I'm not convinced that signing this guy in a multi-million pound deal would solve all of our apparent defensive problems. He's one of the better guys kicking around, clearly, but that says more about the current dearth of top quality defenders than it does him. I've always been sceptical of him, for what it's worth.
Mats Hummels
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Hell yes!
Nope, he is not performing well at the moment and on top of that he is quite injury prone. I have had enough with guys like him and our whole defence. Just give me a relatively good defender who can stay fit all season and everything will be fine.
Isnt Subotic injured?? I always considered him the better of the two.
He's missed a few games this season and Subotic looks half the player he used to be, but to me Dortmund's biggest issue is the lack of quality finishing. I have seen them dominate a number of games but miss chance after chance With Immobile, Bommerangayang and Mkhitaryan a country mile away from the quality of Lewandowksi. Their only top finisher is Reus and he missed the start of the season and has been out injured twice more since he came back.
He was error prone before. Just that BVB got great results, so they started the hype. Defensively Smalling is a better defender, but because he came after Rio-Vidić most people and especially media view him as a weak link.
But as you said, Hummels is young, so there is still time.
Just no.
This is true. But also it shows their defensive problems. Before it wasn't so important, as they would score 3-4 goals, so even if they concede one, or two didn't matter, it was after the game was won.
Now, they concede the goals before they score, as their defense is problematic (plus the injuries don't help), so they have to open more and then....
Yes, he is. Hummels is a better on the ball (but Smallings first season wasn't problematic with that). But it's just popular to praise Hummels like some genius, which he isn't, not even close.
Dortmund had the second best defensive record in the League last season, they only conceded 38 goals even though they had a huge injury crisis in defense last year.
Hummels was probably the best defender in the world cup, he's been a consistent defender for Dortmund for almost 4 years now (League and CL) as well as the German National team. But you're comparing him to Chris Smalling. Jesus Christ.
It was Boateng and he is miles better than Hummels, who is still very good when physically in form.
To be fair, the defending in the Bundesliga overall in the past 3 years is quite shocking. The average number of goals is the highest in decades if I'm not mistaken. Everyone wants to play some sort of attacking, quick transition, pressing football, but few teams build around a solid shaped defense. 38 goals is a lot for a top team, and quite a lot for Dortmund too. In both their title winning seasons, they conceded less than 25 goals, that's a good defensive record.
That being said, Hummels at his best is a strong defender, not just an overall good centerback, because he's very good on the ball. He was consistently strong as a defender from late 2009 until summer 2012, but rarely showed it since. There were a few short spells where he seemed back to his best, but they didn't last. I'm not entirely sure what it is, his seasons are constantly interrupted with short term injuries, which doesn't help, but there also seems to be a huge problem with a lack of focus. He rarely gets through a full game with 100% concentration.
A good defender who lacks the pace to be a great success in English football. Not convinced he's worth the money that's being talked about.
I think it's possibly due to the lack of quality CBs around. There was time when in the PL alone we had Rio, Vidic, Terry and Carvalho. Now it's the likes of Terry, Cahill, Kompany and...I don't even know who else.
I'd still take him though. I'm not a massive fan of his but when you search for alternative I'm not sure you can find much better these days.
I think their back 4 has struggled from not having a settled selection, much like our own. Hummels has only played 5 or 6 games in the league this season I believe so I am not sure how much is on him, but I'd agree with the post from Balu about him not looking quite the imperious CB he looked a couple of years ago in the last 2 seasons.
The truth is I am not 100% sure he's the ebst choice for us, but the pool is limited and it's not like we'd pay a lot less for Laporte or Vertonghen.
And he was shit in the final.... Why don't you mention that?
I have seen Smalling enough as a center back to say that he is a great potential and now he is very good. Hummels isn't better at defending, just that he is only played as CB, so is a bigger name, but he is almost never without mistakes during games. As I said before, even on his peak, he made big-huge mistakes in most important games, like against Real and Bayern, as these were teams who could put pressure on them, so you could see their weaknesses. But again, people love to ignore it.
And right now, Smalling is without any doubt a better defender than Hummels, did you watch the guy this season? Yes, injuries, like Smalling didn't have them, plus being played out of position a lot of times.
And I am not even saying that Hummels is a bad defender or so, but he is overhyped.
