Pau Torres

[Delphinho123]

2 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

He is though. I can’t believe anyone could have watched Villa this season and not realised how key he is to the way we play. 

Everything starts with him, he allows us to play further up the pitch, he progresses the ball to our creative players more than anyone, he lets the midfield play further up the pitch to get into attacking areas. 
 

It speaks volumes that you just point to goals conceded as the be all and end all. It’s 2024, defenders do more than just defending. We conceded more this season, we’ve also scored a record amount of goals. And Pau Torres is a massive reason for that. 
 

One of the cruel truths of this season is Mings’ injury meant we integrated Torres sooner and got the benefit. Mings can’t do what he does 

Agreed.

But Torres can’t do what Mings does. Defend. 

He’s slow, weak and poor in the air. No amount of fancy passing is going to mask that. 

Nobody wants to hear it, I get it. 

[Stevo985]

Just now, Delphinho123 said:

Agreed.

But Torres can’t do what Mings does. Defend. 

He’s slow, weak and poor in the air. No amount of fancy passing is going to mask that. 

Nobody wants to hear it, I get it. 

I want to hear it. It’s just not true. 
 

Yes Mings is better at defending. It’s 2024. You can’t just play defenders to defend. That’s not how it works. 
 

If it was 1998 then Mings would be a far better option. 
 

If we want to continue playing like a champions league team then Torres is the way forward

 

Luckily we have a manager who understands that

[CVByrne]

7 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

Agreed.

But Torres can’t do what Mings does. Defend. 

He’s slow, weak and poor in the air. No amount of fancy passing is going to mask that. 

Nobody wants to hear it, I get it. 

Torres is a good defender but his primary skill is in build up and progressive passing. Build up is absolutely key to us and with Pau we can break and counter though the high press so well. I think he is best suited to LCB of the back 3 in possession and would be perfect with Mings and Konsa in the back 3. That would be the right balance

[cb_82]

1 minute ago, CVByrne said:

Torres is a good defender but his primary skill is in build up and progressive passing. Build up is absolutely key to us and with Pau we can break and counter though the high press so well. I think he is best suited to LCB of the back 3 in possession and would be perfect with Mings and Konsa in the back 3. That would be the right balance

And i think if you look at how we started in pre season that was going to be the plan in my opinion pre the injury to Mings

[ThunderPower_14]

I think we miss Mings for crosses and set pieces too much for him not to come back in. I'd even switch to a 3 at the back to accomodate all 3 of him, Konsa and Torres.

Mings can absolutely also carry the ball. We finished last year with an absolutely phenomenal CB pairing of Konsa and Mings, and I fully believe that if Mings were fit he'd have kept his place and started all year, perhaps even alongside Torres.

[CVByrne]

1 minute ago, cb_82 said:

And i think if you look at how we started in pre season that was going to be the plan in my opinion pre the injury to Mings

Yes, we'd go with 2 FBs or Pau Mings Konsa and a FB. Flexible with which side. We'll see that next season. 

[AVTuco]

Next year, with Mings and Pau our CBs, our defense should be much better organized and our woeful set piece defending improved. 

[LondonLax]

We definitely lose something defensively with him in the side. We also gain an extra ball player to start attacks.

If he was a dominant defender we would not have been able to afford him, he’d be playing at Real Madrid  

It’s up to the manager to find a way to play to his strengths while minimising his weaknesses. 

[CVByrne]

I think if we had Pau with Mings beside him it would be the right balance. Mings is 70%+ aerial duels won and is very fast and is a very good defender. We were worried by lack of that dominant big CB when Mings did his ACL. Carlos hasn't been good enough from set pieces in winning first contacts. 

IF we are to sell Carlos we need a CB who is right footed and has the attributes we need akin to Mings. Defence lacks balance but should be fixed this summer

[Tom13]

1 hour ago, Delphinho123 said:

Agreed.

But Torres can’t do what Mings does. Defend. 

He’s slow, weak and poor in the air. No amount of fancy passing is going to mask that. 

Nobody wants to hear it, I get it. 

It's not about masking it, it's about the positives outweighing the negatives. And your last sentence is like a finishing line in a Primary School argument.

[MrBlack]

The disappointing thing about their goal was it didn't require any if the things that Pau is supposedly weaker at anyway. All he had to do was not run towards the goal.  I'm sure he's feeling as frustrated about the outcome as anyone, and hopefully he learns from that to do less ball watching.

What he brings to us going forwards when we're on form though is irreplaceable.

Need to find a way to get him and Mings on the same team.

[avfc1982am]

9 minutes ago, MrBlack said:

Need to find a way to get him and Mings on the same team.

If Mings comes back the same player, which is a very big if imo.  He's getting older, it's his second ACL injury and there is no guarantee he comes back the same player as the one the back end of last season. Taking a year out is going to be a massive obstacle for him to overcome, yes he'll be over the injury physically, but psychologically he may take much longer to trust his body to deal with future impacts. I'll be very shocked if he's even ready to start a game preseason tbh, especially as the season is nearly over and he's nowhere near the squad in training. 

