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cubeadvance

By cubeadvance
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carlito

carlito

Posted
Posted

Oh sure, personal preference is a worth something but the concept of being a left centre back or a right centre back just doesn't make sense for very obvious reasons - it certainly isn't a distinction relevant enough to mention with regards to our transfer requirements.

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The Fox

The Fox

Posted
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Remember when John Terry had to play on the right in World Cup 2010, and was suddenly completely terrible? And that's a guy who's right footed anyway. I honestly think it is a pretty big deal for a lot of defenders.

I certainly think we'd favour a left-footer to replace Vermaelen. Wenger has talked numerous times about how he likes a right-foot, left-foot balance in central defence, which makes sense. Successful counterpoints to that theory, like Terry-Cahill and Mertesacker-Koscielny, are relatively rare, and arguably only function at all because Terry/Koscielny are very capable with their weaker foot.

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carlito

carlito

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Posted

Yeah, it's really not a thing dude. You are in pretty bad shape if you can't defend on either side as a centreback. You might like one side a bit more but it's not like putting Zola in goal if you have to play on the other.

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The Fox

The Fox

Posted
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Yeah, it's really not a thing dude. You are in pretty bad shape if you can't defend on either side as a centreback. You might like one side a bit more but it's not like putting Zola in goal if you have to play on the other.

You don't see teams play two left-footed centre backs because left-footers are normally complete shit on their weaker foot, and one of them is going to have to show defenders onto that weaker foot and use it to tackle.

Obviously no one is suggesting it's like putting a striker in goal, but that doesn't mean it's an irrelevance.

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The Fox

The Fox

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Wenger: "I like to have a central defence where you have a right-footed player and a left-footed player"

Quite a few partnerships have two right footed players, but one of them needs to be good on their left side for it to work well. Terry, Lovren, Vidic, Koscielny, Hummels are all right-footed guys who play on the left side, but they are all very good on their weaker side. That's less common with left-footers because they have a tendency to be very one-footed; I can't think of a single CB pairing with two left-footed guys. An obvious example of that is Liverpool, whose best two CBs are left-footed so one of them ends up on the bench with Clown Shoes Skrtel playing on the right instead.

Some brah actually wrote an article on it. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1965610-analysing-the-importance-of-a-left-foot-right-balance-in-central-defence

Obviously good centre backs should be theoretically capable of playing on both sides, especially if they're right-footed. I'm sure John Terry could do it, but evidently he struggles with it when it's dropped on him at short notice with no time to get used to the positional change.

If the left-footed Vermaelen leaves, I would be absolutely amazed if we replaced him with a right-footed right back with literally zero experience of playing on the left side of the pitch.

(Do agree though that this isn't terribly important and frankly I'm even boring myself here so I'll leave it at that).

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carlito

carlito

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I was thinking about that on the tube back (I actually didn't know the centrebacks were lefties for sure) - it must the answer to a pub quiz question somewhere! They also had Mijhalovic (who didn't start so they must have been another left back - fucked if I can remember who as he never made the cut in PES), Solari, Cambiasso and Kily Gonzalez in midfield who I think were all lefties. Was Zanetti left footed?

I am pretty sure they could have made an pretty decent 11 of lefties - possibly with Solari having to do a job at right back.

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carlito

carlito

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It's just free money for the bookies isn't it?

Shorten odds on impossible transfer - see rumours fly based on those odds dropping - watch idiot punters back transfer based on those rumours - shorten odds based on liability of impossible transfer actually happening - rinse, repeat.

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