Also, they have conceded 38 goals in 34 games, what is there great about defending? Bayern conceded 23, do you see the deference? Now look at the stats for the Premierleague clubs from 2004, when there were really good defenses around and good defenders, how much less teams conceded in more games. Even last season Chelsea and City conceded less, Everton only one more in 4 games more....
He was good for his age, but as I said, he made mistakes even than, but it wasn't as important (but become important in the finale against Bayern). The problem is that he did not improve and actually become worse.
Now, he is 25, these things can happen, and he has time to improve and become real WC, but we are talking about now and that's where I just can't agree about him being the man who will fix are problems (I know you are not saying that, I just want to say that even on his peak he was good for his age, but still not a WC, even Nesta and defenders like him improved with age).
I think that people get me wrong. I do think that he is a good defender with potential to be WC, but he just stop developing (for various reasons) and right now is not that good.
Smalling is better than defending than Hummels for me. Hummels is more Del Piero than Smalling is though, if that's the sort of thing you're after.
I'm not that convinced by Mats. He is too slow. Jerome is a better defender I think, and even he isn't all that.
Laporte is the one.
I'm not that convinced by Mats. He is too slow. Jerome is a better defender I think, and even he isn't all that.
Laporte is the one.
This was discussed many times already, he certainly wasn't at his best in the game, but then again he was injured and played with pain killers and it was still the WC final against the likes of Messi, Aguero etc., but I'm sure Smalling would've done much better.
But sure let's slate him for that game and ignore the brilliant performances against Portugal, the US, France and Brazil.
Just tell me, how many Bundesliga games do you watch? Hummels has shown over years that he's a great defender, Smalling hasn't done anything remotely similar. He even looks ordinary in the England team where he isn't even a regular.
Of course Hummels is hyped, but he justified it with the performances he's shown for club and country. On the other hand many people don't want to see Smalling in an England shirt again and just a few weeks a go he was not good enough for United after his brainless display against City.
People call Hummels error prone and slow when the majority don't even watch him play week in week out, he's not a slow defender at all btw and he rarely makes a mistake. Just look at Mangala now though, one of the fastest players but what's the point when you aren't able to defend?
I didn't call it an amazing defensive record, I was just referring to another poster who said that Dortmund was doing so well because they constantly scored a lot of goals while having a terrible defense. And as I said, Dortmund were missing their first choice RB, LB, CB and 2nd CB over the majority of the season. They had to recall a player out of retirement because they simply didn't have any players left.
Again, Hummels is anything but slow. Just one of those "myths" about him. I still remember before the France-Germany game when someone said he lacks physicality, then he goes on and bullies the so called "best young defender in the world" Varane to score the winning goal against France.
Boateng is one of the best defenders in the world for me, I fail to name 5 to be better than him.
What has Laporte shown to make him better/more worth it than Hummels? I know it's all about the potential these days but Laporte is much more of a gamble than Hummels would be.[/QUOTE]
[/QUOTE]This was discussed many times already, he certainly wasn't at his best in the game, but then again he was injured and played with pain killers and it was still the WC final against the likes of Messi, Aguero etc., but I'm sure Smalling would've done much better.
But sure let's slate him for that game and ignore the brilliant performances against Portugal, the US, France and Brazil.
Just tell me, how many Bundesliga games do you watch? Hummels has shown over years that he's a great defender, Smalling hasn't done anything remotely similar. He even looks ordinary in the England team where he isn't even a regular.
Of course Hummels is hyped, but he justified it with the performances he's shown for club and country. On the other hand many people don't want to see Smalling in an England shirt again and just a few weeks a go he was not good enough for United after his brainless display against City.
People call Hummels error prone and slow when the majority don't even watch him play week in week out, he's not a slow defender at all btw and he rarely makes a mistake. Just look at Mangala now though, one of the fastest players but what's the point when you aren't able to defend?
I didn't call it an amazing defensive record, I was just referring to another poster who said that Dortmund was doing so well because they constantly scored a lot of goals while having a terrible defense. And as I said, Dortmund were missing their first choice RB, LB, CB and 2nd CB over the majority of the season. They had to recall a player out of retirement because they simply didn't have any players left.
Again, Hummels is anything but slow. Just one of those "myths" about him. I still remember before the France-Germany game when someone said he lacks physicality, then he goes on and bullies the so called "best young defender in the world" Varane to score the winning goal against France.
Boateng is one of the best defenders in the world for me, I fail to name 5 to be better than him.