 

[allani]

17 minutes ago, MrBlack said:

The disappointing thing about their goal was it didn't require any if the things that Pau is supposedly weaker at anyway. All he had to do was not run towards the goal.  I'm sure he's feeling as frustrated about the outcome as anyone, and hopefully he learns from that to do less ball watching.

What he brings to us going forwards when we're on form though is irreplaceable.

Need to find a way to get him and Mings on the same team.

To be fair he's gone where you would expect the ball to go - given that the attacker had two defenders trying to close down the cross, the only place he should have been able to get the ball was between the keeper and the defenders.  This was the gap that Pau closed.  The fact is that Konsa and Carlos both failed to prevent the attacker from not just being able to get the cross in but also to cut it back.  At that point it caught Pau out - but the main fault was the goal lies in failing to stop the ball coming across to start with.  

[david-avfc]

59 minutes ago, allani said:

To be fair he's gone where you would expect the ball to go - given that the attacker had two defenders trying to close down the cross, the only place he should have been able to get the ball was between the keeper and the defenders.  This was the gap that Pau closed.  The fact is that Konsa and Carlos both failed to prevent the attacker from not just being able to get the cross in but also to cut it back.  At that point it caught Pau out - but the main fault was the goal lies in failing to stop the ball coming across to start with.  

Surely the defender should anticipate the ball going to the attacker rather than empty space? Torres was actually marking the man and then left him to defend empty space.
 

With Torres you have to accept that it’s a case of netting off the pros and cons and hoping it comes out as a net positive, which I think it does, but there’s no point trying to defend his defensive ability because it’s obviously a big weaknesses 

[allani]

3 hours ago, david-avfc said:

Surely the defender should anticipate the ball going to the attacker rather than empty space? Torres was actually marking the man and then left him to defend empty space.
 

With Torres you have to accept that it’s a case of netting off the pros and cons and hoping it comes out as a net positive, which I think it does, but there’s no point trying to defend his defensive ability because it’s obviously a big weaknesses 

I get what you are saying.  But the best defender I have ever seen (certainly for Villa) is Paul McGrath and he was great because he always predicted where the ball was likely to go (and was invariably right).  This meant that he made defending look easy because 99% of the time he was in the right place at the right time rather than having to react and recover.  If you wait and react to where the attacker is going you're always likely to be half a step behind them.  McGrath was almost always half a step in front of them - which is why he was so effective against players that on paper were fitter and faster than him.

In hindsight Pau has made a mistake for sure.  But in this instance I still think the danger should have been the ball played between him and Emi that the attacker then slides in and puts away.  I have less issue with him gambling (wrongly as it turns out) on this than I do with both Konsa and Carlos failing to prevent the ball from coming into the box to start with.  If they do their job then either the cross is blocked and we clear it, it is blocked for a corner or the ball comes into the box into the area that Pau has gone into and he makes a comfortable clearance.

I do however, agree fully with the second part of your post and previous responses on here that Pau's defensive weakness would be less of an issue if he were playing alongside someone like Mings.

Either way I think Pau is integral to our success in the next few seasons and whilst we can hopefully improve some of his defensive issues we also need to recognise that under Emery we're more likely to win games 3-1 than 1-0 and Pau definitely helps us do the former.  So like you say it's a net positive for me. 

[ROTTERDAM1982]

On numerous occasions last night, Pau and Carlos played very good passes to our attackers/midfielders on the edge of the opposition penalty area. The fact that they were not turned into better opportunities was not their fault.

Torres and Carlos completely dictated the pace of the game last night. Too many average performances in front of them. Cash was probably our most dangerous player, says it all.

I really hope we get into the top 4, because I will be intrigued what Emery does. To be fair, our technically better players are not playing atm, and Bailey doesnt look fit, but too often the midfield and the forwards wanted too long on the ball last night.

[Made In Aston]

8 hours ago, Delphinho123 said:

Agreed.

But Torres can’t do what Mings does. Defend. 

He’s slow, weak and poor in the air. No amount of fancy passing is going to mask that. 

Nobody wants to hear it, I get it. 

In preseason Pau played as LB, with mings and Konsa in the middle. I think he will try that again and will give us the best of both worlds.

[villaglint]

14 minutes ago, Made In Aston said:

In preseason Pau played as LB, with mings and Konsa in the middle. I think he will try that again and will give us the best of both worlds.

He played one half there as far as I remember against Valencia and was pretty poor. Not to judge him on 45mins of footbally but I'd be surprised if we do that. It works to an extent with Konsa because he is semi quick, can you imagine Torres playing against Salah or Doku? He'd get eaten alive. Maybe mings could do it, not sure. 

[Czarnikjak]

41 minutes ago, Made In Aston said:

In preseason Pau played as LB, with mings and Konsa in the middle. I think he will try that again and will give us the best of both worlds.

His lack of pace and agility would be absolutely exposed if he played out and out LB! no thanks

[TomC]

On 09/05/2024 at 16:51, Delphinho123 said:

Good footballer, rubbish defender. 

Rubbish is an overstatement. Clearly Mings and Konsa are better defenders, however.