…..the vultures are circling.
6
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 45
- Clean sheets
- 20
- Goals
- 1
- Assists
- 0
- Yellow cards
- 10
- Status
I mean we can sell Shaw and keep him as a lb/midfielder alongside Malacia
He still has that aggresiveness that we need and also the passing
He still has that aggresiveness that we need and also the passing
I just can’t accept no matter how good a players leap is that height doesn’t matter for a CB in EPL. Never.
I know some are saying he slipped for the 3rd goal. When I watched the replay you can see his knee gets caught under the other player next to him. This is going to sound very pedantic, but if he’s not as short as he was his body just doesn’t fall over like he did. A big strong defender would be physically imposing in that it would be hard to knock him out of his stride or movement.
I don’t even think his height and physicality got that exposed this game tbh. But I can certainly see signs of how it will get targeted as there’s been moments of weakness which haven’t been critical but on another day can be.
I’m not writing Martinez off so early, I’m just finding it hard to see how he becomes a regular success going forward when he’s clearly going to be targeted. Even the Brentford manager said today that they looked to target that weakness down our left hand side for second balls.
Even the goal was more about being in the right place, rather than him being small. Intensity definitely is a slight worry for me, but that will come when he adapts to the league.please point out ANY moments that were a worry?
I genuinely want you to pick out a moment you saw him in trouble today?
I've seen some posters saying he was a worry and he got bullied, when he barely lost any challenges? at one point he ragdolled Toney to the floor and Mbembo bounced off him too.
Yes he is small but he leaps very well.
I think he needs to be played in a back 3 with Maguire and Varane. It's going to be a struggle to make it work otherwise, at least with the current state of the team.
Agree. LCB in a back three would be my preference.
The goal he slipped unfortunately, but yes in that situation stuck under the goal posts he might get troubled.
In this situation though we should be adapting and playing him as a CDM maybe? we've got Varane on the bench who's a giant.
Today would have been nice to have Eriksen/Martinez/Fernandes in midfield and we'd be much more solid. Perhaps i'd go that way in the future too.
Neville kept going on about it being a problem but he won more duels than he lost. They just can't see past him being small.
Height is not the main issue, tbh. A lot of amazing CBs were short (Cannavaro, Cordoba, Puyol, Baresi, etc). Ricardo Carvalho was not that tall for a CB either with 1.82m
His positioning is flawed tbh. Dunno if he can improve that much on that.
His positioning is flawed tbh. Dunno if he can improve that much on that.
All the goals came down their left though and I think what he said was still more poignant to the fact they put more effort in. It's akin to in Rugby getting to the breakdown quickest, we were always second to any second ball, regardless if Martinez won his challenge anyway.
So true. That would be my plan A as well. 3atb would change midfield dynamics to some degree and looking at our attacking players there is absolutely no need to be sad to leave one of them on the bench.
I can't remember having such doubts about a big signing so early.
Maguire and Wan Bissaka looked good early doors, Veron started his first season in great form, and so did Di Maria.
Lukaku scored plenty in his first season, etc.
But unless you have 90% of the ball and a superb system like City do, you can't get away with a shortie centre back, especially wit next to no-one else in the team who can head it.
Even City got back to having 2 tall centre backs as soon as they could and Ferdandino was a stop gap.
It's a fact that aerial ability doesn't relate 1-to-1 with height. It's a fact that he's just come from a league where his opponents were physically taller. It's a fact that none of the goals we conceded were as a direct result of his height. And it's a fact that that style of play relates directly to the amount of aerial pressure CBs come under (i.e. if we get better in that regard, the pressure on all our CBs decreases, and we bought Martinez because he will help us get better in that regard, not because he'd be resistant to the pressures we come under until we do).
The height narrative is insane. Every single fault he's shown so far we would also have seen from 6ft 3 Pau Torres, who was the recruitment team's suggestion, or 6ft 2 Victor Lindelof, whose place Martinez has taken, or multiple other tall CBs we could have signed who will naturally take time to adapt to the premier league. If Martinez was that height and had performed in exactly the same way as he has, people wouldn't currently be focusing on his aerial ability at all. They'd just be saying he needs to get used to the intensity of the league, which is a far more accurate judgement on the issues he's had so far.
The height narrative is insane. Every single fault he's shown so far we would also have seen from 6ft 3 Pau Torres, who was the recruitment team's suggestion, or 6ft 2 Victor Lindelof, whose place Martinez has taken, or multiple other tall CBs we could have signed who will naturally take time to adapt to the premier league. If Martinez was that height and had performed in exactly the same way as he has, people wouldn't currently be focusing on his aerial ability at all. They'd just be saying he needs to get used to the intensity of the league, which is a far more accurate judgement on the issues he's had so far.
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Yeah, it might be an option to ease him into the league, but I would potentially worry about the intensity in there as well. In an ideal world, we could ease him in as a LB, in an experienced and well drilled back line. Alas, not the case.