What has Laporte shown to make him better/more worth it than Hummels? I know it's all about the potential these days but Laporte is much more of a gamble than Hummels would be.
Fine. We don't agree and that's it.
to argue, that Smalling is a better defender than Hummels is just absurd. Completely deluded.
I´m sorry, but this is not true. 2012/2013 was clearly overall a poor season for him and very inconsistent, but the following one was nothing like that season. His start was good and he clearly regained his consistency. With the exception of the one half in Frankfurt, when he was clearly not fully fit and accordingly subbed off at HT, he played a strong first third of the season and was one of the reasons for the best season start in the clubs history. This is also supported by stats. In every meaningful stat for a defender Hummels was amongst the leagues top group. He missed the complete second third of the season injured and looking back his injury probably hurt us the most.
He came back at the beginning of March and made a huge difference. Compare the games vs. Hamburg and Nürnberg in terms of defensive stability and structure. The difference was gigantic. It was like the whole defensive formation was switched out when the only change was Hummels for Friedrich. That is what a Hummels in good shape can bring to a team. He continued his strong form for the whole remainder of the season and into the WC. That were around 20 games of strong performances: being the best player vs. Real over both legs, being by far the best player in the German cup final, together with Reus best Dortmund performer in that time frame and arguably the strongest defender of the WC up until he once again picked up an injury vs. Brasil. Thats not a short spell in my book, especially taking the beginning of the season into account. Thats a very strong season interrupted by injuries.
For all the people, who call him overly error prone: name me five games of the last season at Dortmund, which included big blunders on his part. Should be an easy task given that Hummels played in more than 30. You won´t find them. I have seen all of them.
This season is extremely hard to judge until now. He missed the whole pre season, played a few games (ranging from good to poor) and was injured again.
He's very handsome and lovely. Our main criteria for transfers these days is good looks so I reckon we'll be in for him.
Exactly. Some people are taking things too much at face value. If a team like Dortmund, for all the quality they have had for the last few years, has fallen that low, is it possible there are other causes inside that dressing room to look at for an explanation? It would be easy to point fingers at Hummels, but neither Subotic, Ginter or Sokratis have covered themselves with glory.
Easy to say because Mangala got a red card yesterday. And where is fecking Jagielka these days? Doing feck all as always.
I just read the little Smalling vs. Hummels debate. Honestly, this is just the most silly heights I have read from the usual pro-England band that shits on foreigners.
Doesn't that describe what I said? Everytime he had a few great months and looked like he could again become the consistently great defender he was up until 2012 he either got injured or his form dropped significantly (or both).
Yeah pretty much this. He also had some phases where he seemed to play despite being not fully fit which were among his worst phases. Weren't doubts about him being able to stay fit for a prolonged time also the main reasons why Bayern did let him go to Dortmund after that loan spell with them?
I compared him to Pique in some ways earlier.
Comparison and the drop off looks more apt now.
He is more of a natural leader than Pique but more injury prone as well. Both lacked athletic ability but were very good on the ball and playing in Strong teams nationally and domestically. Pique tailed off and had a further drop off which exposed his athletic weaknesses with the team struggling as well. Hummels seems to be having similar though his issues are more fitness related too.
Comparison and the drop off looks more apt now.
He is more of a natural leader than Pique but more injury prone as well. Both lacked athletic ability but were very good on the ball and playing in Strong teams nationally and domestically. Pique tailed off and had a further drop off which exposed his athletic weaknesses with the team struggling as well. Hummels seems to be having similar though his issues are more fitness related too.
The one exception to the rule from Mata on. (And Shaw too.)Just like Di Maria the sexy little jug eared devil.
Those people saying such things would be what we know as idiots.
Lads calm down
Hummels is 85 on FIFA when Smalling is 78.
end of debate
Hummels is 85 on FIFA when Smalling is 78.
end of debate
He was and he is not the same player after his knee injury,think he had same as Vidic or similar,not sure.
He's alright, just very boring. 6/10Shaw isn't bad looking.
Has this Ryan Gosling vibe to himself.
Shaw isn't bad looking.
Has this Ryan Gosling vibe to himself.
You're not wrong.
Apparently Sokratis has been their best and most important defender this season.
Same here. A few years back he's the one who was getting all the praise too. United were even in for him. Hummels is now the flavor of the day.
I know this, but he's way more visible now since the world cup ended. There's a shitload of people aware of him now that weren't before, and many of them go with the flow and proclaim him to be the best CB in the world.
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