Pelle Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 No, he played to the right in a 3 man midfield, which I understand is closer to his preferred position, but was really awfull. But it was his first game, so it's not one to judge him for. Just answering the question above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bannedfromHandV Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 Arsenal interested in Leandro Bacuna as a replacement for Bacary Sagna you say? Obviously bullshit. Now Bacuna has been decent, mostly because he has scored five goals this season already, including a few quality free-kicks. However, as a defender he is awful. He completely lacks defensive nous and positional awareness, which you know, is pretty important. He is never going to be a good defender and surely not one for Arsenal. All his ability is in going forward, and it's not like he is awesome every weekend. An awful defender, so awful that he had Eden Hazard, a player widely expected to win the player of the year award this season, largely in his back pocket for the majority of the match - I think Hazard beat him once on the byline in the second half. I think most full backs suffer from being caught out of position on occasion as they either go chasing the ball upfield or get dragged inside by the movement of attackers but Leo has the pace and desire to get back at them quickly. He's also quite composed which is refreshing. In short, I couldn't disagree with you too much more really and I cannot believe that you've actually seen him play to even make such a statement. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NIVillan Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 Due to my advanced age I fell asleep before Villa appeared on Match of the Day on Sat (Yes I know it was the second game). Anyway I watch it again on iPlayer last night and the thing that struck me was that Bacuna looked a big strong unit and was prepared to use his body to help him defend. He stepped in front of Hazard at one point to protect the ball and he cant be blamed for being skinned on the goal line as sometime you just have to applaud the opposition's sublime pieces of skill. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VillaChris Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 If you think about it there are very few RBs around who are actually that sound defensively.....as we seen in the big games time and again (Liverpool) Rafael is a liability defensively, Kyle Walker has gone backwards this season for Spurs after looking decent and Glen Johnson's never really mastered the art has he? Probably the two best defenders are Sagna (who'll be leaving Arsenal shortly) and Ivanovic (who's a underrated player but a converted CB). So I wouldn't say it's a massive thing Bacuna has to work on as most RBs these days are much better going forward. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted March 21, 2014 VT Supporter Share Posted March 21, 2014 Yeah I was hard on him early days too. Although I do think his debut against Liverpool is one of the worst displays I've ever seen. He was dreadful. BUT recently he's been very good. Said it in the match thread, but he'd have been my MOTM on Saturday ahead of Delph. He was superb Funny you should mention that because he actually got he sponsors man of the match for that game, which was greeted by the biggest gasp of 'WTF' ever. Yep, I was at Villa Park for that. I've never heard the Holte "lol" in unison before. The Sponsors must have been pissed up. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted March 21, 2014 VT Supporter Share Posted March 21, 2014 If we're seriously being offered 8 million for Leandro I'd be inclined to take it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArteSuave Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 (edited) There was a man within earshot of me at that game shouting about him being a waste of money and selling him back "to Holland". He was not a clever man. I don't like selling first team players for anything but a sum massively over their value. Obviously Lambert found one player of that quality for £1m but I assume the scouts had to watch a lot of games to find him and there must be quite a low number of unheralded players of that quality. We also got £20m for Downing. Edited March 21, 2014 by ArteSuave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AntrimBlack Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 If we're seriously being offered 8 million for Leandro I'd be inclined to take it. It is a healthy profit on him, yes, but if we are trying to build a team to be competitive around that 6th position in the table, then he is the sort of player we need to keep. And we cannot rely on Lambert picking up gems like him all the time, so we either need to spend a similar amount on his replacement or we regress. