When the alternative is Andre Two Cod & Chips, give me Gibbs every time.
When the alternative is Andre Two Cod & Chips, give me Gibbs every time.
A full backs primary function should be defending not attacking, being good offensively is secondary.
Sadly Gibbs is often caught out of position and fails miserably in his primary function, I'm not convinced we'll ever be solid defensively with him as a defender.
I kinda agree with Grebbo with regards the defence, we should scrap the lot and start again.
i wonder what he would be like if we played a proper winger, for instance a valencia type player, not podolski or ramsey. i wonder if at teh moment he feels he needs to do more because the players who are left wing arent wingers and need more help on the flanksOriginally Posted by Arse n Wonga
I personally think his instinct is to attack, you can see that from the way he gets forward, he'd be a decent winger but I don't think he's got the discipline to play as full back.
Those days are gone. Attacking from a fullback position is the primary function for the best teams; that's probably a big part of why so many goals are conceded but without it, there's little outlet with so much of the game being about midfield domination.
We rely on our fullbacks heavily and when Gibbs was out of the team earlier this season we suffered. Im not convinced Gibbs is the problem, Sagna would have done better by not turning up the last few games he has been appalling, just doesn't seem to be bothered anymore.
Yeah but the PL is pretty lousy these days defensively, that's why they've suffered in the CL if they focussed more on defence they might do better, look at Man U who are top, if not for their brilliant forward line they'd be in trouble as the defence isn't up to scratch....a few years back they were rock solid at the back. City were solid at the back last season however and won the title.
A great team should be solid defensively as well as effective offensively, I don't subscribe to the view that full backs are there to attack, I think they should be able to defend and if good enough get forward and deliver good crosses. Our crossing is shocking btw.
Shit at defending, ok going forward. We need better but that can be said for every position.
This is going to be a long winded sentence but you're contradicting yourself - you talk about Premier League defending being the reason English team have suffered in the Champions League and also say Citeh's defence last season can be put down a marker that defences can still be solid, however Citeh went out of the Champions League at the first attempt and indeed the Europa League last season too when they went out at the second earliest opporunity!
I don't see the point in mentioning the strengths of previous defences because I don't remember saying defending from full-backs is ignored, it's just not the 'primary' consideration. You can see that in just how much attacking Zabaleta/Richards/Clichy and Kolarov all did last season.
Also, I'm not talking about the Premier League alone, I'm talking about most teams across leagues. Most of the fullbacks playing now come in to the side on the strength of their attacking firstly, then work on their defending secondly.
City's performance in the CL is hard to explain to be honest, they just haven't played well compared to how they have performed in the PL, they seem to play in a much more restrained manner in the CL (though this season their defence did let them down and has in the PL as well).
When I said it should be the primary function I meant they should be able to defend first and foremost, if they can't defend then it's a problem IMO and leads to goals being conceded. If you have a full back who is good at attacking but can also defend then that's fine of course.
At the end of the day if you have full backs who can't defend you're relying on your CB's to pretty much keep all attacks out which is going to be hard when there's space on both sides for attacking players to exploit.
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