Was initially disappointed as I thought he was excellent last season and would have played a part this. Overall though as I said in another post I think the club have probably made the right call. Realistically there’s Ballard, 09, Alese, Steelt all ahead of him. He’s not going to get any better. Hume at a push can drop into CB so there is options.
You don't need multiple specialist players in every position, otherwise you'd have a squad of thousands! Most modern players are flexible. We've got absolutely loads of cover across the back between Alese, Huggins, Cirkin, Ballard, Onien, Seelt, Triantis, Hume, Pembele.
Three minutes on Saturday.
Maybe they don't think he's as good as what they've got?Three minutes on Saturday.
They shipped 6 in the previous game and still didn't change the back four.
You know that two of those who have played for us before are injured (one long term), two have never kicked a ball for us, (and one of those two is also injured) and another has just three minutes of league action, don't you?
Maybe he's not but after shipping six, I'd probably want to see, at the very least.
Maybe. But he's also shipped 6 and 5 himself in his time at Sunderland. Must be a reason he's not getting any chances.
Yeah, but funnily enough I'm not thinking about the next 5 minutes. I'm thinking about the rest of season(s) ahead. Which is exactly what our club are doing as well, evidently.
It's great to think ahead but ending last season with no fit, dedicated centre halves undoubtedly cost us promotion. He's certainly not one for the future but I'd have kept the lad until January, at the very least.
Oh, I don't think he's anywhere near as good as many on here do but I don't know any world in which he's not better than Gibson.
People to let go of the Luton 2nd leg. We had absolutely unprecedented injuries, and were playing a team that is about as height/set-piece focused as I've seen in the last 10 years.
I'm not arguing with any of that but the fact remains that we still have only two fit, experienced centre halves, one of whom is under 6'.
We should only ever have two defenders on the bench. One needs to be able to cover fullback ideally. That leaves one space for an outright centre half. In that case - and given the balance of probabilities - it serves SAFC better to give that spot to the one that we see as capable of stepping up to the next level. It's very hard on Batth, who was very good here. But a massive part of SAFCs current identity is that we are a club who will give chances to young players. It's the only reason why the likes of Clarke and Bellingham are willing to come here. We need to commit to that - even if it makes things a little precarious in the very short term.
And most of the issues we faced in that game came from set pieces, where our midfielders and non existent forwards were tiny as well. Bellingham, Hemir, etc have helped with that too.
We're allowed what - nine players on the bench, these days? Call me old fashioned but I'd like at least one of those to be an experienced defender.
It's a risk, but the bet is that our ceiling will grow if we give these young lads a chance. If we have Batth on the bench every week, then the likes of Seelt has very little chance of even a small hope of minutes. Even being on the bench doesn't guarantee them - as subs don't tend to be made in the defensive unit - but at least he's that bit closer. Time will tell if it ends up being a massive hindrance, or plays out like the time we got rid of Flanagan - ultimately a complete non-event with virtually no impact. That balance between too much cover and too little is a difficult one to strike.
Short term, though, would you rather see Batth or Seelt coming off the bench if we're 1-0 up with 40 to go and Ballard gets injured?
In terms of the long term development of the club? Seelt
I asked about short term, though.
How do we get them experience if we put them behind yet more centre half’s. You can’t have 6 centre half’s man. I’m sure people want us to have a squad of about 50 players
I'd rather give those minutes to Seelt. The plan is clearly one of signing players for succession, so if we don't go up and we sell Ballard at the end of the season, wouldn't it be more useful that Seelt has gotten some developmental game time and is then more ready to potentially step up and replace (or part replace) Ballard?
And yet last season, with five or six centre halves, we ended up with only one of them fit - and even that one was makeshift.
You're all still talking long term. I've said at least five times now that I'm talking about the here and now. If Ballard is injured on Wednesday, Seelt and Triantis don't look anywhere near ready and Alese and Pembele are injured.
