Wigan

[danperkins]

Steve Nicol was class, massively underrated !

[Lecter]

Shaggy when did i say Johnson was a **** player? He is a **** defender. And Hansen and Dixon know more about the defensive side of the game than you, i or anyone on this site put together would ever hope to know. Not all pundits are the enemy and not everything is a witch hunt or an agenda. Paranoid Ramblings. Johnson has proven to be not a good defender throughout his career, great going forward but horrendous positional sense and defensive awareness. Hope for our sake that this can improve or we just blew 17 million quid, also if he is considered great going forward he'd want to be working more on getting assists too and increasing productivity going forward. Nobosy is saying he is a **** player per say just that he is not a good defender.

I'd agree with this

Hansen & Dixon are interesting to listen to about defensive systems and players

Talk bollocks about much of the rest of the game mind

[Lecter]

Steve Nicol was class, massively underrated !

Hard as nails as well

[Shaggy]

And notoriously thick too

[danperkins]

Hard as nails as well

kind of a forgotten man IMO which is a real shame, superb player had everything. What we wouldn't give to have a player like him again.

[Mostar]

Back to Wigan thread, interesting stat we have not won back to back PL away games since we lost to them last year.

Great opportunity to break the cycle.

[Lecter]

And notoriously thick too

Yes Kenny took the mickey out of him mercilessly when he was younger

He took no **** / prisoners when he was older though

There was one season that he was injured I think it was late 80's (had a bad back I think) and he was out for quite awhile. Rumour goes that he was only injured for part of that the other part he was banned from Melwood for "chinning" a so called "hard man" for calling him a cripple as he hobbled past the training pitch on his way to a physio session

[Fierce]

It's hyperbole IMO. He's obviously no Maldini and he obviously has weaknesses, but it's blown way, way out of proportion. If he was as bad as some like to try and make out, Capello wouldn't touch him with a bargepole. Ask yourself how many goals Johnson's so-called wank defending has cost us - the answer is not very many. Not very many at all.

Do those two not go hand in hand?

Johnson is an attacking fullback. And because of this there are going to be times when he is upfield, the attack breaks down and he is caught out of position. If you play an attacking fullback it is a given he will be caught out occaisionally. This is where your DM should be filling in that space when needed (something Masch was very good at).

Either you get a defensive fullback and lose the attacking option (e.g. Arbeloa) or you play an attacking fullback who gets caught out defensively. You can have both.

For years we'd been complaining about our lack of threats from fullback. We then get an attacking fullback and he just gets complaints defensively. Fickle?

It seems a bit too easy to fall into the punditry trap where Johnson is concerned.
He is without question an 'offensive fullback', and because he isn't Steve Nicol or Ashley Cole then his defensive ability gets scrutinised.
But I don't think that he is anywhere near as bad as some have said on here.

That said, he can't be in 2 places at once, which is why Mascherano was so crucial to the way we play. Not just a defensive midfielder, but one with explosive pace (off the mark anyway) and a terrier like ability to close and cover

He could make up for Johnson's forays or defensive frailties because he was so quick to see and counter danger

[Neil Young]

It seems a bit too easy to fall into the punditry trap where Johnson is concerned.
He is without question an 'offensive fullback', and because he isn't Steve Nicol or Ashley Cole then his defensive ability gets scrutinised.
But I don't think that he is anywhere near as bad as some have said on here.

That said, he can't be in 2 places at once, which is why Mascherano was so crucial to the way we play. Not just a defensive midfielder, but one with explosive pace (off the mark anyway) and a terrier like ability to close and cover

He could make up for Johnson's forays or defensive frailties because he was so quick to see and counter danger

I agree with the rest of the post too.

[Shaggy]

[Craig_H]

Hes not a good defender, he a ****ing appalling defender

That's pure bull****. He's not an 'appalling' defender, an appalling defender doesnt get to be first choice for his country.

