TomC

Never though of him as a defensive midfielder. When we signed him, he was hyped as a playmaker. The question was for the Premier League era. He played one season in the PL era and made all of 11 appearances. One of the 5 best players in the history of the club, but not our best DCM of the PL era. I may not have fully appreciated DCMs back then, so take it with a grain of salt, but how about Kevin Richardson? He was the #6 in the 1992-93 runner up team and the 1994 League Cup winning team.

I can see why we'd want to keep him...he can play lots of positions in a pinch, and Gerrard has called him a model professional, which means he's a good influence on the younger players, plus he could grow into a coaching role. The question is, will he want to stay if he doesn't get much playing time.

Give him a few months to settle! Remember what many people around here were saying about Buendia 3 months ago?

To be fair, it could be that he's supposed to let them go. Our defence is zonal (95%+ are these days), and none of us are privy to the details of our tactics, so we can't always say for sure where the zones are and when someone is supposed to leave a man for the next zone. Certainly, if someone gets caught ball watching and loses their man near the goal in a dangerous situation, it's an obvious mistake. If your teammate in the adjacent zone is still recovering from an attack and isn't in his zone yet and you pass off your mark to an empty zone, it's an obvious mistake. But sometimes, letting the man go is what he's supposed to do.

Doesn't matter, we're not selling him!

Agreed, one or the other may be more appropriate against any given opponent. I'd want to start Watkins against a team like Liverpool or City that presses high...hitting an early ball to him and letting him hold it up would help us break the press and give us time to bring players forward.

I would have agreed before yesterday. However, I finally got a chance to watch the whole match tonight, and I thought Watkins looked more comfortable playing wide on Saturday than he has all season. He was a little less selfish with the passes. Maybe he's starting to grow into it. That said, I don't see keeping him out there once Coutinho is up to full fitness. Midfield will be some combo of McGinn/Dougie/JJ/Sanson/Naka (when fit)/new DM. Forward line will be Coutinho - one striker - Buendia. Which striker? Tough decision because they bring different things to the table, but like I said in the Ings thread...I think that I would take last year's Watkins over Ings, but I will take Ings over this year's Watkins. The good thing is, if one is out of sorts, we have the other. As for Ings...I think people have been harsh on him. He was in dangerous positions many times on Saturday. A couple crosses went over his head a little too high, one cross got cut out because it was too low, once a defender got his foot there just in time. A little better luck, a little better service, and he could have been on the scoresheet once or twice. It's not like he's been missing sitters. Don't look at his touches (or lack thereof), look at his movement off the ball. He's still got his striker's instincts. Watkins has been much more involved in the buildup, probably because he has been asked to be. He holds the ball up so well with his back to goal. My problem with him this year has been that he often has (1) failed to pass when he should and (2) hesitated when he shoots instead of trusting his instincts. But, admittedly, those are problems that could be caused by being in unfamiliar positions.

Cash and McGinn could still make it too...

The last ball hasn't always been there, but he's good at bringing the ball forward. I think he's good enough, at least for right now.

I would take last year's Watkins over Ings, but I will take Ings over this year's Watkins, at least for a run of 5-6 matches to see how it goes. Watkins is great at holding up the ball and pressing, but his passing isn't there right now. Ings reads Buendia much better and will probably read Coutinho better.

Sorry to go off topic for a moment, but I'm not surprised to see El Ghazi at the bottom of the list...

LOL 25 years without hardware has made a few pessimists around here! Obviously too late to win anything this year, but with the way NSWE are spending, I'm daring to be optimistic about the next couple.

Food for thought before we talk about selling Konsa or Mings... Last year, through 20 PL matches, we had given up 24 goals. This year, through 20, it's 30. That's 20% worse. (If we had given up 6 fewer goals this year, we'd be challenging for Europe.) Did our CBs play above their level last year, or are they playing below their level this year?

It's looking like Digne is on his way, and with all the ex-Big Club players at the club, I can't help make the comparison... Aston Villa circa 1992-1994: Paul McGrath (Man U reject), Dean Saunders (Liverpool reject), Steve Staunton (Liverpool reject), Mark Bosnich (Man U reject), Kevin Richardson (Arsenal reject), Ray Houghton (Liverpool reject). Results: 1992-93 league runners-up, 1994 League Cup. (Most of them were gone for the 1996 League Cup.) Aston Villa circa 2022: Coutinho (Barcelona reject), Digne (Barcelona reject), Douglas Luiz (Man City reject), Danny Ings (Liverpool reject), Bertrand Traoré (Chelsea reject), Ashley Young (Man U/Inter Milan reject). Result: ???

No, we need a true DM so Dougie can play further forward where he belongs.

