2024/25 Michael Keane

bluestevon said:
True enough eggs, but there's something about Keane, when he's in the side, we are way way more prone to us e a defensive collapse and ship 3+, and that predates us having Branthwaite in the side too.

So e players breed confidence, some the reverse. Keanes stats show for whatever reason we are four times more likely to concede 3+ when he plays than we he doesn't play.

O'Brien starts for me over him every time. We can say OB wouldn't have made a difference to the result, but why not.

As for the subs, it's Dyche, he doesn't do subs mate and when he dies they are either too late to make a difference or the wrong ones.

Had OB, Lindstrom, Dixon and Garner sat on the bench watching Coleman, McNeil, Harrison and Tim looking absolutely shattered for the last 30.

Dyche brings on his pet Doucoure for by far and away the player who was making everything tick for us (and rho looked still to have bags of energy left).

But 'premier league' experience to close out the game eh.
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…I actually understood the Doucoure substitution as he does get behind the ball but I thought a straight swap with O’Neil was the way to go, especially as Ndiaye was the ‘out ball’, getting us up the pitch and attracting free kicks.

TimI seems to struggle late in games, Garner was an obvious replacement there but both our full backs were flagging. Dixon should’ve come on with specific instruction to cut out crosses, he’s young and has the acceleration to deal with a simple task.

Saying all that, it’s easy in hindsight to criticise those choices. I thought we’d played very well for 85mins, there was a clamour for Doucoure to be replaced and that happened. Ndiaye was terrific. We were really let down in those defensive wide areas with midfielders swarming the box in numbers getting on the end of easy crosses.
 
The ball watching for the winning goal sums up exactly why he’s so bad. Most people won’t see that as a direct error, and it won’t be recorded on the stats as one, but a proper centre half is scanning the area, seeing the lad ghosting in at the back post and putting himself in a position to clear the cross. He doesn’t have a clue the lad is there, because he hasn’t checked over his shoulder. This is what people are talking about when they say he causes us to leak 3+ goals per game, it’s little things like this rather than outwardly booting it in his own net or playing a striker clean through.

People have been telling me he’s been “fine” because he hasn’t made a direct howler that’s gifted the opposition a goal, but he hasn’t been fine because he’s not been doing basic duties that a centre back should be doing. It’s just about understanding the game really.
 
This was before the spurs game, so can add 2 more games and 7 conceded to these figures now.
 

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MikeH72 said:
The ball watching for the winning goal sums up exactly why he’s so bad. Most people won’t see that as a direct error, and it won’t be recorded on the stats as one, but a proper centre half is scanning the area, seeing the lad ghosting in at the back post and putting himself in a position to clear the cross. He doesn’t have a clue the lad is there, because he hasn’t checked over his shoulder. This is what people are talking about when they say he causes us to leak 3+ goals per game, it’s little things like this rather than outwardly booting it in his own net or playing a striker clean through.

People have been telling me he’s been “fine” because he hasn’t made a direct howler that’s gifted the opposition a goal, but he hasn’t been fine because he’s not been doing basic duties that a centre back should be doing. It’s just about understanding the game really.
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I'll do an analogy, if you work in a company that does projects, and usually the projects are done pretty much on time, but whenever you have a certain lad on your team the project always comes in way behind schedule even though he doesn't appear to be the cause directly.

After a certain number of projects you'll start to figure out the root cause.
 
Eggs said:
….he’s hardly started a game in 12 months, even Godfrey was getting a game ahead of him so I never get the ‘favourite’ arguement.

I’ve been Keane’s biggest critic for a long time, even when he was an England regular and I stand by that view so the arguement here is whether he should be playing ahead of O’Brien. Personally, I’d go with O’Brien but it’s not a selection I’d die in a ditch over because I doubt he’d have made any difference to the result yesterday, I actually thought Tarkowski looked a bit off the pace.

The real problems were elsewhere, mainly involving the substitutions but that group should’ve had enough to see the game home. The major issue here is how much we’re reliant on Branthwaite.
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I disagree Mr Eggs.

It's his lack of fighting spirit, coupled with him being an incredibly poor defender because of his lack of anticipation that makes everybody around him have to work twice as hard.

Godfrey was limited but he would fight to the end and his pace saved us multiple times last season, whereas JB is just brilliant in all aspects and gives everybody around him confidence when he is on the ball.

Keane has none of those attributes.
 
MikeH72 said:
The ball watching for the winning goal sums up exactly why he’s so bad. Most people won’t see that as a direct error, and it won’t be recorded on the stats as one, but a proper centre half is scanning the area, seeing the lad ghosting in at the back post and putting himself in a position to clear the cross. He doesn’t have a clue the lad is there, because he hasn’t checked over his shoulder. This is what people are talking about when they say he causes us to leak 3+ goals per game, it’s little things like this rather than outwardly booting it in his own net or playing a striker clean through.