It's very easy for the most recent stuff to mask what's happened in the past. Johnson's been dire this season, i have no arguments with that.

But i'm not judging him on 10-15 games. I'm judging on what i've seen over his whole career, and he's generally a good defender. Not great, not world class defensively, but good. And going forward, he's one of the best in europe.

It's hyperbole IMO. He's obviously no Maldini and he obviously has weaknesses, but it's blown way, way out of proportion. If he was as bad as some like to try and make out, Capello wouldn't touch him with a bargepole. Ask yourself how many goals Johnson's so-called wank defending has cost us - the answer is not very many. Not very many at all.

Have to say i've always thought Johnson was dodgy defensively, was ****ing staggered when we paid £17mil for him.

He soon won me over but even when he was tearing it up down the right flank, he was still getting caught out far too frequently defensively and this season, he's just been in horrific form. Even the biggest Glen Johnson fan would have to admit that.

It's not that he's totally ****, obviously he's a great asset for Liverpool and England when he's at his best but he needs to get his head sorted and start focusing during matches.

Bits in bold are spot on. Nobody would try to claim he hasnt been in woeful form this season, but that's exactly it, form. And yes, i agree that he needs to sort his head and concentration.

[Craig_H]

Do those two not go hand in hand?

Johnson is an attacking fullback. And because of this there are going to be times when he is upfield, the attack breaks down and he is caught out of position. If you play an attacking fullback it is a given he will be caught out occaisionally. This is where your DM should be filling in that space when needed (something Masch was very good at).

Either you get a defensive fullback and lose the attacking option (e.g. Arbeloa) or you play an attacking fullback who gets caught out defensively. You can have both.

For years we'd been complaining about our lack of threats from fullback. We then get an attacking fullback and he just gets complaints defensively. Fickle?

Yes yes yes, one million percent yes Totally agree with every word here.

We always struggled to break teams down, struggled with width and creativity - and Johnson helped this. At the expense of the defensive side of things, yes. But as you say, what do people want?

You could probably count the number of fullbacks in the world who are great going forward and solid defensively, on one hand. Obvious example is Ashley Cole - how much would an Ashley Cole cost? If we could spare £30m for one of those, then great. But we obviously cant. The fact is, Johnson cost about HALF of what an Ashely Cole of the same age, would probably cost.

[Craig_H]

You need to get the balance right between defending and attacking but obviously his first priority should be to defend and more often than not he doesn't do that well.

Give me Arbeloa over Johnson any day, i wouldn't call him too defensive either, he got forward well too. I wasn't his biggest fan actually although looking back now, he was a solid player for us come to think of it.

I said at the time, that Johnson was overpriced, and that we let Arbeloa go too cheap and wrongly. I know he was running down his contract, but as i said at the time, i value a year's worth of Arbeloa higher than the £3m or whatever it was we got for him. I still wanted Johnson, albeit overpriced, but i'd have kept Arbeloa too.

For different games, you have different needs and the pair of them would've had us nicely covered in terms of an attacking fullback and a more solid, less expansive version.

[Craig_H]

Oh ****ing do one

I can barely remember last week nevermind last year

I think he has but without re-watching every game again I couldnt give specifics

The lad is an appalling defender

Which is exactly why you're on Johnson's back, because you only remember the recent stuff - and recently, he's been woefully out of form and dreadful.

[Craig_H]

I actually quite liked Arbeloa as an all round player and have said virtually that above

To me he wasnt brilliant at coming forward but he did a good enough job

Defensively he was far far superior to Johnson

To me it doesnt have to be all or nothing Steve Nicol was brilliant at doing both (probably the best I've seen at Liverpool and probably one of the most underrated British fullbacks ever), Babbel was also extremely good at doing both, Arbeloa had a nice balance also and I think Kelly will be able to do both

So you've been able to point to two examples of such players, in 20 years.

Perhaps they're not exactly ten a penny, but actually quite hard to find.