Agree but not with the way you would play them
Let's face it, they might nominally be RB/RWB but in fact one is a winger, the other is an attacking midfielder. Play them both to their strenghts, get fast players to cover behind them, and have fun
Reece James
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Let's face it, they might nominally be RB/RWB but in fact one is a winger, the other is an attacking midfielder. Play them both to their strenghts, get fast players to cover behind them, and have fun
He's at best the 3rd best player in his own team. James is arguably the 2nd best in his after Kanté.
Liverpool are quite clearly a level above chelsea
Also TAA is better than VvD these days
Agree but not with the way you would play them
Let's face it, they might nominally be RB/RWB but in fact one is a winger, the other is an attacking midfielder. Play them both to their strenghts, get fast players to cover behind them, and have fun
Hah I was thinking of the way Conte used Azpilicueta as RCB! Think that might cater to Trent's strengths - for me James is the more dangerous player in the final third and you don't lose a ton of value from Trent by having him sit deeper because he's so good at passing from anywhere.
I mean, they aren't. They draw each other in CL and even Liverpool fans will say it is 50/50 match up based on their previous meetings. Especially if James and Chilwell are healthy at wingbacks.
You generally don't judge the strenght of teams based on 2 games. Chelsea match up well against Liverpool, but a look at the PL table and advanced stats makes the difference very clear
I judge them based on last 4 games (almost all of which had Chelsea with more shots and closer to the win). So yeah, first of all they are a bad match up (Chelsea in a cup competition is a bad match up for anyone not named City by the look of things now).
As for PL table, Chelsea is 10 points behind with a game less not having their main wingbacks in James and Chilwell for the main part of the season. I didn't judge Liverpool as a struggling top 4 team last season when they were fecked with injuries either.
In any case, not seeing that "clearly level above" in Liverpool team, nor did they once showed it coming up against this Chelsea team. In a way that City showed it when facing Chelsea this season for example.
Thanks. Trent is a very special playmaker. It's obvious why Klopp is happy to go with a very functional midfield. He's got fecking KDB at right back.
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Either way he’s point matches up even If TAA is 3rd best player in the Liverpool team, James most likely wouldn’t be. One team has more world class players.
Top class modern attacking RB who can defend as well.
I would still back him to be brilliant. I mean, you can see how important he is to this Chelsea team. The boy is an excellent defender as well which is a bonus.
But, this is his first proper season (in terms of people starting to mentioning him as a world class and indispensable to Chelsea team), so let's see how he keeps up.
TAA is an exceptional attacking player. But the reason I’d have Reece over him (especially in a big match against elite attackers) is that Reece is also top class defensively. He literally bullies even players who are bigger and taller than him. Whereas Trent is highly suspect defensively.
Trent is like a 10/10 attacking but a 4/10 defensively. Reece is an 8/10 at both. The best overall fullback in the league in my biased opinion. Doesn’t really have a weakness when he’s fit.
Trent is like a 10/10 attacking but a 4/10 defensively. Reece is an 8/10 at both. The best overall fullback in the league in my biased opinion. Doesn’t really have a weakness when he’s fit.
Not sure how true this is - James has been injured since December and given his importance that's a major factor in the current gap in the league table. Where would Liverpool be without Trent (and Robertson for that matter - we're without Chilwell on the other side)? Our head to head matchups have been completely even - for me City are the only team clearly at another level in England.
Reece isn’t top class defensively, and Trent isn’t that bad defensively. Someone who is top class defensively in terms of one on one defending is Walker, or even AWB, Reece isn’t on that level for me.
Trent also doesn’t have the luxury of playing with 3 cbs behind him which would alleviate a lot of the defensive issues he faces, defensively his biggest problem is to due with Liverpool system and the exploitation of the spaces in behind him when he pushes forward, James or any attacking right back would face most of the same problems if playing in a 4.
If city are clearly on another level then so are Liverpool, both are side by side over the last few years apart from the season where Liverpool lost its whole defence, in terms of underlying stats, all the stats pointed to the fact that Chelsea were overachieving earlier on in the season, I.e not creating enough chances, but still managing to punch above their weight, it was noted that they would probably revert to mean, with or without the injuries I still think Chelsea would be playing for 3rd
I think Chelsea can match up with anyone on head to head, but over the course of the season they’ve yet to prove they have the squad to match up with City or Liverpool, till the do that you can’t say they’re on a similar level, both sides have CL but the other has a league also and also an extra CL final appearance.But for example can you see this current Chelsea squad attaining 95-100 points? I can’t.
Folk on here love to take any chance they can get to try to downplay TAA
Kyle Walker great defensively? Nah, not having that. Gets caught napping and out of position constantly but just has insane recovery pace to sprint back and make up for his positional mistakes.
Where would liverpool be without trent and robbo...Well liverpool were without their defence last season meaning we pretty much lost trent and robbo as well..and still ended up third with only a handful of points behind united in second
In the three games they've played each other this season:
A) First game. The Dippers' have needed a penalty to bail them out.
B) Second game. Just about clung on after going two up.
C) Third Game. Got a nil, nil, with Chelsea missing the better chances, then won on penos.
