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Vestergaard / Stephens


Edmonton Saint

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Another season and we are still starting premier league games with arguably the weakest centre backs in the league. The fact we have to play three at the back to try and cover their glaring deficiencies says it all.

 

Vestergaard is 6ft 6 in but is terrible in the air. He hardly ever wins headers and his pathetic attempt at a header today led to the first goal. He is slow, cumbersome and lacks focus at key moments. He should be a beast at his height, but too often he is beaten by much smaller men who actually bother to jump.

 

Stephens is and has always been cack. Our win record with him starting is abysmal. He lacks positional sense, is another one that can't head, tries to be too clever at times and gets caught out. It's a bit alarming that our managers keep on turning a blind eye to the goals he is conceding.

 

They both panic under pressure and this leads to tension in the rest of the team. Centre back should have been the first position we strengthened this season, not the one we 'Strengthened' with 10 minutes left in the window.

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Vestergaard has all of the attributes needed to be a top level CB, there’s only one issue though - he’s ****

 

As for Stephens we know he’s not cut out for the Prem. I don’t know how he would fare as CDM with the cover of two CB’s behind him but he is like Davenport mkII in defence.

 

Do we have a First Team defence coach at Saints? Serious question. Is that a thing? I know there’s striker coaches, we need to some decent ex pros on the case, what’s Killer up to these days.

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I'm going to criticise Ralph a little bit here. With the current options Ralph has at CB you have to question why he would pick Stephens over Yoshida? With the players we have Yoshida and Bednarek should be the first two CBs in the team.

 

Ralph has also had all summer to work on the defence and a find a formation that best protects our fragile back line yesterday suggests he hasn't really done that and we looked no different from last season.

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk

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I'm going to criticise Ralph a little bit here. With the current options Ralph has at CB you have to question why he would pick Stephens over Yoshida? With the players we have Yoshida and Bednarek should be the first two CBs in the team.

 

Ralph has also had all summer to work on the defence and a find a formation that best protects our fragile back line yesterday suggests he hasn't really done that and we looked no different from last season.

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk

 

Yoshida on his way out?

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If fit I'd have Yoshida and Bednarek in a 4-4-2 setup with the new kid on the bench, ready to be tried out.

 

Vestergaard and Stephens aren't up to it, I think we've seen that enough times now.

 

At least one 'positive' from yesterday is that after just 1 game Ralph should now know that they aren't up to it.

 

I'd be quite surprised if he gave them a 2nd chance.

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If fit I'd have Yoshida and Bednarek in a 4-4-2 setup with the new kid on the bench, ready to be tried out.

 

Vestergaard and Stephens aren't up to it, I think we've seen that enough times now.

 

At least one 'positive' from yesterday is that after just 1 game Ralph should now know that they aren't up to it.

 

I'd be quite surprised if he gave them a 2nd chance.

 

He has seen Stephens plenty and still continues to pick him

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I'm going to criticise Ralph a little bit here. With the current options Ralph has at CB you have to question why he would pick Stephens over Yoshida? With the players we have Yoshida and Bednarek should be the first two CBs in the team.

 

Ralph has also had all summer to work on the defence and a find a formation that best protects our fragile back line yesterday suggests he hasn't really done that and we looked no different from last season.

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk

 

well I was told yesterday when I said the same that unlike Ralph I dont see them in training and how would I know better than him.

 

To not have to watch those centre backs train day after day I consider a blessing because 90 mins a week is more than enough for me.

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well I was told yesterday when I said the same that unlike Ralph I dont see them in training and how would I know better than him.

 

To not have to watch those centre backs train day after day I consider a blessing because 90 mins a week is more than enough for me.

 

Perhaps they are perfectly fine in training? I read the other day about how good Mo was in training. Some of them it seems don’t have the mental ability to carry it through when the pressure is on.

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I'm going to criticise Ralph a little bit here. With the current options Ralph has at CB you have to question why he would pick Stephens over Yoshida? With the players we have Yoshida and Bednarek should be the first two CBs in the team.

 

Ralph has also had all summer to work on the defence and a find a formation that best protects our fragile back line yesterday suggests he hasn't really done that and we looked no different from last season.

