Last year we’d conceded 20 goals at this stage compared to 17 this year. Now the way some carry on about Batth you’d think it was 10 last season and about 35 this. I liked him, he was a good solid defender but stick to the facts, we haven’t become horrendously worse at the back without him. This player of the season thing is massively over egged too.
We are worse at the back with Onien than with Batth, anyone that can't see that shouldn't be watching football. That can't just be clarified by comparing goals conceded this year against last year though - its an absolutely ridiculous argument as there's other things that determine that too, like the different coach's philosophy, injuries, suspensions, opposition and the strength of them, other players progression and the overall strength of our team in each season etc etc etc.
And him being player of the year wasn't over egged either - he along with probably Amad were the clear choices. Batth probably was the pick because of his importance and leadership over the entire season.
It's as stupid as the argument that we never missed Ross Stewart or a striker because there wasn't a drop off of goals or that we aren't missing Amad as we're still scoring the same level of goals and creating.
In a division where small margins count its great that we have enough talent to overcome some situations, but too many fans are just looking at stats and not realising that each of these components would likely add a small percentage here and there, which quite possibly becomes the difference.
Even if moving Batth on because he maybe didn't have the pace or the ability on the ball was something that had been decided. Like with the Stewart/Simms injury last season and the collection of central defenders injured at the end of last season - we should have been more cautious about letting Batth go when we did. We had let Wright go and decided to go with Ballard who has maybe had contact injuries but is prone to long spells out, Onien who isn't a dominant central defender, Anderson who its been decided wasn't ready is out on loan, Alese is long term injured and then adding two 20 year olds with experience in the Australian league and the 2nd tier in the Dutch always meant it was a possibility with an injury or suspension that we'd be left as we are now and hence not really a clever decision for a side supposedly looking towards a top 6 finish.
Had we just kept Batth till January then hopefully we'd have had a bit of time for Seelt and Triantis to adjust and maybe get a few games here and there. Instead when they were required they had to be chucked in together which might do the more harm then good if we play someone better than Brum.
To be fair we were awful from set pieces last season
We weren't early on when we had Batth, Ballard, Stewart/Simms.
Again though as with early this season and mainly Ballard, we had mostly one man over 6ft for much of the season expected to be dominant in those areas.
