Roundup: defensive players

Right. With all the ins and outs completed, where are we and what does it mean?

Goalkeepers – I can’t think of many realistic scenarios where we could improve our goalkeeping corps: we have a quality number 1 (Schwarzer), experience and youth in reserve (Zuberbuhler and Stockdale) and Antti Niemi for general usefulness. What more do you want?

Defenders – well, everyone wanted a centre-back, and it’s true that injuries to Hangeland or Hughes could be troublesome, but this is still the best and most settled pairing we’ve had for a while. Think about it: how many good, regular centre-back partnerships have we seen at the club in recent years? Various combinations of Knight, Goma, Bocanegra, Pearce and Christanval have rotated through the years, but the Hangeland/Hughes partnership is both regular and reasonably reliable. Hughes has his critics, but his quietly effective (how many times have I written that?) style seems to get the job done, by and large. Yes we sometimes concede goals because of something the centre-backs didn’t do, but it often seems that we’re measuring our players against an unreasonably high standard; Ferdinand and Vidic get outjumped sometimes, get beaten to the ball, lose their men. Sometimes people expect too much.

As for the backups, well yes, Baird, Kallio and Leijer are not what the fans had in mind, but over the odd game or two are they going to be any worse than what we’ve been used to seeing at the back over the last few seasons? This isn’t really the point, because we’re supposed to be improving, but these players could all be useful (the much maligned Baird included).

I’m starting to think that full-back is an under-appreciated position. Yes, it’s vital to be strong up the middle, but in English football, with both teams usually in a 4-4-2, full-backs do see a lot of the ball. Why? This is an oversimplification to make a point, of course:

The four full-backs are the players who aren’t naturally covered in a 4-4-2 v 4-4-2 game. In reality, this happens (not exactly of course, it’s another over-simplification):

but the point stands: full-backs see a lot of the ball; wide midfielders (whose job it is to cover them) are often the worst defenders in the team; if your full-backs are good in possession that’s a big plus. Think back to the likes of Rosenior and Queudrue, and how often they ended up being the last ‘out’ ball in failed passing moves, and how often they then failed to make use of possession (not always their fault, as movement was often poor, but still…). I’ve seen statistics this year showing that Gael Clichy of Arsenal has more touches of the ball than anyone else in the league by a country mile, which doesn’t surprise me. And we’ve already seen how much possession John Paintsil gets.

Which is why I think he’s an underrated player. Remember Ian Botham, how things always seemed to happen around him on a cricket pitch? Isn’t John Paintsil sort of the same, only on a less exciting level? He always seems to have the ball, he’s always there to clear up after his colleagues, and he has this valuable ‘presence’ that the team sometimes lacks.

Fredrik Stoor looks like a player to me too, so we’re well off at right back. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Stoor win the starting position over time, perhaps with Paintsil moving into a roving role covering injuries. Either way, as with the goalkeepers, it *appears* that we’re as well off here as we have been since Steve Finnan left.

Which is also the case at left back. Paul Konchesky probably isn’t good enough on the ball to make full use of Roy’s narrow midfield and the channel it opens up, but he’s a fantastic defender. I’d have said “who never lets us down” were it not for the Hull incident, but that was so out of character it sort of proves the point: he really is very reliable. Tony Kallio has looked surprisingly nimble as his backup.

So overall as a unit our defensive five looks pretty good. Yes a new centre-back wouldn’t have done any harm, but we’re reasonably well set as long as there are no long term injuries. Roy has done a fine job of reassembling this most important of units, and also in making them play well together. They are going to be exposed by the midfield at times, but I don’t think we can hope for much more at this stage in the rebuilding process. It’s also worth pointing out that much of defending is coaching, getting players to do the right thing in the right place (remember the stories about Juande Ramos tying his new Spurs players together so that they worked as a unit?), so we should be well set from that perspective. I hate to use the term, but this group is probably good enough for now.

[disclaimer: I usually find something positive to say about everyone...]