Birchall is huge value add to the squad dread... Maybe not your kind of player but when he's on the field our level of energy and intensity is higher and better. He's an unsung work horse whose efforts can easily go unnoticed...He covers a tremendous amount of ground and he's one of the few players with the grit needed in the int'l game- last night he was tireless...and made some fearless crucial recoveries at the back- (one that first comes to mind is the saving defensive lunge where he risked his body to force the attacker to head wide under pressure)....
Jagdeo has a different set of gifts perphaps, but Kendall is not better than Birchall dread..absolutely not.
Last night on at least three times Birchall cover both Yorke and Daniel. Tracking down dem man way on the other side of the midfield, tackling and winning the ball.
Am I the ONLY one who saw that it was Birchall who tackled the Mexican and toe-poke the ball for Tinto to score? You need BOTH piano MOVERs as well as Piano PLAYERS for a concert... Birchall is to T&T what Makelele was to Chelsea, the man who does the dirty work to free up the creative players to do their job... Real Madrid didn't see Maka's value either...UNTIL he left
I agree, but you can't make a straight comparison though because Birchall isn't in Makalele's class- Maka doesn't lose the ball and has impeccable passing, but yes, Birchall should play the exact same clean up defensive mid role as Makalele for TnT, that's crucial for us, but he still has alot to improve on though. I feel with the toughness Birchall in a strict defensive mid role would bring, we would be more comfortable straight replacing Yorke with Hyland- who I think SHOULD BE ON THE FIELD.
Hyland and Tinto are 2 of top level youths, and I feel Keon Daniel would be in there with them if he was played in central midfield. Look at Iniesta's performance on the wing against Chelsea in the CL semis vs his performance in central midfield vs Man Utd in the finals- he performed respectably vs Chelsea- but against ManU he was UNPLAYABLE, and looked like a superhuman footballer. That shows how much of a player's ability can be hidden by playing them out of position. I have a good feeling Keon Daniel will be great in attacking midfield.
Another thing too- KEON DANIEL SHOULD BE THE DESIGNATED FREEKICK TAKER IF HE'S ON THE FIELD. The man has proven himself to be the best freekick taker we have, and prob among the top 3 in our history- why the hell did Carlos(who is our best player for years now still) take that freekick around the Mexican pen area in the 2nd half- he pushed Keon away from the ball after he had lined it up, and proceeded to blast the ball into the far post of the imaginary goal next to the real one. I'm sure Keon would have at least gotten that on target. That is the same shit that caused the pen miss in EL Salvador- and why we only have 2 pts instead of 4.
Also- INCE HAS BEEN
BRILLIANT FOR US in the past few matches. He was the best player by far on the field in the Azteca- goal.com agrees with me too- he got a rating of 8, the highest any other player got was 6 I think(Tinto got 6, he would be rated higher if he got the ball more) Many top international nation don't even have a keeper of Ince's quality, when you look at some of the goals their keepers concede. We have some very good players to build on, and I'm sure that Latapy will maximize them and put out the best team that can win matches- based on the BIG improvement we've seen so far. I'm excited to see how the team will look in August, because he already has them playing so much better in the little time he's had all of them together.
I hope Jlloyd Samuel and Zamora are available for August- that would be great, especially Jlloyd.
Ince
Carlos Keyeno Jlloyd Avery
Birchall
Tinto Spann Keon Daniel Hyland
Stern John
Keon Daniel is the designated taker of
ALL set peices.