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Papillon Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 (edited) Arsenal interested in Leandro Bacuna as a replacement for Bacary Sagna you say? Obviously bullshit. Now Bacuna has been decent, mostly because he has scored five goals this season already, including a few quality free-kicks. However, as a defender he is awful. He completely lacks defensive nous and positional awareness, which you know, is pretty important. He is never going to be a good defender and surely not one for Arsenal. All his ability is in going forward, and it's not like he is awesome every weekend. An awful defender, so awful that he had Eden Hazard, a player widely expected to win the player of the year award this season, largely in his back pocket for the majority of the match - I think Hazard beat him once on the byline in the second half. I think most full backs suffer from being caught out of position on occasion as they either go chasing the ball upfield or get dragged inside by the movement of attackers but Leo has the pace and desire to get back at them quickly. He's also quite composed which is refreshing. In short, I couldn't disagree with you too much more really and I cannot believe that you've actually seen him play to even make such a statement. Ah, the classical "he marked out one player in one game"-argument. That always sticks right? A bit like discussing importing players from the Championship and then someone comes along and mentions one player that didn't make it. In football you have a lot of variables, in short, on that particular day it might not be down to Bacuna for making sure Hazard played badly. Top players, like everyone else, have bad days against even poor teams like Villa. Leandro Bacuna has been guilty of woeful positioning when playing at the back, leaving gaping holes for the other team to exploit - and they do. Also prone to dribbling and making poor assessments when he is really playing like a midfielder taking too much risk. The initial article mentioned Arsenal's interest in him as a replacement for Sagna. It's ridiculous, Arsene Wenger will take one look at a video and see he is as bad at defending as Titus Bramble and Zat Knight. Why? Because he is a midfielder, a pretty decent one, and not a defender. Wenger certainly don't need midfielders, so the article is obviously bullshit and made-up. Edited March 21, 2014 by Papillon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Papillon Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 If you think about it there are very few RBs around who are actually that sound defensively.....as we seen in the big games time and again (Liverpool) Rafael is a liability defensively, Kyle Walker has gone backwards this season for Spurs after looking decent and Glen Johnson's never really mastered the art has he? Probably the two best defenders are Sagna (who'll be leaving Arsenal shortly) and Ivanovic (who's a underrated player but a converted CB). So I wouldn't say it's a massive thing Bacuna has to work on as most RBs these days are much better going forward. Yeah you are right, and around Europe the emphasis is clearly on attacking full-backs on the right side. Probably on the left as well, but the market is much smaller for left-footed players being able to swing in crosses or deliver good passes. I would say the only world-class right-back in the Premier League is Branislav Ivanovic. Extremely good at the back, fast, has some goal-threat to him and he is 100% consistent, unlike players like Rafael, Sagna, Walker and Johnson. Of course we have to mention Zabaleta too, he is also world-class (well, certainly amongst the top right-backs in the world as there aren't that many good ones to mention) but Zaba also gives his best attacking the bylines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArteSuave Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 Who has got the better of him when he's been at RB? I think Hazard was the first person to dribble past him all season. One on one he's a fantastic defender. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zhan_Zhuang Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 If we're seriously being offered 8 million for Leandro I'd be inclined to take it. I wouldn't and I don't think we would to be honest either. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MessiWillSignForVilla Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 I think a fair deal for Bacuna would be roughly £7m due to his versatility and the fact he's been really flourishing as a RB. Having said that, I wouldn't want us to take anything less than £10m for him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samjp26 Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 I think a fair deal for Bacuna would be roughly £7m due to his versatility and the fact he's been really flourishing as a RB. Having said that, I wouldn't want us to take anything less than £10m for him. £7,000,000 would leave us with around £5,600,000. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zhan_Zhuang Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 Signing a quality RB for £5.6million when other teams know you have some extra cash could be a problem. However, signing a young, hungry player with potential seems unlikely too although we could revert to Lowton?! Guess work really... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samjp26 Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 I can't see how £5.6m will really benefit us to be honest, plus it isn't like Bacuna will be on a huge salary so we wouldn't be saving anything that way either. Hold out for potentially an even bigger resale value next season. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daggy_333 Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 Simply refuse bids under £10 million. He's worth whatever we value him at. