t playing.

100%.  Not having a proper defensive midfielder for most of the second half of last season made a huge difference, can't believe there is a good chance we wont be bringing in another.

[tajjuk]

1 hour ago, igsey said:

I've had a quick flick through this thread, and I'm surprised at the number of posters complaining that we're cheaping out on the Vestergaard replacement.

He's not a Vestergaard replacement, we already bought him in last summer in Salisu. This fella is the Salisu/Bednarek replacement. And that's fine.

He's clearly a Vestergaard replacement because he has seemingly been chosen specifically for his ball playing ability, if anything he seems (from the information we have) even more of a ball playing centre-back than Vestergaard was, all the clips of him show him playing diagonals, balls in behind or bringing the ball out of defence into midfield. It's an area that was mentioned as been important to the way we play and none of our current centre-backs are particularly adept at this. 

Whether he is any good at defending (and it's not a massively high bar to clear to be better than our current centre-backs or Vestergaard) is another matter and what most here (and rightly) seem worried about.  The worry being that we have prioritised someone who is very good on the ball, making play etc. over someone that is very good heading the ball, tackling one v one, defensive positioning, interceptions etc.  

Now maybe just maybe Salisu is going to be the one to excel at that and will give us the improvement in that area that we clearly need. He seems certainly to have the all round potential to do this, whilst also having a good amount of mobility as well, something our defence lacked last year (especially so with Vestergaard in there) but that is still a bit of unknown and a bit of gamble IMO, rather than going out and spending £15-20 million (which we basically should have) on someone who should be a defensive upgrade on Bednerak/Stephens/Vestergaard, which of course there is no guarantee on, but someone like Dujleta-Car or Milenkovic look highly rated, relatively experienced internationals who could do that. 

Also I am not writing this guy off, he could turn out to be an excellent signing who is defensively solid and contributes offensively, just a worry that there are a few red flags, but on recent signings the scouting department seems to be getting it right so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. 

 

[OldNick]

4 hours ago, Uncle Albert said:

For those who want to learn a bit more about the fella then I would recommend listening to the latest episode of the Total Saints Podcast, they had a fella on their who explained a lot about his career so far and why Saints have brought him, so if you know nothing about him I would say to give that a listen.

And no, I’m not being paid to say this.😄

I listened to it as well, it was encouraging apart from the social media stuff lol

[LuckyNumber7]

1 hour ago, Sir Ralph said:

Seems like this guy is intended to be back up. 

This makes zero sense to me. Signing backup means signing worse than what you already have, we should be aiming to improve.

Salisu will obviously be first choice now which is fine, but if Lyanco is not good enough to displace Stephens or Bednarek then we shouldn't be signing him.

[Chez]

Watching the game yesterday, it was evident that we struggled to cope with the arial ability of Pogba from set pieces, especially in the first half. I don't want to put a dampener of the Stephens appreciation party, but in that period, his marking of him was absolutely woeful and could easily have cost us a goal. His tackle on Fernandez, hostility to Greenwoods non injury and nice photo of him giving Fernandez a dressing down will have meant nothing if we had conceded and gone on to lose.

I am concerned when the likes of Dunk, Soucek, VVD and others come to town that we may have similar problems. For all his limitations, Vestegaard did win a lot of headers from corners. I don't see Lyanco replacing that strength. Maybe playing three centre backs will help, but if all three don't dominate we will have issues.

Conversely, another issue we had yesterday in some periods was giving the ball away cheaply. This wasn't necessarily a CB issue, although Stephens killed us when a sloppy pass led directly to a foul on the edge of our box. But Lyanco's ability on the ball, as was offered by Vestegaard, will help us there. 

 

[Toadhall Saint]

1 minute ago, Chez said:

Watching the game yesterday, it was evident that we struggled to cope with the arial ability of Pogba from set pieces, especially in the first half. I don't want to put a dampener of the Stephens appreciation party, but in that period, his marking of him was absolutely woeful and could easily have cost us a goal. His tackle on Fernandez, hostility to Greenwoods non injury and nice photo of him giving Fernandez a dressing down will have meant nothing if we had conceded and gone on to lose.

I am concerned when the likes of Dunk, Soucek, VVD and others come to town that we may have similar problems. For all his limitations, Vestegaard did win a lot of headers from corners. I don't see Lyanco replacing that strength. Maybe playing three centre backs will help, but if all three don't dominate we will have issues.

Conversely, another issue we had yesterday in some periods was giving the ball away cheaply. This wasn't necessarily a CB issue, although Stephens killed us when a sloppy pass led directly to a foul on the edge of our box. But Lyanco's ability on the ball, as was offered by Vestegaard, will help us there. 

 

The balls into our box worried the life out of me - just need a defender that wants to header the ball.

[wild-saint]

3 minutes ago, Chez said:

Watching the game yesterday, it was evident that we struggled to cope with the arial ability of Pogba from set pieces, especially in the first half. I don't want to put a dampener of the Stephens appreciation party, but in that period, his marking of him was absolutely woeful and could easily have cost us a goal. His tackle on Fernandez, hostility to Greenwoods non injury and nice photo of him giving Fernandez a dressing down will have meant nothing if we had conceded and gone on to lose.

I am concerned when the likes of Dunk, Soucek, VVD and others come to town that we may have similar problems. For all his limitations, Vestegaard did win a lot of headers from corners. I don't see Lyanco replacing that strength. Maybe playing three centre backs will help, but if all three don't dominate we will have issues.

