Marcus Kendall
Player Valuation: £35m
Looks like a prolonged spell on the bench for Merlin
It's a compulsory option if we don't get relegated. Which thank the lord, we're not.
Think a full pre season under him, could be a big player next year.
Can't get my head around him playing his best game of the season against Villa then seeing nothing of him since. Would like him to get some minutes against Burnley.
Hard if you have a mind working in a straightjacket. If Moyes stays, dont let him sign good players. He excels with a knife to a gunfight but beyond that I struggle to see his ability. He has to take (what he considers) risks at home and be prepared that it may not work first time.
Safety first at home is proving not to be safe.
Kevsleftpeg
Player Valuation: £35m
This is so wrong. The problem at home is that we play too much on the front foot and it doesn't suit our players. Particularly our CBs. I think our results will improve a lot now Branthewaite is back because we will be much harder to counterattack against and we will hopefully concede less goals from set pieces too which has been another problem at home.
My frustration is that players who can play on the front foot sit on the bench even when it is all going wrong. Our playing on the front foot is always too tempered and ends up being neither one thing or the other. Either sit back or go for it. the tepid attempts at home result in too many defeats and draws.
Kevsleftpeg
Player Valuation: £35m
Our results are a weird bunch at home though - Spurs and Newcastle were random games were we conceded bad goals from mistakes or set pieces and ended up chasing the game. Arsenal and Utd were decent performances and we could easily have got points from both games. We should have beaten Villa. Wolves and Leeds were games of two halves, one in which we played very well and the other badly. Brentford was the only real shambles. West Ham was a fairly even game and Bournemouth we dominated for 95% of the game even with 10 men. I don't think there is one thing going wrong.
toffeeblue9
Player Valuation: £35m
I think there's a perfectly reasonable argument for this, but I'm not sure it'll be a popular one.
Against Villa we had a very specific tactical set up and Röhl came in and did a good job in the system - it required a lot of ground to be covered by our midfield three as we were trying to stifle Villa's v central way of playing.
Röhl has a great engine, he was well-suited to that system we played, but he does seem to lack a bit of quality with the ball. I think I'm maybe surprised we've not seen him at all, but I'm not surprised he hasn't started.
I know people are concerned to differing degrees about the Barry, Dibling and Aznou signings but Röhl is probably the one I've seen which concerns me the most. Doubt that'll be a popular opinion, but we'll see I guess.
I think it's fair to have that view. I don't feel like I've seen him enough to have a definitive view on his technique but certainly on occasion he wanted too much time on the ball.
I'm sure between now and the end of the season his engine and size could be useful.
I was looking at this for too long trying to decipher the pun. I was thinking "what's magic about a bench?"
