Dawson is a good player and will prove to be a sound investment. He didn’t have a good debut yesterday but not one Watford player walked off that pitch having had a good game. I’ve said this before and I’ll repeat it, the problem lies more with our poor quality full backs at the club, not the central defenders
Holebas was at fault for two of the goals yesterday with the exact same circumstances leading to the goal.
You've said this several times. Now that you've gotten an acknowledgement (which seems clearly a crying need for you), please shut the **** up or make some sense. Your choice.
Well yes, he was very poor yesterday and off the pace. He can only improve from here, well let's hope so
Yeah but another 5 mill on hair products . You can Double that if he wants to straighten ,girlfriend .
Luiz's wages would have been a problem, additionally, I think he prefers holding midfield, where we are already overstocked. Central Defenders are quite simply massively overpriced just now. I would have hoped we'd have done more to improve the fullbacks, but unfortunately not. All that said, I think that a little more aggressive marking in midfield will go a long way, as well as the introduction of Sarr on the wing - and the reintroduction or Pereyra on the left. Having bona fide attacking players to keep opposing fullbacks occupied helps to keep the midfield from getting pulled out of shape. I think we'll see a significant improvement this week for three reasons - 1) we'll have more players in positions where they are comfortable and threatening and 2) improved effort - there's nothing like a little embarrassment to stimulate your attitude, and; 3) Everton. No one wants Richarlison scoring or Silva gloating. They will publicly say it doesn't matter to them - but it does.
He's spent at least the last two seasons for both Chelsea and Brazil exclusively at CB. Bjorn Engels to Villa for £7mil looks as if it could be a good buy.
People saying centre backs are "over priced", what exactly do we do then? Clearly the answer has been to refuse to sign anyone or only sign youngsters that never play or bargain bin signings who make zero difference. The result is that we are probably in a worse position at the back now then when we first came up. The market is what it is for everyone not just us and it almost shouldn't be relevant at all to say "centre back are over priced though" - at some point the club is going to have to cough up and improve the defence before we lose out far more financially by being relegated than we would by investing some real money on improving the defence. We have the worst defence in the league, I truly believe that, and it's going to bite us in the arse sooner or later if the recruitment carries on how it has.
Might as well played Mariappa - bad passing, caught out for pace and positioning sense. Even the heading chance Dawson had was rubbish and timid!
I think that Plan A was to try for young, quality centre backs at really big clubs. Clearly we failed in this. Plan B seems to be get some in that have EPL experience. You would hope that behind Plan B there was a gaggle of 19-20 year old up-and-coming lads. Beyond Wilmot, I'm not sure that's the case. Perhaps we'll buy a raft of them from South America over the next couple of weeks and stash them in Europe to mature.
Writing a player off a player after one game is obviously a kneejerk reaction from whoever is saying that. However, I think there is a general disappointment to discover he's not a major upgrade on what we already had. For me, he's a useful addition and is a force from corners or freekicks in the opponents penalty area. We're never a threat at corners as we've got no one who can head the ball. Dawson is good at attacking the ball in the air. But he's no better (or worse) than the central defenders we already have with regards to his defensive ability.
Completely agree. But sadly, given the state of the rest of our defenders, the first thing we should be looking at when recruiting defenders is - how good are they at defending? Dawson is definitely not worse. And has attributes to his game that make him marginally better than what we have - his heading as you’ve mentioned. But there is absolutely nothing in his career to date that shows that he alone was going to be enough to raise the defensive standards at the club. Of course we can’t be guaranteed that the players would sign etc etc - but we missed out on Kabak who is better than what we have. We weren’t sniffing around Webster who is highly regarded. Last year Leicester brought in Benkovic from Dinamo and S*y*nc* from Freiburg for modest fees - both are better than what we have. Whilst I agree the fee’s for CB’s have increased, they haven’t increased beyond out spending power. If there was £14m available for Danny Rose at the last minute, it shows we had funds to spend...
The issue the Pozzo's had it seems is that they put all their eggs in one basket over the loan signing of Todibo.
Yep. The outrage and meltdown on here has been staggering. We beat Everton they'll all be lauding Dawson after he scores the winner. Fickle fickle fickle.
If his performances do not improve after 10 games, I will then say he's not good enough. 2 **** games doesn't make a **** player. Give him a chance.
I think we are playing the long game here, buying players that can do a job whilst the youngsters mature. Ben Wilmot should be first (but first he has to get in the Swansea team) and then we bought about 4 wet behind the ears CB's this summer (and no, I can't remember their names) so they should progress and be challenging for game time in two seasons. In the meantime Dawson and Gracia cannot afford much more poor performances from him or he will have to be dropped. It may take a few games for him to get up to speed but I would have subbed him on Saturday but then again I would have matched up the midfield numbers etc.