I thought you meant the game as a whole and not one particular instance. In which yes, he lost his marker but the reason we conceded in the end was that no one tracked Pelle's follow up run. Really don't see how losing your marker once counts as 'struggling' against that player but whatever. I guess Vidic was also a bad defender who struggled against pace and trickery.
Check out the replay of the first goal, he clearly loses Mane and is an a bad position when the cross comes in.
17
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 56
- Clean sheets
- 22
- Goals
- 2
- Assists
- 4
- Yellow cards
- 3
- Status
Fine then. For their next chance (Smalling's bad clearance) he was turned very easily, forcing DDG to make a good save.
I surely don't need to prove that our left side was completely exposed in that match till we scored(~35mins), with Blind and Rojo both looking lost. After that Mane changed position (Neville made a big deal of this in commentary) and their threat reduced.
If you think we were defending fine at that time, I don't think there's much we can debate about, because we must have been seeing very different games.
EDIT: Also, conveniently ignoring Blind's full game struggle vs Gomis?
About Vidic, I do think he wasn't perfectly comfortable vs a top-class fast striker (Torres, Eto'o, Lyon's Benzema). But that is the absolute elite of world strikers, no shame in that.
To be honest we were being overrun across the pitch at that time so I wouldn't really single out Blind. The midfield was losing the ball left and right and Southampton were getting space to strut their stuff all over the park. It was a nightmare. I also think Rojo and Blind didn't work very well together, probably owing to the fact that's the first time (I think) they've played in those positions at the same time.
I do remember Neville's commentary about it but I recall it as being more about Pelle than Mane. I shall have to go back and check. Either way, my point is more that having a single bad performance or difficulties against one particular attacker doesn't necessarily mean Blind has serious deficiencies and can't be a good CB for us. I'd be very surprised if he didn't have some poor games there from time to time, but I think so far he's shown himself to be worthy of the starting slot.
Mane picks up the ball beyond our 2 defensive midfielders so Blind steps out, when you have 2 DMs on the pitch that should never happen. Once he is running from deep like that Blind has no chance, nor would 99% of centre backs against the pace of Mane.
Check out the replay of the first goal, he clearly loses Mane and is an a bad position when the cross comes in.
The Mane goal was a great goal. Sometimes you just have to hold up your hands and credit the quality of the run and cross. It happens.
The over-analysis of specific goals is one of the more grating aspects of modern football. Football teams concede goals and defenders get dragged out of position. Given we've only conceded five league goals I think it's fair to say that Blind, on the whole, has performed very impressively.
There's definitlely truth in the argument that some people are just waiting for Blind to get outmuscled and scream "I told you so!"
He's proven me wrong so far and many others. All power to him.
The over-analysis of specific goals is one of the more grating aspects of modern football. Football teams concede goals and defenders get dragged out of position. Given we've only conceded five league goals I think it's fair to say that Blind, on the whole, has performed very impressively.
There's definitlely truth in the argument that some people are just waiting for Blind to get outmuscled and scream "I told you so!"
He's proven me wrong so far and many others. All power to him.
To be fair, Blind did have a poor game against Southampton, struggling against Mane's pace and Pelle's physicality as well at times. He's been very good in defence for us so far, and has partnered with Smalling excellently, but not everyone who doubts his ability there is just doing it for the, "I told you so" aspect: some people are simply dubious as to whether he's going to be a good centre-back long-term, which is fair enough considering we've still not seen too much of him there, and he did have a weak game against Southampton.
Performing very well overall though, and was brilliant against Liverpool.
Everyone in our back like struggled that game. Both the goals, smalling and darmian were beaten too easily. Gomis scored being marked by both darmian and smalling. Blind had nothing to do with the goals.
Not much I disagree with there. Long term it's fair to say that I'm also dubious, obviously dependant on our wider aspirations. Will we win a CL title with Blind at central defence? It would take a bold man to argue yes. But right now he's certainly justyfiying his place in the side.
I think this is one of the reasons why Van Gaal is adamant about being organized and controlling possession as much as possible during a game so that we don't put him into situations where he has to physically match opposition attackers and get into 1 on 1 situations. He's going to lose more of those than win them, in the Southampton game the entire defense had a bad day. Carrick couldn't handle Mane, Darmian couldn't deal with Tadic and so on. Once we got over those issues and settled into our routine rhythm we went back to dominating the game.
