Refocussing the Martin debate

[westcoastcanary 0]

It is well-established that the most effective strategy for a manager seeking to

improve the overall performance of his team is to improve on the

weakest link (rather than, say, making a marquee signing in a position

which is already well provided for). Seems to me the nub of the Martin debate can be put by asking this question:Of the players AN considers first choice starters, who is weakest in their particular position? As I understand it, Miggins and others have no hesitation in answering Whittaker and (then) Martin -- or maybe Martin and (then) Whittaker. Why I disagree with them is not because I think Russ Martin is the best CB the club could have, ot Whittaker the best RB. It''s because I don''t agree that they  are worse in their positions than e.g. Tettey is a DM, or Jerome is a lone striker, etc. etc. My opinion is that there is a consistent level of ability throughout our team, with no outstanding talent, and no particular weak link. There is nobody it would not be possible to improve on and my gripe with Martin''s critics is because they focus uniquely on him when he is easily as good in his position as anyone else in the team is in theirs.

[Crafty Canary 495]

Whilst the relative merits of individual players can be debated (and often is) what is indisputable is that City have conceded 10 goals in 6 games in the league and 11 goals in 7 games in league and cup to date with no clean sheets. In the league that''s 1.67 goals per game which over a season puts a lot of pressure on the team to keep scoring. Is it down to individual players making errors every game?, is it an issue of defensive tactics employed? or just bad luck is again a matter for debate. I would imagine that the football board are continuing to seek players who will be an improvement on those we currently have. Whether any are available whom we could afford and would be willing to join us is another question. The last window suggests that is a bigger problem for the club at present. Whilst we continue to be competitive as we have been largely so far then there is every reason to look optimistically on the club''s final position. 

[mrs miggins 0]

Its not about players, its about partnerships within the team. Whitts and Martin are just as good, in their own way, as the rest of the squad in terms of talent (martin being a bit better imo than Whitts).

The partnership of Bassong and Martin is a decent one; a bit of a bruiser and a modern ball playing CB. Fine. They tend to play a bit to far apart for my liking a lot of the time. Bassong seems to start realising hiss role in the team as - the guy who''s not the ball playing CB- hopefully no more shall we see him holding onto the ball for 10 sends waiting for the pass that he could''ve made 8 seconds before. Martin often puts him under pressure though defensively, as the Liverpool game shows, he''s at times left to mark 2 attackers.

The partnership of Bassong and Brady. In the first game the pairing looked like it wasn''t going to work (as Brady''s positioning was all out) but since that Bassong has managed to get tighter as well as Brady having the pace to track back to the right position when not in possession, it looks good.

From this, the partnership of Brady and Jarvis. Nothing needs to be said; they looked great against Bournemouth ion their first game playing together.

The partnership of Bassong, Martin and Tettey. In possession this is good; Tettey is incredibly important to our play and who''s job it is to play simple, stay back and not shoot; to just support our attacking play. When we have the ball in our defensive line I notice Tettey, instead of dropping deep all the time (like you''d expect), he moves up the pitch to create space for either Howson or Dorrans to collect the ball to start off the attack. As we then get the play moving Tettey drops back into the anchor role sometimes leaing space behind him for Dorrans or Howson to take up. Clever.

Without the ball Tettey''s job is to protect the back 4 and does a reasonably good job at doing this; his job it to collect fouls which he''s more than happy to do as well as drop into the defensive line if a defender is up the pitch (yes I am talking about Whittaker), this inevitably causes trouble as Tettey then has to drop into a CB slot, but also worry about opposing players who he would''ve had to mark, which are hopefully then being marked by either one of our centre mids - confusing eh.

The partnership of Tettey Dorrans, Hoolahan, Howson. Although Hoolahan is seen as No 10, he almost now play a much deeper role like to the ones of Howson and Dorrans when they play, which is why Wes is looking better than he ever has; there more movement, he''s playing simple balls from deep sometimes, these interchangeable partnerships imo work really well.