People have been telling me he’s been “fine” because he hasn’t made a direct howler that’s gifted the opposition a goal, but he hasn’t been fine because he’s not been doing basic duties that a centre back should be doing. It’s just about understanding the game really.
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If you watch when Keane plays, the whole back line drops back a yard or two and play deeper and deeper, because they know he'll get caught out!
 
MikeH72 said:
The ball watching for the winning goal sums up exactly why he’s so bad. Most people won’t see that as a direct error, and it won’t be recorded on the stats as one, but a proper centre half is scanning the area, seeing the lad ghosting in at the back post and putting himself in a position to clear the cross. He doesn’t have a clue the lad is there, because he hasn’t checked over his shoulder. This is what people are talking about when they say he causes us to leak 3+ goals per game, it’s little things like this rather than outwardly booting it in his own net or playing a striker clean through.

People have been telling me he’s been “fine” because he hasn’t made a direct howler that’s gifted the opposition a goal, but he hasn’t been fine because he’s not been doing basic duties that a centre back should be doing. It’s just about understanding the game really.
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Brilliant summary.
 

Eggs said:
….he’s hardly started a game in 12 months, even Godfrey was getting a game ahead of him so I never get the ‘favourite’ arguement.

I’ve been Keane’s biggest critic for a long time, even when he was an England regular and I stand by that view so the arguement here is whether he should be playing ahead of O’Brien. Personally, I’d go with O’Brien but it’s not a selection I’d die in a ditch over because I doubt he’d have made any difference to the result yesterday, I actually thought Tarkowski looked a bit off the pace.

The real problems were elsewhere, mainly involving the substitutions but that group should’ve had enough to see the game home. The major issue here is how much we’re reliant on Branthwaite.
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He was never an England regular :lol:
 
MikeH72 said:
The ball watching for the winning goal sums up exactly why he’s so bad. Most people won’t see that as a direct error, and it won’t be recorded on the stats as one, but a proper centre half is scanning the area, seeing the lad ghosting in at the back post and putting himself in a position to clear the cross. He doesn’t have a clue the lad is there, because he hasn’t checked over his shoulder. This is what people are talking about when they say he causes us to leak 3+ goals per game, it’s little things like this rather than outwardly booting it in his own net or playing a striker clean through.

People have been telling me he’s been “fine” because he hasn’t made a direct howler that’s gifted the opposition a goal, but he hasn’t been fine because he’s not been doing basic duties that a centre back should be doing. It’s just about understanding the game really.
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Played 5 a side loads mate, and one of the lads was a pretty decent player, but whichever side he was on always lost and i mean every single time. Got to the point when the sides were drawn you'd start the game knowing you were gonna lose cos he was in the side. Reckon Keane has that effect on other posters too.

Certain players are just Jonahs and footy players by and large are a superstitious lot as well.
 
bluestevon said:
Played 5 a side loads mate, and one of the lads was a pretty decent player, but whichever side he was on always lost and i mean every single time. Got to the point when the sides were drawn you'd start the game knowing you were gonna lose cos he was in the side. Reckon Keane has that effect on other posters too.

Certain players are just Jonahs and footy players by and large are a superstitious lot as well.
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I also think the opposition see his name on the team sheet and automatically lift their game and prey on him. And when 2-0 down they still don’t believe the game is lost, because there’s always a chance he’ll gift them at least two goals to get back into it. And the fans in the ground are 10x more nervous than they would be if a centre back with a calming presence was mopping things up. It all adds up to us pissing goals in left right and centre basically.
 
Rooney_Tunes said:
I disagree Mr Eggs.

It's his lack of fighting spirit, coupled with him being an incredibly poor defender because of his lack of anticipation that makes everybody around him have to work twice as hard.

Godfrey was limited but he would fight to the end and his pace saved us multiple times last season, whereas JB is just brilliant in all aspects and gives everybody around him confidence when he is on the ball.

Keane has none of those attributes.
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And for me just in a brief watching of him O'Brien looks to be a very confident lad.
 
Two years in a row we've had to go through the manager's bizarre attempt to reintegrate Keane as a starting defender. We've lost all 6 matches in August during that time.

Now I'm not saying these losses are all down to one player because that's certainly not true. But this is just an example of the strange decision making by the manager and his refusal to back new players over players who have been poor for years.

Any manager who repeatedly makes the sane mistakes shouldn't be managing at this level.

And I can't even stress how frustrated I am that we spent our remaining budget on a defender who sits on the bench behind Keane. The lack of strategy is unacceptable at this club.
 

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