 

 

Yep, first real question mark against Ralph in my opinion that he can pick Vestergaard and Stephens as first choice and leave Yoshida on the bench. Not saying Yoshida is perfect, but is generally considerably more solid than the other two so don’t understand the thinking in leaving him out at all. When Mark Hughes did similar, he was pilloried for it and rightly so.

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He has seen Stephens plenty and still continues to pick him

 

I wonder if after a full pre-season Ralph wiped last season's performances and selected from friendlies form. Regardless he gave them the opportunity to claim those positions and they ended up costing us the game.

 

Enough IMO, it's time for a change.

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Vestergaard was at fault for all 3 goals in my opinion.

 

The first goal is obvious.

The second goal Barnes was his man to pick up, he was stood between the 2 marking nobody, he had no idea where Barnes was and as a result was completely beaten by the cross which he made no attempt to defend. Bertrand also should have given him a shout and told him to pick Barnes up.

The 3rd goal he got bullied out of what should have been an easy header to win, and then too slow to get back and defend, didn’t make any attempt to tackle or at least block the shot once he got close.

 

Useless player.

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He couldn’t possibly do any worse than Stephens and the big Dane

 

I dont know. He was slowing up and was often a penalty waiting to happen. He was dreadful at West Ham and has probably found his level in French football. It really doesnt matter now as he is long gone and would probably not be a starter if he was still here. He was offered a new contract which he turned down and made it clear he wanted out. Time to move on.

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The scariest part is Ralph may try to fix this defense by bringing in Hoedt

 

Despite people telling us on here that this is happening, Hoedt has not been involved in any games so far. If that was the case I am sure we would have seen him in a friendly. I think we can safely assume he is on his way.

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Remembering with pride when we had "the best defence in Europe" under Koeman. Losing 3 soft goals to a very average Burnley does not bode well.

 

We also lost away to Burnley that season. That has nothing to do with our current defensive issues of course, but it does go to show that even one of our best teams lost away up there.

 

I think its awful that our central defenders are so bad that we have to play three of them to have a modicum of defensive capability, and even then mistakes undermine it all.

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Was listening to the Saints Podcast last night and its funny how all the people that are slagging Jack off, Adam Leitch had a totally different view on it. He was actually at the game covering it for the Echo. He said Jack played ok and the problems were as a collective unit, not on a single individual. In my opinion Vestergaard was at fault for at least 2 of the goals on Saturday.

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Fonte gave a number of interviews after denying that.

 

I'd probably believe him that a couple of submissive tabloids

 

I think it's true that he would have gone to a top six club, although he wasn't forcing the issue, but he didn't really want to leave Saints and certainly not to go to West Ham. If Reed had made any effort to keep him here, he'd have happily stayed. But, instead, Les Reed made it clear to him that he was no longer welcome at the club and got the fan base on his side with his usual PR 'leaks', saying the player was disruptive. The words 'Billy Big Boll--ks" were clearly straight out of Les Reed's mouth and then got repeated on all the Saints fans forums, when, in fact, Fonte is a more modest character than either Reed himself or most top flight footballers.

 

Anyway, it's all worked out well for Fonte, as he has had the best spell of his entire career at Lille, captaining them to the Champions League group stage, with the best defensive record in the French League, and winning another major European trophy with Portugal.

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Vestergaard was at fault for all 3 goals in my opinion.

 

The first goal is obvious.

The second goal Barnes was his man to pick up, he was stood between the 2 marking nobody, he had no idea where Barnes was and as a result was completely beaten by the cross which he made no attempt to defend. Bertrand also should have given him a shout and told him to pick Barnes up.

The 3rd goal he got bullied out of what should have been an easy header to win, and then too slow to get back and defend, didn’t make any attempt to tackle or at least block the shot once he got close.

 

Useless player.

 

Nonsense.

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Bertrand isn’t faultless either! He seems to go under the radar. He didn’t want the ball as much and cost us the third goal. Don’t forget his error. He often makes mistakes which don’t get picked up.

He was partly at fault for the 2nd goal as well, both Vestergaard and Bertrand were not picking up the Burnley strikers' runs.

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