Ex Player #36 Jay Matete

billyturleyscurlywurly said:
I think the swap of Stevens/Leigh to Long/Bennett under Des is a major issue going forward as well as the roles of McGuane/Rodrigues.
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Manning basically never played Murphy, and didn't have Dale - Most of the time, he preferred his wingers to play narrower, forming a compact and solid square in midfield, and giving plenty of space and freedom for his fullbacks/wingbacks (depending on whether we were playing a 2 or 3 at the back) to bomb forwards. Occasionally, he played Mills on the right, and we played this very lopsided formation where the RB was mostly holding behind Mills, but Leigh was bombing forward down the left.

He only played Mills and Edwards together twice as out-and-out wingers - and both of those games (which were 3-0 wins), we played a back four of Long-Moore-Thorniley-Brown.

So even Manning didn't disagree with the notion that if you're going to start two chalk-hugging wingers - as well as a pretty lightweight and attacking central midfield - then your fullbacks aren't going to be able to have unfettered space and freedom, and you're going to need their focus to be primarily defensive. Hence the swap to Long/Bennett.

For me, the criticism of Buckingham should not be that he's going to a more defensive fullback pairing to give his talented wingers more freedom. The criticism should be that he thought a team that included Stevens/Dale on one side, and Leigh/Murphy on the other, with a misfiring McGuane and Rodrigues in the middle could possibly work against a powerful, quality team like Bolton.

That was a naive team selection - basically throwing the most talented available attacking players at each position onto the pitch and assuming it would work itself out. What happened at Vale gave me hope that he's recognized at least one of his mistakes, and is going to be more pragmatic from this point on. We shall see.
 
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Steve Gilbert said:
Firstly, we have a game on Friday, not tomorrow.
Secondly, Des had a 'do or die game' against Port Vale in the last game and picked Bennett over Leigh (and rightly so as Leigh has been poor by his standards for a while now).
Thirdly, you said earlier today that managers don't care about international football and will do what's best for them, now you are saying Des has taken into account Leigh's international games?

We know that most of what you put on this forum is rubbish but at least keep it consistent please. It's quite amazing how many times both you and Mustard contradict yourselves.
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I said “if” we had a game tomorrow. Ironic that you mention contradiction, considering I spent the best part of this morning pulling apart virtually everything you were posting. You’ve had a bad day, that’s for sure.
 
And while I'm rolling with the full-back rant, I'll just add that the best team I've ever seen in yellow (started going to games early 90s) had Mike Ford at LB. He had his moments going forwards, but was mostly a solid-as-you-like fullback. And the second best team I've ever seen in yellow had Joe Skarz, who was the definition of no nonsense. Every great team has to have the right balance of attacking flair and defensive solidity.

Greg Leigh is a terrific player, but if you're going to play Murphy and Dale on the flanks, and give them the freedom to do their thing (and the way they've both been playing lately, I think you have to), then you've in turn got to be more pragmatic at the fullback positions. That can be just asking Leigh to blunt his attacking instincts, but when you've got a quality backup like Bennett, then sacrificing Leigh for at least a few games might be the better option.
 
tonyw said:
And while I'm rolling with the full-back rant, I'll just add that the best team I've ever seen in yellow (started going to games early 90s) had Mike Ford at LB. He had his moments going forwards, but was mostly a solid-as-you-like fullback. And the second best team I've ever seen in yellow had Joe Skarz, who was the definition of no nonsense. Every great team has to have the right balance of attacking flair and defensive solidity.

Greg Leigh is a terrific player, but if you're going to play Murphy and Dale on the flanks, and give them the freedom to do their thing (and the way they've both been playing lately, I think you have to), then you've in turn got to be more pragmatic at the fullback positions. That can be just asking Leigh to blunt his attacking instincts, but when you've got a quality backup like Bennett, then sacrificing Leigh for at least a few games might be the better option.
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What about George Baldock and Alex Macdonald? A devastating attacking combination. Sorry but I don’t think your argument makes any sense. This is 2024, not the 1950’s.
 
dickwalton1964 said:
What about George Baldock and Alex Macdonald? A devastating attacking combination. Sorry but I don’t think your argument makes any sense. This is 2024, not the 1950’s.
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Alex MacDonald was like the most disciplined, sensible winger I've ever seen in yellow - the way he read the game, filled in and covered for Baldock's attacking forays was glorious to behold. Now Murphy's not lazy, but he has none of MacDonald's defensive instincts.

Frankly, I'm not sure you could have picked a fullback/winger combination to make my point for me better if you tried!
 
There have now been 20 posts on this thread out of 88 since Jay Matete has been mentioned, stick to the point please.
 