The question is not just what should Mings and Konsa have done, but also what instructions Gerrard had given them and whether they followed that. Your argument that Mings should have left his mark is interesting and not entirely implausible, but I'm sure they've worked out their marking schemes in advance, and they should know what each other are going to do. I don't thing Mings would have stuck with his mark if he hadn't been told to do so in that situation. Konsa clearly passed off Cavani to Cash. He was then free and didn't pick anyone up. That looks more like a mistake on his part. Of course, none of us know for sure, because Gerrard hasn't revealed the fine points of his tactics to us.

100% agree. He had just passed off his previous mark to Cash. He wasn't marking anybody at that point and totally failed to react to McTominay's run.

OK, moving beyond the VAR controversy...who do you think was at fault for their goal? I think it was Konsa's fault, or perhaps midfield's collectively. A few seconds before the goal, Konsa and Mings both had someone marked. Konsa passed off his mark to Cash. When McTominay made his run from deep, the midfielders let him through thinking that someone in back would pick him up. Konsa had nobody to mark at that point and should have picked him up. A rare mental error from Konsa, who doesn't quite have Mings' presence and skills, but makes fewer mental mistakes. That must have been a deliberate tactic. Both forwards drifted back to pull the centre backs forward when McTominay began his run.

I missed that clause, but unfortunately, I think it supports the offside decision. I have to say that it draws a very strange distinction between impeding and impacting,.

OK, he answered my question...the arm was up for indirect free kick...so offside is the question...

Double post

Ex-ref's analysis... The law of obstruction has changed a bit over the years. Obstruction (technically called "impeding an opponent") used to be an indirect free kick foul. Now, it is a direct free kick foul if done with contact, and indirect if it is done without contact. Ramsey clearly made contact with Cavani, so if the referee's decision was obstruction, it would have been a direct free kick. Offside is an indirect free kick. We should be able to tell which was the referee's decision by whether he had his arm in the air for an indirect free kick or not. I have not seen what the ref did, one way or the other, in any replay. "Impeding" isn't defined, but to me, but the word implies a deliberate act, and as I always understood it, you have to be doing something deliberate to impede the opponent. It isn't at all clear from the overhead angle that I saw that Ramsey did something intentional to impede Cavani, certainly not clear enough to overturn the original decision. If the decision was offside on Ramsey, that's a closer call. Ramsey was in an offside position. But with the current wording, I'm still not sure it's a good argument. Law 11.2 reads: A player in an offside position at the moment the ball is played or touched* by a team-mate is only penalised on becoming involved in active play by: interfering with play by playing or touching a ball passed or touched by a team-mate or [obviously not] interfering with an opponent by: preventing an opponent from playing or being able to play the ball by clearly obstructing the opponent’s line of vision or [obviously not] challenging an opponent for the ball or [obviously not] clearly attempting to play a ball which is close when this action impacts on an opponent or [obviously not] making an obvious action which clearly impacts on the ability of an opponent to play the ball [this is the question] or gaining an advantage by playing the ball or interfering with an opponent when it has: rebounded or been deflected off the goalpost, crossbar, match official or an opponent [obviously not] been deliberately saved by any opponent [obviously not] I think you can make a pretty good argument that Ramsey impacted Cavani's ability to play the ball...to me, the word "impacting" does not carry the deliberate sense that "impeding" does. But "obvious action" adds another couple layers on top of it. Ramsey had to act, not just stand there. He did take a half step backwards right before Cavani ran into him, so I guess that's an act. Whether that's an "obvious" action, well, you can debate that. I don't like it, but I'm biased.

It's certainly possible that he'll be with the first team. We know that, if Cash gets hurt/suspended, Konsa can play right back, but that would mean putting Hause in the middle, and we know that's not ideal. So having Kesler as cover makes sense so we could stay with our usual centre back pairing. However, it's also possible that Gerrard thought that he needs to play at higher level and they recalled him hoping to lend him out either to a Championship club or abroad.

FFP is a set of rules meant to be broken. How else do you explain Man City? Man City fans used to be insecure. Now look at them. Everyone promise me that, when we start winning things again, we're not going to turn into a bunch of conceited @&*(&@ Yes, I reckon that he will cut in from the left and Buendia will do the same from the right. Did Grealish contribute much defensively? No. This actually may help solve our LB problem for the short term. Grealish drew defenders away from Targett going forward, giving him more space and time to cross, and forced the opponent's right (our left) to stay deeper, meaning Targett had more time to get back when they went on the attack, hiding his lack of pace. Maybe Targett will start playing like he did last year.

I can't say that another attacking midfielder was on my priority list, but I like this for two reasons... --The idea of Coutinho, Buendia, and Dougie playing slick passes through midfield and feeding Watkins or Ings sounds very good indeed. --World class players attract world class players. Sometimes you have to overpay for the first one, but once you demonstrate that you're serious, others will be willing to come. We lost one top-100-in-the-world player in Grealish, but now Emi M. has moved into that top 100 list, and if we sign Coutinho, although he wasn't in this year's list, he's been there in the past and people know him. Having two makes it easier to attract the third, which makes it easier to attract the fourth...