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Central Defenders


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Whilst I think we all agree that Saints need another decent central defender can anyone actually remember the last decent one we brought through our academy? I know centre halves tend to mature later in years but this does seem to be an area where we need to work on our development and recruitment.

 

On a second note how do people rate the young central defenders we currently have in the under 21 and academy sides. Do we think that any of them are close to the a call up to the first team squad? If not will any of them make the grade eventually?

 

It really does interest me why we tend to produce good full backs and midfielders but there does seem to have been a lack of centre halves come through.

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Central defender is probably the hardest position to fill via the academy graduate route.

 

We all understand that, when a "young lad" breaks into the team he is bound to make a few mistakes. Problem is, make a mistake at Centre Back and you've probably caused a clear goal chance. Its a thankless position for the nervous debutante.

 

However, having said that, they must come from somewhere. i mean Lovren wasn't born at 24.........he must have learned his trade somewhere in the "heat of battle".

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Mark Wright was only 18 when he joined us. Not an academy product but still very young for a CB. He had played a handful of games for Oxford in the previous two seasons. He played 39 times the following season, so almost every league game. Malcolm Waldron was not bad and was an apprentice for us. Thought we had 2 good CBs a few years back with Mills and Cranie, but things went wrong with them, they were probably destroyed by the whole Dutch experiment when Lowe was around, they both should have done much better than they did.

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Aaron Martin showed early promise but I think that the club's rise up the leagues was no help to him; as I see it, the increase in pressure and expectation (and aversity to risk) as we went from L1 to Champ then to Prem meant that he was not given the chance to learn his trade - which includes the odd mistake - in a Saints shirt.

 

Shame - I thought he showed an awful lot of potential, by which I mean physically and tehcnically as well as with his calm assured (for his age) manner/demeanour.

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Aaron Martin showed early promise but I think that the club's rise up the leagues was no help to him; as I see it, the increase in pressure and expectation (and aversity to risk) as we went from L1 to Champ then to Prem meant that he was not given the chance to learn his trade - which includes the odd mistake - in a Saints shirt.

 

Shame - I thought he showed an awful lot of potential, by which I mean physically and tehcnically as well as with his calm assured (for his age) manner/demeanour.

 

I always thought Aaron Martin looked OK in League One when I saw him. I fully expect him to ply his trade there more permanently when he leaves us.

 

Not academy, but Richard Hall was only 19 when he joined us, and went on to do well for us. Before West Ham got their hands on him and his career ended prematurely.

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Mark Wright was only 18 when he joined us. Not an academy product but still very young for a CB. He had played a handful of games for Oxford in the previous two seasons. He played 39 times the following season, so almost every league game. Malcolm Waldron was not bad and was an apprentice for us. Thought we had 2 good CBs a few years back with Mills and Cranie, but things went wrong with them, they were probably destroyed by the whole Dutch experiment when Lowe was around, they both should have done much better than they did.

 

Mills left in January 2006 and Cranie in the summer of 2007 so quite a while before the Dutch guys. Lancashire was the 'promising' centre back who played a bit under them.

 

 

 

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

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Matt Mills sprang to my mind also, but thanks largely to George Burley he p!ssed off. Although Man City did not work for him he did seem to get his career going again, but a couple of poor moves have put him back into the mediocre band again. Shame as he might have achieved more.

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Matt Mills sprang to my mind also, but thanks largely to George Burley he p!ssed off. Although Man City did not work for him he did seem to get his career going again, but a couple of poor moves have put him back into the mediocre band again. Shame as he might have achieved more.

 

Nah it was Redknapp that p*ssed him off mate, he said so himself in interviews. Totally ignored him at the training ground and made him feel like he was worthless, wasn't part of the group and had no chance of getting in the team.

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In the 80s we produced a few that weren't quite top flight level but played quite a few times made good careers in the game. Mark Whitlock, Mark Blake, Steve Davis were three I remember who were all local boys who came through. Since then we've not really had any that have done much in the first team.