Teams can only hurt us on the counter, they cannot construct a passing game and cope with our pressing. We will face tougher opposition from teams like Everton, Palace and Leicester this season than someone like Arsenal, Chelsea or Liverpool.
That's definitely what LVG is trying to do, but no matter how much we work on it, there are always going to be games where we're on the back-foot, or struggle when up against a really dangerous opposition player, whether that be due to his pace/skill/strength or whatever.
I'm a fan of us trying to go with defenders who have plenty of ability on the ball and can play it out from the back. At the same time though, I'm going to be very doubtful of someone who's not particularly brilliant when it comes to matching up to an opposition player, even if it's not necessarily on a physical level.
Oh how LvG was ridiculed for playing him as a CB... the hysteria at the start of the season...
There was never really "hysteria" though, just a lot of doubt that someone who's not particularly physical and isn't often used as a centre-back would be capable of performing well there for us. Which is fair enough. Obviously he has so far, which is fantastic.
Oh but there was hysteria and it came at a time when redcafe's disgruntlement with LvG's tenure here was at a breaking point and every other post on here basically contained a snide dig or another about LvG as if he were some incapable nitwit who won a competition to manage one of the biggest clubs in the world.
Even as early as in pre season there were not only 'fair' doubts and healthy criticism, there were plenty who were using Blind at CB as another stick to beat LvG with as to cement his image on here as some village idiot.
To be fair, he 'sometimes' IS one... And that's why I love the man ^^
Because he's playing in a team that defends by keeping the ball and has very little defending to do. When he becomes isolated he struggles.
I have no comments on Phil Jones.
There have been pleanty of times where blinds been isolated and he has been fine most notably agaisnt benteke.
Every single defender will occasionally struggle when isolated; so whats your point?
Well, you mean apart from in the first half an hour where Benteke actually went up against him and destroyed him, then somehow inexplicably decided to go up against Smalling instead and got marked out of the game? He also struggled against Spuds, Swansea (very evidently) and PSV. He's also been suspect in wide areas.
Whether you agree or not, it shouldn't have been too difficult to work out. Your snarky tone is even more amusing by your admission.
Destroyed. Jesus Christ.
He lost every battle and we didn't concede through luck, nothing else. Blind is great at limiting the times this happens, but to deny the severity when it does happen is nonsense.
What's my snarky tone exactly? You trying to figure out how i speak through what i type? Anyway; bulding physique is pretty simple and has yet to cost us severely apart from swansea & psv when our whole defensive left hand side got shattered; never mind the right hand side that didn't do any better.
I ask you; if he has had predominantly more than an average season then why cannot he improve? Or is it only wonderkids who get that opportunity. After a year's time and experience i dont see why blind couldn't work out any of his shortcomings that you mention.
I'v been one for the pro-blind books from the start when most of our performances was herald as wonderful in defence and utter shite in attack. Now you come along wanting to take away the only attacking aspect of our game that the opposition cannot deal with; arguably our 3rd dimension for even more defensive ability? Is that right?
Further to say i dont think i have seen performances like daley blind's role in the team sinse ronald koeman's for barcelona.
Arguably smalling is a sweeper; with his physique and the nature of the premier-league; playing two defenders like blind or even half of blinds atracking ability would be suicide. Blind paroles the defence; smalling is usually the man to cover.
Arguably smalling is a sweeper; with his physique and the nature of the premier-league; playing two defenders like blind or even half of blinds atracking ability would be suicide. Blind paroles the defence; smalling is usually the man to cover.
And it's nonsense to pretend other defenders don't regularly get beaten to the ball either. He really didn't lose every battle by the way, that's a ridiculous statement and would be more accurate the other way around, I think you need to watch the game again, Daley Blind was widely considered MOTM mate.
What? How is it luck when there were numerous Blind vs. Benteke situations and Blind came out of all of them on top? You can argue that part of the reason Blind won was that Benteke didn't do very well, but not that it was just 'luck'.When you're so far out of step with the overwhelming consensus, there's normally a reason. Blind was good in that game.