I am not saying the Dippers' aren't better, but saying they're 'clearly better' is either just BS or a response from someone who doesn't know what they're talking about.
Would prefer it if the conversation in here wasn't exclusively about Trent vs James, but they get compared at every turn and has been constant theme throughout. The Trent thread isn't filled with these comparisons. Maybe it's because James is viewed at the challenger to Trent's throne meaning Trent's good performances can be viewed in isolation while James' good games is viewed through the lens of how close he is or how he compares to Trent.
When will people realise that in a front foot, pressing system (the system everyone wants to play) fullbacks are the most important position on the pitch. Reckon we’re about 4 years away from that being the general consensus amongst United fans.
Woah. All AWB is good at is 1v1s and nothing else. He shouldn’t even be mentioned here.
I agree with much of what you're saying here - Chelsea haven't proven the consistency that Liverpool and City have. That said, I guess my point was if Chelsea and Liverpool were to be matched up in a CL quarterfinal or semi, I think the outcome would be a coin toss (maaaaybe something like 52/48 for Liverpool). If Chelsea or Liverpool were to be matched up with City over two legs I think it'd be more like 65/35 in City's favour - and for me that puts them a level above.
Certainly though to your point Chelsea haven't demonstrated the consistency required to be at the pinnacle outside of cup competitions.
Do you think James would be as good as he is playing in a back four? I think having three CB’s offers him a lot of freedom. I’d be interested to see how James would do with two CB’s instead of three.
Alexander-Arnold’s shortcomings are largely due to the system we play. Robertson can get up and down the pitch easier so it’s less of an issue for him, but Alexander-Arnold can leave a lot of space behind him. It was less of an issue in 19/20 because the midfield was specifically there to cover that space when we lose possession.
Maybe Southgate will prefer James because he also prefers a back three with wingbacks. I’d still take TAA simply because of how important he is to our offensive play. 16 assists speaks for itself.
Pep clearly does with Cancelo.
I'd absolutely play Trent vs Mbappe. Mbappes lack of tracking back would lead to Trent creating more. Long term if Southgate goes back to a 5, I can see James play rcb for England like Walker used to with Trent outside of him. Feels like it'll be a waste of James natural attacking talents though if I'm honest.
Yeah he is one of our worst defenders
Think this is a fair question to ask - that said, James has played in a back four regularly (for Wigan and for Chelsea under Lampard) and he still did extremely well. His attacking output would probably suffer if he was less able to function as an attacking outlet - he definitely gets most of his offensive value from playing as a winger as opposed to Trent who is much more of a deep-lying playmaker. But certainly he doesn't have the same track record as a right back in a 4 as TAA does.
I'm definitely biased, but personally I think that the gap between TAA and James offensively in favour of TAA is similar in magnitude to the difference between them defensively in favour of Reece. I also think Reece's versatility is quite valuable - he can play as a RB, RWB, RCB, or CM as needed.
Even though we've done better against Liverpool compared to City this season I'd rather face the latter in the UCL.
History burden in that competition is real, we've been on both sides of the fence. The pressure in Porto didn't feel half as intense as Moscow and Munich.
It was actually that position where he elevated himself to star prospect. As a RB/RWB Dujon Sterling was considered a better prospect.
Our best youth team out of the one's that dominated last decade was the 17/18 one (they were practically the youth version of your first team the same season) was with Reece at RCB and Lamptey at RWB.
Corrected. Given he's a half baked defender himself.
Yeah I remember you hoovering up youth trophies a few years ago. Good to see a few of those in your first team now, gives me hope for our army of youths. He'd be fantastic there as he all the attributes but he's too good going forward to play CB in my humble opinion. You can see with his eye for goal and attacking instinct the move to the wing was a good choice.
Hard to argue that. My one issue with Trent is he still gets bullied a little easy (like Stones used to 3 years ago)
Would be more of a 2 man defence then since Matip/Konate and VVD are left by themselves while Robertson and Trent both push up high.
TAA is a better player, he's a midfielder in RBs clothing. If a team is set up to maximise his output TAA would be clear. James is a better RB though. Not much between them, Trent just about shades it.
TAA is our most important attacking player after Salah. It's weird to say that about a right back.
Same for James kinda. I don't remember ever thinking "oh no Steve Clarke is out, we're fecked".
Yep. Although I will say that I think that is in large part due to you lacking a genuine world class forward. Creativity and goals from the wing backs should be a wonderful bonus, but not the primary method of creating and scoring for a league winning team I think. Trent obviously does the same for Liverpool but the likes of Salah and Diaz would score goals with or without him and Robertson. I'm less convinced of that with Chelsea with Chilwell and James. Could argue that you just need better backups of course but I think the point stands.
Not sure on that. Salah record for Egypt since he’s been at Liverpool is one goal every two games which is much worse than his record for Liverpool. Diaz has 1 goal and 0 assists for Liverpool in 5(3) appearances for so far. Not sure why he’s being touted as some end product machine.
1 in 2 is a very good goal record, are you trying to suggest he's not world class?
Diaz is a terrific player, you'll understand in a few months.
No. I’m pointing out that in a team with lesser players he doesn’t do as well i.e. he does need guys like Trent and Robertson to up his level.