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tonyw said:
Alex MacDonald was like the most disciplined, sensible winger I've ever seen in yellow - the way he read the game, filled in and covered for Baldock's attacking forays was glorious to behold. Now Murphy's not lazy, but he has none of MacDonald's defensive instincts.

Frankly, I'm not sure you could have picked a fullback/winger combination to make my point for me better if you tried!
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What if Goodrham is out on that wing? Play Leigh? I think you’re thinking too deeply and trying to restrict instinctive football. Maybe brainwashed by Des.
 
We could do with rules of Just a minute being enforced.
No Repetition, No deviation, maybe give No hesitation a miss it may be good for some people to think before posting.
Although this may shorten a few threads significantly.
 
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Coffin dodger said:
We could do with rules of Just a minute being enforced.
No Repetition, No deviation, maybe give No hesitation a miss it may be good for some people to think before posting.
Although this may shorten a few threads significantly.
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Are conversations not allowed to evolve? There’s only so much you can say about Matete going back to Sunderland.
 
dickwalton1964 said:
I said “if” we had a game tomorrow. Ironic that you mention contradiction, considering I spent the best part of this morning pulling apart virtually everything you were posting. You’ve had a bad day, that’s for sure.
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It’s called having a debate with someone who has a different opinion to you, Baldy. That doesn’t equal ‘pulling apart’ what I was saying.
I know you like to think only your opinion matters and you are always right but you are very much mistaken.
 
tonyw said:
Alex MacDonald was like the most disciplined, sensible winger I've ever seen in yellow - the way he read the game, filled in and covered for Baldock's attacking forays was glorious to behold. Now Murphy's not lazy, but he has none of MacDonald's defensive instincts.

Frankly, I'm not sure you could have picked a fullback/winger combination to make my point for me better if you tried!
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How about Jordan Graham and George Baldock. Ripped teams apart down the right side.
Don't even pretend that Graham was interested in the defensive side of the game .
Didn't do too bad with those two in situ.
 
Nox said:
How about Jordan Graham and George Baldock. Ripped teams apart down the right side.
Don't even pretend that Graham was interested in the defensive side of the game .
Didn't do too bad with those two in situ.
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I may be wrong but didn’t we also have Ruffles and O’Dowda on the left for a period of time which was just as good?

The difference is that they still liked to come inside where as Dale and Murphy are much more of your ‘90’s’ type winger who get chalk on their boots, hit the by line and get a cross in.
 
tonyw said:
Alex MacDonald was like the most disciplined, sensible winger I've ever seen in yellow - the way he read the game, filled in and covered for Baldock's attacking forays was glorious to behold. Now Murphy's not lazy, but he has none of MacDonald's defensive instincts.

Frankly, I'm not sure you could have picked a fullback/winger combination to make my point for me better if you tried!
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Ah yes. But but but... what about Tuesday 6th October 2015?

We played Swindon in the Paint Pot (before it was sold out to the rich u21s).

We beat them 2-0. It should've been about 8. We had Baldock at right back with Jordan Graham in front of him. It was glorious.

Looks like their left back that night (Brandon Ormonde-Ottewill) is now playing his football in Hungary. I can only assume it's because he's afraid of setting foot in the country as it'll bring back memories of getting savaged that night.
 
Baldock was and has gone on to prove it, miles ahead of the level we were playing at. We could have a very attacking right back in that team because he is one of the best 4th division full backs ever. He had a midfielder in front of him that was very good defensively, Skarz who was solid on the other side and was playing in one of the best technical sides to ever play in the fourth tier in this country. It would of been suicidal to try and exploit our right side with him there that season, that would of just left more room for a superb attacking full back to counter attack behind.
 
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Nox said:
How about Jordan Graham and George Baldock. Ripped teams apart down the right side.
Don't even pretend that Graham was interested in the defensive side of the game .
Didn't do too bad with those two in situ.
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Those two started four games together. Four! One was a home defeat to Barnet, one was a draw with Orient, and one was a 1-0 win against the Wombles when Baldock scored a wonder goal that he'd still have scored if I had been playing in front of him.

Basically everyone remembers Baldock + Graham as an unstoppable combination because of the one single glorious game against the Scum in the Pointless Trophy that Osei mentions!
 
East Stand Fan said:
I did express my surprise at this signing in January and although it looked good on paper, it was always a huge risk with his injury track record.
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Au contraire...he was on loan.

It was hardly 'a risk' at all.

Now, if we'd've taken him on a 5-year-contract....
 
BigCrompy said:
Au contraire...he was on loan.

It was hardly 'a risk' at all.

Now, if we'd've taken him on a 5-year-contract....
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The risk was him being signed ahead of a different target who could've been fit and in a more needed position. Nobody expected us to sign another defensive midfielder in January and many on here were expecting us to strengthen in other positions.
 
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