The partnership of Martin and Whitts (and Whitts and Redmond). In possession this partnership is good enough I''d say, sometimes Whitts gives Martin the give and go in which it can sometime start an attacking move. In defence though, this is the weakest link in our side. What tends to happen is Redmond drifts inside leaving the space to be filled by Whitts when we''re in possession. We then lose it and he is then out of his RB position, leaving the whole team to shuffle along; Martin to RB, Tettey to RCB, Dorrans to DM etc leaving us extremely vulnerable. Also if Whitts is in the right position he doesn''t get enough help from Redmond, or Martin - they''re not close enough to him leaving him one on one with a pacey bugger which he hasn''t got a hope in hell of competing with. Defensively Whitts is a shambles a lot of the time I feel - not quick enough to get back a lot of the time and not good enough in a one on one scenario - the fact that he doesn''t have much help, doesn''t help.

Going forwards Whitts can make some great runs into the box which has added an extra dimension to our play as it gives us much more width as Redderz cuts inside, yet on the other hand he gave the ball away so much last year in possession, in dangerous areas leaving the rest of the back line, as already discussed, to deal with the mess. He needs to think about the runs he makes before he goes wandering up the pitch, thats his main problem; anyone can make the runs he makes, they just don''t because of the space it leaves behind them. The solution to this I think is to either move Martin there and to play Redmond out wide ''properly'' (staying there) - creating a much more rigid system, which would be a shame, though Martin can still go forward of course, he''s much smarter about doing it; he knows his limits. Or buy a quicker RB, someone like Yedlin who we were apparently after on loan in the window.

The partnership of Jerome....and everyone else. Jerome has a decent relationship with Wes I feel but we all know what we get with Jerome in the PL - he does the dirty work, he''s what we need as an outlet - has power and pace. The only downside of Jerome is that he hasn''t proved at this level that he can score goals regularly. Thats where Mbokani comes in - he looks strong and pacey, but has a goalscoring record to be proud of.

Thats my opinion of why I think Martin and Whitts are the weak links. Its not that they''re bad players but that they don''t seem to complement each other as all the rest of the team do.

[westcoastcanary 0]

Mrs Miggins wrote: " ....... anyone can make the runs he [Whittaker] makes, they just don''t because of the space

it leaves behind them. The solution to this I think is to either move

Martin there and to play Redmond out wide ''properly'' (staying there) -

creating a much more rigid system, which would be a shame, though Martin

can still go forward of course, he''s much smarter about doing it; he

knows his limits. Or buy a quicker RB, someone like Yedlin who we were

apparently after on loan in the window."There is a perfectly good alternative solution, which is better awareness from their team mates and having someone cover the space behind Whittaker when he makes those runs. This awareness of the uncovered space created by the movement of others and the instinctive readjustment to provide the necessary cover is what we are currently most lacking IMO.

[It's Character Forming 1,160]

For me the jury''s out on our CB position, but it remains a concern to me, partly because we only have 3 CBs in the squad so we could easily have 2 injuries/suspensions simultaneously and we''d have a real headache about who would be our 2nd CB.

Also for me, this area is the weakest part of the team - in midfield we''ve got enough strength across the pitch that we could let Johnson go, at LB we have Olsson who I rate highly as well as Brady, at RB we have Whittaker and Wisdom, up front we''ve supplemented Jerome with Mbokani and we still have Grabban and Hooper. But at CB, I just think Martin is relatively weak as a Prem CB, indeed I think he was quite often found out in the Champ.

So far, it''s been ok. We''ve had two games when we were 3-0 up and switched off at a late set piece to concede a goal that didn''t matter. For Soton, the whole team had a mare, we generally looked good against Liverpool defensively , and vs Palace the 3-goal scoreline flattered them. And of course RM has contributed more than his fair share of goals at the other end.

But I can''t help feeling that if we had the Basso/Turner partnership playing like it was when Hughton brought them in, we''d be looking much more solid defensively, whereas in all other areas of the team I think we have improved since then.

It''s similar to looking back to Worthy''s season in the Prem when we released Malky before the season started and ended up weak at the CB position for the entire season. I felt at the time, and still feel, it was a mistake that cost us dear. Right now I think that not strengthening the CB position over the summer was a mistake, hopefully it won''t cost us in the same way, but I remain worried .