Yeah, I couldn't stand the coverage to be honest. They were just asking questions to feed their narrative, even the Brentford players and managers didn't rise to it.
Pretty much this.
I genuinely want you to pick out a moment you saw him in trouble today?
I've seen some posters saying he was a worry and he got bullied, when he barely lost any challenges? at one point he ragdolled Toney to the floor and Mbembo bounced off him too.
Yes he is small but he leaps very well.
Honestly speaking I’ve not seen Martinez get “exposed” too badly in the first two games but I have seen signs of individual battles or moments of play which have made me concerned that there are definitely going to be potential issues going forward.
Even if we look at something very basic such as Brentford throw ins from our left side. Martinez and Maguire were switching sides so Maguire is the one nearest to the left back to head it away. That’s not an ideal situation to have to constantly swap sides to counter that potential weakness.
The mere fact that the manager has asked them to switch suggests there is a weakness to be exposed.
Again I don’t wanna bash the guy as he’s only had 2 games. But I can’t pretend I’m confident in him becoming a dominant CB in the premier league every match.
Again, yet the goals didn't come from there, so it may have been a plan, but it's not where we conceded from.
The swapping of sides when defending a long throw is entirely normal
Ok but Frank isn't falling for some media led Narrative.
If Premier League managers are targeting that area it has to be for a good reason.
Honestly I think there are a lot of sheeps in here buying into the narrative.
Personally would have walked away at 35mil, not because I don’t rate the lad - I think he has a lot of qualities. But 57 mil just brings a whole different kind of pressure and expectation. When you pay that kind of money for someone it’s very difficult to leave them out even if the circumstances might not suit his game - and that’s because well when you pay that kind of money for a defender they should be able to cope with all situations.
He said they targeted it. But the point is they didn't get a lot of joy from that. That wasn’t what won them the game
Sorry, but height is the main issue, it really is. He's 5ft 9 ffs.
Surely he would be more of a help to us in midfield at the moment. We're not exactly blessed at CB, but we have Lindelof, Maguire, and Varane.
And even then the bigger question would be "why are we slower to second balls than every other fecking team in the league?".
Which headers did he lose today?
That's a fair point I didn't consider, but in general, with good communication, this shouldn't be too much of an issue.
No, I won't pretend I'm confident either. There are question marks, but I think there are far worse performers in the side than him and he's currently adapting to a new league, as well as having a disability if you listen to some pundits.
Bingo
The one for the goal?
It is a bigger issue for us because we have no protection in front of him and aerial ability elsewhere in the team for set pieces.
Carvalho had the likes of Makelele in front, Drogba etc coming back for corners, Cech being dominant. Puyol with Busquets stationed infront. We even got away with Blind while we had Carrick in front and the likes of Fellaini in the team.
We have none of that, we have Maguire who is good in the air and that's it, De Gea is another negative in that regard.
Exactly my point. He won’t be the first manager to target that side either. Every manager will do the same.
If we play Martinez and Malacia at the same time, that’s an even bigger concern.
Yep. It was an insane fee.
The other clowns in the team made it possible for them to not worry about their plan after thirty minutes. But, other managers saying how we thought they would do against our back line tells you that we are not actively solving anything at the back but probably adding more. Which can't be positive in any sense.
Where he slipped. So not height related… great
We really need to stop using legends of the game who are by default an extreme example which is why they are legends as justification. Martinez has not shown anything to suggest he is a cannavaro or baresi.
We wouldn’t say Amad can play well as a striker just because Messi has been an amazing player being similar height.
Exactly.
Yup I don't understand the "Narrative" posts or the "Sheep" comments.
A rival manager is going on national tv and telling everyone that he noticed that he could get joy from it (from the Brighton game) and decided to target him.
If it wasnt causing problems then why was he taken off at half time?
His physicality is always going to be an issue, if we had a dominant CB next to him like Vidic then it wouldn't be such an issue but when you have captain calamity Harry Maguire then it's setup for a disaster
He is a very technical player who can pass between the lines, I see his future as a DM in this league
He is a very technical player who can pass between the lines, I see his future as a DM in this league
I thought ETH might have taken Fred off for Varane and tried Martinez in midfield. Don’t think he could do any worse than him or McTomminay.
We haven’t seen it much yet but I have no doubt we will see left backs playing long diagonals over our defence to target the areas between Martinez and shaw. No matter how good your leap is, you can’t really jump well when you are back pedalling. We can’t pretend height isn’t an issue otherwise every team in the league would play short CBs who are great on the ball and have a good leap.
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Of course managers teams are going to try to target a 5ft 9 CB aerially. The question is whether doing so actually works for them. And in this case none of the goals we conceded came from their attempt to target Martinez. De Gea having a meltdown doesn't suddenly make targeting Martinez a successful tactic.
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