Conversely, another issue we had yesterday in some periods was giving the ball away cheaply. This wasn't necessarily a CB issue, although Stephens killed us when a sloppy pass led directly to a foul on the edge of our box. But Lyanco's ability on the ball, as was offered by Vestegaard, will help us there. 

 

Totally agree with you, as good as we looked in some areas, arially we were really weak. United are strong side and have a number of players who are a threat from set peices including maguire and pogma but i really worry that other teams will have picked up on this and will  / could easily adapt their  starting 11 to exploit this weakness. 

[MarkSFC]

7 minutes ago, Chez said:

Watching the game yesterday, it was evident that we struggled to cope with the arial ability of Pogba from set pieces, especially in the first half. I don't want to put a dampener of the Stephens appreciation party, but in that period, his marking of him was absolutely woeful and could easily have cost us a goal. His tackle on Fernandez, hostility to Greenwoods non injury and nice photo of him giving Fernandez a dressing down will have meant nothing if we had conceded and gone on to lose.

I am concerned when the likes of Dunk, Soucek, VVD and others come to town that we may have similar problems. For all his limitations, Vestegaard did win a lot of headers from corners. I don't see Lyanco replacing that strength. Maybe playing three centre backs will help, but if all three don't dominate we will have issues.

Conversely, another issue we had yesterday in some periods was giving the ball away cheaply. This wasn't necessarily a CB issue, although Stephens killed us when a sloppy pass led directly to a foul on the edge of our box. But Lyanco's ability on the ball, as was offered by Vestegaard, will help us there. 

 

I agree. Our aerial dominance from free kicks and corners is nonexistent. A good part of this is down to neither keeper being very good in that attribute either. But that ain't getting solved anytime soon by the looks of it.🤬

[Chez]

13 minutes ago, LuckyNumber7 said:

This makes zero sense to me. Signing backup means signing worse than what you already have, we should be aiming to improve.

Salisu will obviously be first choice now which is fine, but if Lyanco is not good enough to displace Stephens or Bednarek then we shouldn't be signing him.

seems like that it is the current recruitment model. Buy young players, initially as cover, but with the expectation that they will improve and then when the senior player leaves, they are promoted. Obviously not every signing follows that model, as the likes of Theo, Armstrong and Perraud signings differ, but Bednarek and Salisu both followed that model. Its certainly more sustainable, but whether we have enough quality at CB to keep us up is a different matter. Lets hope so as it is hard to be sustainable when you lose £100m Prem money. 

[tajjuk]

So not sure if someone else mentioned it, but a possible explanation for the Torino fans dislike of him is because he very heavily celebrated a victory for Bologna, who he was on loan at, AGAINST Torino. 

EDIT: Got that from the Total Saints Podcast who got it from someone that is apparently a Saints and Torino fan. 

Also sounds like Torino have been pretty shambolic on and off the pitch for the last two years, they nearly got relegated last year with a squad that should have been nowhere near relegation. The Serie A person they got on the podcast basically said he wouldn't read too much into how he or Torino have performed because of that over the last year to 18 months because of that. Lyanco has apparently been wanting out for a while because of that. 

Main worry for me would be that he's very confident in his own ability, which does ring some Hoedt alarm bells, but is also apparently very driven to improve and become the best, so we shall see. 

Edited 23 August, 2021 by tajjuk

[Chez]

5 minutes ago, MarkSFC said:

I agree. Our aerial dominance from free kicks and corners is nonexistent. A good part of this is down to neither keeper being very good in that attribute either. But that ain't getting solved anytime soon by the looks of it.🤬

McCarthy's punching in the first half was very good to be fair and others on here have suggested Forster is a new man in terms of coming off his line, but in general I agree with you. The days of Grobbelar coming out to the edge of the box to catch lofted crosses are long gone, and in general keepers leave it to CBs to take charge (Forster let Fonte, VVD win everything and never confused the issue by coming off his line), but you do still need keepers to come off their line and punch/catch at times, especially if you don't have that strong CB. 

I guess the issue is finding CBs that can play and are massive. Not many of those about.

[TotalSaintsPod]

We interviewed an Italian football podcaster and journalist for Serie A on the show this week, he provided some good insight into Lyanco, what type of player he is and how he might fit into the Southampton team. If you want to hear the guys discuss it and the interview you can listen using the link below, the talk starts at 23 minutes.

https://podfollow.com/total-saints-podcast

 

[Baird of the land]

Very interesting listen. Puts his struggles at Torino into some perspective.

Still curious how good he's going to be aerially.

[Teddeer]

Many are highlighting our inability to deal with crosses, particularly from set pieces. I get the impression that we are adopting zonal marking, is that how others see it? If so, I'm certainly no fan of this as a way of dealing with crosses. Every player should be designated an opponent and stick with him like glue - if you can't win the header at least make a robust challenge so there are less free headers.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

4 minutes ago, Teddeer said:

Many are highlighting our inability to deal with crosses, particularly from set pieces. I get the impression that we are adopting zonal marking, is that how others see it? If so, I'm certainly no fan of this as a way of dealing with crosses. Every player should be designated an opponent and stick with him like glue - if you can't win the header at least make a robust challenge so there are less free headers.

I don't think there is anything necessarily wrong with zonal marking and it is far less restrictive than person-to-person marking if done well.  The issue is that our defenders are positionally pretty poor which means they often leave gaps or channels that attackers can easily move in to.

One thing I will say, is that our back 4 is 100% different to the one that played most of last season so it's fair enough that there is a bit of adjustment time.