They faced each other in the air once or twice in the entire game and Blind had several interceptions and was pretty comfortable all game.
Don't even try to deny your last comment wasn't snarky. And if you look my only comment was that Blind "wasn't a natural defender". I never said he couldn't improve, no idea why you're going off on a tangent.
I didn't say they didn't? There aren't many natural defenders around.
Well he didn't, and Benteke did badly vs Smalling, he was getting plenty of joy vs Blind.
I never said anything about the rest of the game when Blind did exceptionally well. But in those first 30 minutes he was being constantly abused.
He was comfortable after Benteke moved over to Smalling (Although not even Neville could work out why).[/QUOTE]
Benteke never played on Blind, he spent almost the entire game between both and Smalling dealt with him and failed in the air.
When? They faced off in the air three times and Blind came out on top in all three.
It's fairly obvious why I've made that comment don't you think?
You really need to watch the game again, you're so wide of the mark it's a little odd, Blind essentially had him in his pocket during those early exchanges before Benteke was starved of the ball completely, one noticeable instance where Blind eased Beneke off a high ball on the edge of our box and casually turned away from him.
Its when people make ridiculous criticisms like this that it takes away any genuine critique of a player.
That's just totally wrong. He started playing on Blind and then moved across around half an hour in which coincide with our entrance into the game.
They were playing the ball into Benteke's feet early on, not his head. That's why they were actually involved in the game and not a tactical shambles they developed into later on.
I think you do, the goal and his performance later in the match seems to have clouded your judgement of the first half an hour or so. Liverpool were well in the game and lots of the joy they had was playing balls into Benteke with their pace on the overlap down the right side. Carragher was going mental about Benteke switching during halftime, it was impossible to miss. I gave Blind MotM for that game as well, but that's because he got a goal and was virtually flawless for 60 minutes after that, not because I have selective blindness to ignore when he was struggling.
Liverpool weren't involved in the game at all in the first half and them playing the ball to Benteke's feet create nothing. You're the only person I've seen act like Liverpool did anything at all in the first half. In fact we did barely anything in the first half either. It was the most uneventful 45 minutes of football I've ever watched in my life.
You can't polish a turd. Liverpool aren't a good team at the moment and Rogers butchered them tactically. That doesn't mean the ball into Benteke along the floor wasn't causing us problems, Liverpool just didn't do it enough and failed to capitalise on it when they did.
His first run is completely on the left, the offside chance from Can's pass is on the left, he is at the end of a cross on the right but he is marked by Shaw, on the right he had no success at all and even got bullied by Blind and Shaw a couple of time. He spent most of the time on the left. You are totally reinventing the game.
Edit: At the 25mn just after being brushed away by Blind, the commentator says that it's surprising that Benteke doesn't play more on Blind's side.
Last edited:
Casually skipping over the 3 other occasions where they play the ball into Benteke while he's running into the right channel but ok
If you think Blind is a natural defender then that is your business, but I'm done with people trying to argue that things I'm watching right now on a .mkv file is tiresome.Casually skipping over the 3 other occasions where they play the ball into Benteke while he's running into the right channel but ok
You laugh but I'm watching the game and he did nothing at all, in the first half at least. Will see the second tomorrow.
Casually skipping over the 3 other occasions where they play the ball into Benteke while he's running into the right channel but ok
Everyone is now disagreeing with you. I'd say it's time to give us the actual time of these incidents during the game where Benteke is 'destroying' Blind, or give up.
3 people, you should check what selection bias is. Like I said, if you think Blind is a natural defender that's your call, but I'm done arguing the existence of factual events.
Only twice so far have his physical shortcomings been an issue this season, against Gomis and Pelle, for some reason Pelle moved to Smalling during that game though.
He's clearly worked on his upper body strength though and is doing very well, long term I don't see him as our starting CB but I am not worried about him this season as long as we keep Darmian as the LB to help cover him.
He's clearly worked on his upper body strength though and is doing very well, long term I don't see him as our starting CB but I am not worried about him this season as long as we keep Darmian as the LB to help cover him.
@Dion you are confusing the Southampton game with the Liverpool one. Pelle was the one who stayed with blind for first 30 minutes and then went over to smalling s side. Benteke did nothing all game for Liverpool vs us except that goal.
- Status