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Ashley Williams

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I'm more than happy to hold my hands up and say he was brilliant last night, along with Jagielka.

Although you can't deny how dour United's attack was played a huge part in that. The amount of aimless crosses into the box wouldn't have been out of place in a Moyes team.
 
davek said:
He certainly hasn't been a success. And I say that knowing that I pushed hard for us to sign him. On the evidence so far we could have done a hell of a lot better.
Click to expand...

Well we're a better defence having him in it than we were before.

He's done fine. Made mistakes - but at the end of the day so does everybody.

People seemed to expect him to rock up and turn us into the best defence in the league.
 
Raino85 said:
How many goals have we conceded from set plays this season compared to the last 2?
How many clean sheets have we kept this season?
Williams has played more times than any of our other defenders or goalkeepers this season and that cannot be a coincidence.
Our concentration is so much better this season to last season or the year before.
Williams is not perfect by all means but he has by far been our best defender this season.

I feel there is a lot of knee jerking from Saturday about. The defense were not great by all means on Saturday, but also they were not protected at all by the midfield and had to deal with a very shaky Pennington.

100% a new centre half needs to come in to take us up a level. But the defense by large, apart from a few blips have been good this season
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Posted these stats two weeks back...

https://www.grandoldteam.com/forum/...elgium-head-coach.90386/page-145#post-5328623
 

davek said:
Lukaku is in attack. My point is that he's not shown leadership qualities or any form himself in defence.

And his attack on Lukaku was embarrassing from a man who's own team ethos was questioned in that Wales/Ireland international.

He's cracking on in terms of age and not the answer for us. I'd sell him on quickly and cut our losses. Plenty of better players out there.
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I understand that but the more embarrassing person in this whole drama in Lukaku. Williams is the senior player and he's aware that without the front men playing their part the ball will keep being fired at our goal.

He's no saint by any stretch of the imagination and the Coleman incident for a lot of people's backs up BUT he's not a doctor and didn't know his leg was broken, he probably thought he had a knock and was down.

His first reaction was as the leader of the Wales team and to stop his player getting sent off. Unluckily for him and Coleman it was much much more serious and he's been hung out to dry for it.

Is he the best defender we have ? Yes
Is he a defender that can take us to the next level in terms of top four? Probably not in the starting 11 but certainly on the bench.
Is he good enough to be in the team right now? Yes
Is he good enough for right this minute? Yes

He was brought in to shore up a disgustingly terrible Martinez defence and we've done that, we've improved on last year and now we go again. To answer you point on cutting our losses and selling him on, I'd argue that if we are to make signings his summer he would be a very good Dustin type player to have on the bench. Jags is off at the end of the season so we will still need that experience around the place. The amount we would get for him wouldn't be worth him leaving. In my opinion we had him for a good price in the first place, everything is massively inflated these days.

A top top CB is needed to partner him or Mori as well as the much needed play maker for up top. That's without potentially replacing Barkley and Lukaku, which, in honesty wouldn't be that hard with the money they'd likely command.
 
Raino85 said:
How many goals have we conceded from set plays this season compared to the last 2?
How many clean sheets have we kept this season?
Williams has played more times than any of our other defenders or goalkeepers this season and that cannot be a coincidence.
Our concentration is so much better this season to last season or the year before.
Williams is not perfect by all means but he has by far been our best defender this season.

I feel there is a lot of knee jerking from Saturday about. The defense were not great by all means on Saturday, but also they were not protected at all by the midfield and had to deal with a very shaky Pennington.

100% a new centre half needs to come in to take us up a level. But the defense by large, apart from a few blips have been good this season
Click to expand...

Pretty much exactly what I think.
 
cardno4 said:
Is he the best defender we have ? Yes
Is he a defender that can take us to the next level in terms of top four? Probably not in the starting 11 but certainly on the bench.
Is he good enough to be in the team right now? Yes
Is he good enough for right this minute? Yes

He was brought in to shore up a disgustingly terrible Martinez defence and we've done that, we've improved on last year and now we go again. To answer you point on cutting our losses and selling him on, I'd argue that if we are to make signings his summer he would be a very good Dustin type player to have on the bench. Jags is off at the end of the season so we will still need that experience around the place. The amount we would get for him wouldn't be worth him leaving. In my opinion we had him for a good price in the first place, everything is massively inflated these days.

A top top CB is needed to partner him or Mori as well as the much needed play maker for up top. That's without potentially replacing Barkley and Lukaku, which, in honesty wouldn't be that hard with the money they'd likely command.
Click to expand...
That wouldn't be too difficult in this defence. I think it's a poor defence all told. They are protected very well by the likes of Gueye and Schneiderlin in front of them and we get everyone back behind the ball to never see their lack of pace exposed.

If we are to progress we'll have to start defending a lot further up the pitch - because all we do now in games like last night's is to play two banks of defence and then have to go from very deep to get a counter attack going...itself almost impossible when Koeman wont commit bodies to that counter attacking.

Williams is part of that problem. A big part of it.
 

davek said:
He certainly hasn't been a success. And I say that knowing that I pushed hard for us to sign him. On the evidence so far we could have done a hell of a lot better.
Click to expand...
Well he has been a hell of a lot better than ANY centre half we had playing in the previous 2 seasons under El Fraudo so that is a good start.
 
davek said:
That wouldn't be too difficult in this defence. I think it's a poor defence all told. They are protected very well by the likes of Gueye and Schneiderlin in front of them and we get everyone back behind the ball to never see their lack of pace exposed.

If we are to progress we'll have to start defending a lot further up the pitch - because all we do now in games like last night's is to play two banks of defence and then have to go from very deep to get a counter attack going...itself almost impossible when Koeman wont commit bodies to that counter attacking.

Williams is part of that problem. A big part of it.
Click to expand...

I do agree with this part of what Davek is trying to say. Our midfield has significantly improved this season and are very well protected.
I think what he is trying to say is to move forward and especially against the bigger sides, we need our defense to be able to defend well with less numbers which gives us better options going forward
 
flibbyflob said:
Well he has been a hell of a lot better than ANY centre half we had playing in the previous 2 seasons under El Fraudo so that is a good start.
Click to expand...

El Fraudo? Until this Dutch lad gets anywhere remotely near what Martinez did in a season I think I know where my use of the word is going.

By the way, Williams was signed by Martinez for Swansea, and he attempted to bring him here.

Another inconvenient truth that will no doubt now be ignored.
 
davek said:
El Fraudo? Until this Dutch lad gets anywhere remotely near what Martinez did in a season I think I know where my use of the word is going.

By the way, Williams was signed by Martinez for Swansea, and he attempted to bring him here.

Another inconvenient truth that will no doubt now be ignored.
Click to expand...

De Fraaudo?
 

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