No co-ink-e-dink.

kev101 · October 30, 2011

Brownie said:
The number of times I've seen Distin do exactly what Heitinga did yesterday for their goal, but apparently he's our best defender so it's alright.

Distin is our best defender imo.

Dutch Toffee · October 30, 2011

best little spaniard said:
Let's just face it, the quality of our defence is nowhere near the level it was when Jagielka and Lescott were our first choice pairing.<br />

I miss those days

Indeed, they were made for eachother. Quite awesome on your average day, unbeatable when on form.

Phenom · October 30, 2011

Summerskin said:
Didn't LCAB blag that Heitinga was off to Bayer Leverkusen in the January window?

Pity his "sources" were non-existent.

Thats very harsh mate, LCAB was always spot on.

Mark Pembridge · October 30, 2011

MikelsGoat said:
Heitinga is gash, he can pass a ball and he can throw in the odd strong tackle, but hes not a good CB in general, hes fairly poor IMO.

laughable statement that mate.

Silas · October 30, 2011

It will take a good few more games before Heitinga has made near the mistakes Jags has this season.

AussieBlue · October 30, 2011

How many clean sheets have we kept this season? One. And in that game we conceded 2 penalties. The CB pairing hasn't been up to scratch this season, Heitinga deserves a run of starts.

sw blue · October 30, 2011

Silas said:
That we looked much better bringing the ball out of defence with Heitinga at the back yesterday. When you looked at Jags and Heitinga, Johnny was always looking for the pass whereas Jags was more often looking for the hoof. There has to be a case for him starting more games as he improves how we play, but the problem is Distin is our best defender at the moment and Jags never gets dropped. Where does this leave us?

Three at the back. Coleman & Baines as ovelapping fullbacks. Fellaini and Rodwell spreading the play. Ozzie buzzing between the left & right hand side giving support to the wingbacks. Up top, Saha playing off Vellios.

Cahill, Drenthe & Barkley providing various attaking support from the bench when needed.

It'll never happen, but would be interesting to see if it worked...

toffeetower · October 30, 2011

sw blue said:
Three at the back. Coleman & Baines as ovelapping fullbacks. Fellaini and Rodwell spreading the play. Ozzie buzzing between the left & right hand side giving support to the wingbacks. Up top, Saha playing off Vellios.

Cahill, Drenthe & Barkley providing various attaking support from the bench when needed.

It'll never happen, but would be interesting to see if it worked...

Our squad at the moment is screaming out for this.

It just won't happen though.

ODM · October 31, 2011

It's baffling the opinions of some thrown out here, but I guess it's pretty much down to personal taste. I think Bily did ok/good vs Chelsea but as per usual he gets caught out every single time when he doesn't have lots of time to spare. This tempo isn't suited to him, and I would think it'd be apparent for most people. But again, it's my opinion.

I wouldn't think you could disregard the fact that we pretty much dominated United at saturday, granted they fielded a pretty weak team, but I think we outplayed them in most positions and should have got at least a point, 3 to be fair. But one thing is not working, and that's basically been the defensive pairing (ok, we're certainly not firing on all cylinders up top either but we're conceding a lot more than usual). Heitinga hasn't really been given much of a run in, but rust was apparent vs Chelsea. Picking up players in the penalty area seems to be a bit of a problem lately, I've seen Baines leave off at least at two major occassions, Jags has made a fair few amount of mistakes in several parts of the field.

But yesterday we outplayed United, who scored from their one real chance. To me it seems like a big part of this was our ability to retain possession, and we controlled the ball for longer periods of time. A small part of me whispers that this is down to us, for once, not succumbing to the general hoof-ball that plagues us since Peanuts and Arteta were in good form and took the ball up their themselves.
Don't read this as a nostalgic Arteta/Pienaar love-fest though, I think the Arteta deal was a good one for us. And Pienaar pretty much had his head up his/'Arry's ass long before january.
Without a quality playmaker though, we're hard pressed to keep our misplaced passes to a minimum. This is where Heitinga comes in, and sadly maybe, and Jagielka has to be rested..