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Nah it was Redknapp that p*ssed him off mate, he said so himself in interviews. Totally ignored him at the training ground and made him feel like he was worthless, wasn't part of the group and had no chance of getting in the team.

 

Pretty much his attitude to all the young players wasn't it? He moaned about people telling him how good the young players were and Never forget the 3-0 win in the cup where they were excellent and he said we were lucky and hasn't played well at all, from his attitude got the impression he'd sent them out to fail in that game to prove a point to Lowe.

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Pretty much his attitude to all the young players wasn't it? He moaned about people telling him how good the young players were and Never forget the 3-0 win in the cup where they were excellent and he said we were lucky and hasn't played well at all, from his attitude got the impression he'd sent them out to fail in that game to prove a point to Lowe.

 

Against Southend wasn't it?

And then he did the same away to Mansfield, we lost and he said "that's why you don't play kids" or some such.

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Nah it was Redknapp that p*ssed him off mate, he said so himself in interviews. Totally ignored him at the training ground and made him feel like he was worthless, wasn't part of the group and had no chance of getting in the team.

 

Yes, you are correct of course.

 

Redknapp did p!ss him off, and when Burley came in he could not persuade him to stay as his mind was already made up.

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Matt Mills is the one that sticks in my mind. While coming through the Academy, he was as good as any defender I've seen. Confident and composed, he was a fantastic ball-playing centre-half. He'd have been better served staying with us, getting some regular game time and learning his trade in the first-team, but it wasn't to be. A real shame he hasn't gone on to fulfil his potential.

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I think the best recent Central Defenders would be Chris Baird, Matt Mills, Martin Cranie, Oliver Lancashire..you'd then have to go back 20 years plus to find someone like Matthew Bound or Jon Gittens. Suffice to say it's not a strong position for Saints youngsters to come through and fill as I think Chris Baird would be the strongest out of these and was originally a RB.

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I think there is great hope for Stephens and Turnbull but CBs take a lttle longer to mature into first team players. We've had a few youngsters who were tall for their age and took a higher profile as a result but never quite made the grade in the end. Waldron and Agboola strike me as the best examples to actually make it. Baird was great too but more a right back with us. Played CB regularly through his career though.

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Mills left in January 2006 and Cranie in the summer of 2007 so quite a while before the Dutch guys. Lancashire was the 'promising' centre back who played a bit under them.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

You're right of course, didn't check as closely as I usually do (memory and old age). In principle though the comment was still valid, just blaming the wrong incompetents, happy to point the finger at Redkrapp, apologies to Agents Orange :-)

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Pretty much his attitude to all the young players wasn't it? He moaned about people telling him how good the young players were and Never forget the 3-0 win in the cup where they were excellent and he said we were lucky and hasn't played well at all, from his attitude got the impression he'd sent them out to fail in that game to prove a point to Lowe.

 

Redknapp's image as a nurturer of young talent has always been a sham.

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FWIW Malcolm Waldron gets my vote but he was generally OK but not outstanding

 

Slightly off topic but what great shame that Duncan Edwards was lost to the Munich Air Disaster

 

England International at 18 I think and many players/Managers of the time, who knew him, reckoned he would have been a world class player if he had survived the crash

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On conclusion then my fears were right and we really do struggle to produce decent centre halves. It appears that we have got close with Mills\Cranie but not had a lot since. Prior to that we had some decent ones come through in patches particularly late 80's early 90's but very few went on to carve out a career with Saints.

 

This really is an area we could do better and I hope the current Under 21's and academy prospects can step up to the plate in the future.

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Who was the lad at the back when the young uns whipped Poopey the other week, he looked really good

 

Debayo? He was the one we signed from Chelsea and was introduced on the pitch at half time of the Hull game. Looked decent in that game albeit against woeful opponents.

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