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bannedfromHandV Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 Arsenal interested in Leandro Bacuna as a replacement for Bacary Sagna you say? Obviously bullshit. Now Bacuna has been decent, mostly because he has scored five goals this season already, including a few quality free-kicks. However, as a defender he is awful. He completely lacks defensive nous and positional awareness, which you know, is pretty important. He is never going to be a good defender and surely not one for Arsenal. All his ability is in going forward, and it's not like he is awesome every weekend. An awful defender, so awful that he had Eden Hazard, a player widely expected to win the player of the year award this season, largely in his back pocket for the majority of the match - I think Hazard beat him once on the byline in the second half. I think most full backs suffer from being caught out of position on occasion as they either go chasing the ball upfield or get dragged inside by the movement of attackers but Leo has the pace and desire to get back at them quickly. He's also quite composed which is refreshing. In short, I couldn't disagree with you too much more really and I cannot believe that you've actually seen him play to even make such a statement. Ah, the classical "he marked out one player in one game"-argument. That always sticks right? A bit like discussing importing players from the Championship and then someone comes along and mentions one player that didn't make it. In football you have a lot of variables, in short, on that particular day it might not be down to Bacuna for making sure Hazard played badly. Top players, like everyone else, have bad days against even poor teams like Villa. Leandro Bacuna has been guilty of woeful positioning when playing at the back, leaving gaping holes for the other team to exploit - and they do. Also prone to dribbling and making poor assessments when he is really playing like a midfielder taking too much risk. The initial article mentioned Arsenal's interest in him as a replacement for Sagna. It's ridiculous, Arsene Wenger will take one look at a video and see he is as bad at defending as Titus Bramble and Zat Knight. Why? Because he is a midfielder, a pretty decent one, and not a defender. Wenger certainly don't need midfielders, so the article is obviously bullshit and made-up. Well yeah that and the fact that he's preformed really quite well there now for a good few months but if it helps you to feel better about yourself then yes, we're basing our opinions purely on a single performance, against a world class attacker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villan_007 Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 Arsenal interested in Leandro Bacuna as a replacement for Bacary Sagna you say? Obviously bullshit. Now Bacuna has been decent, mostly because he has scored five goals this season already, including a few quality free-kicks. However, as a defender he is awful. He completely lacks defensive nous and positional awareness, which you know, is pretty important. He is never going to be a good defender and surely not one for Arsenal. All his ability is in going forward, and it's not like he is awesome every weekend. An awful defender, so awful that he had Eden Hazard, a player widely expected to win the player of the year award this season, largely in his back pocket for the majority of the match - I think Hazard beat him once on the byline in the second half. I think most full backs suffer from being caught out of position on occasion as they either go chasing the ball upfield or get dragged inside by the movement of attackers but Leo has the pace and desire to get back at them quickly. He's also quite composed which is refreshing. In short, I couldn't disagree with you too much more really and I cannot believe that you've actually seen him play to even make such a statement. Ah, the classical "he marked out one player in one game"-argument. That always sticks right? A bit like discussing importing players from the Championship and then someone comes along and mentions one player that didn't make it. In football you have a lot of variables, in short, on that particular day it might not be down to Bacuna for making sure Hazard played badly. Top players, like everyone else, have bad days against even poor teams like Villa. Leandro Bacuna has been guilty of woeful positioning when playing at the back, leaving gaping holes for the other team to exploit - and they do. Also prone to dribbling and making poor assessments when he is really playing like a midfielder taking too much risk. The initial article mentioned Arsenal's interest in him as a replacement for Sagna. It's ridiculous, Arsene Wenger will take one look at a video and see he is as bad at defending as Titus Bramble and Zat Knight. Why? Because he is a midfielder, a pretty decent one, and not a defender. Wenger certainly don't need midfielders, so the article is obviously bullshit and made-up. Sometimes mate you just have to acknowledge the fact you're talking absolute bollocks. The bit in bold indicates you haven't bothered watching us for a number of games where he has played consistently well. Try it, you just might like it. Looking forward to the....I've been a season ticket holder for 100 yrs......guff...gash...boom. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isa Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 As mentioned above, liverpool at home. His debut. He was awfull in that game. And got motm. True. I kind of meant just when he played at right-back but yes, his debut was poor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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