Liam Ridehalgh

Explain how in terms of fouls per match, Ridehalgh was better than Halliday - if LB is such a weak spot.

You might have considered as "clearly our weakest area" plenty disagree.

Let's not pretend that the defence were at fault for the failure. If you concede less than a goal a game, you should be going up. They did their job, more or less, as good as any defence. It would be madness to have got rid of him.

 

You seem to be obsessed with that statistic. I personally couldn't care less how many fouls he gives away as there are more accurate criteria to judge a fullback on. Interceptions, tackle success rate, passing accuracy, chance creation, assists, cross completion, dribbles completed just to name a few. How does he rank in these areas?

And you're right defence is not where we fell down, attack is. And as a modern day fullback he is part of that and didn't contribute anywhere near enough in that department nor never looked like doing so.

 

Yes Jimmy but our team was set up in a way that helped the back line and had us relying on one players scoring the majority of goals.
Yes let's hope the further additions actually make improvements to the squad.

 

Top 50 out of more than 350 for tackles per match. So basically, he tackles and doesn't give fouls away. Again, better than Halliday - who by the way I think is excellent.

18th for crosses per match.

50th for long balls per match

46th for average passes per match

No idea about dribbles, but very few full backs get to dribble a meaningful number of times in today's L2.

Seems a decent L2 full back and as good as Halliday - who strangely you don't think is a weakness and who has definitely been caught out more this season (mainly, because he had poor defensive cover, when he went forward).

Frankly, I'm happy if these two play all next season.

 

Totally agree, Rides has proved to be steady and clearly Hughes rates him. Yes he has been caught out a couple of times but so have many of our players this season. Lewis doesn't have a bad word said against him by our fans, but he has been prone to a few clangers. Happens to the best of them

 

There is where we disagree re LB

 

Yes Jimmy but our team was set up in a way that helped the back line and had us relying on one players scoring the majority of goals.
Yes let's hope the further additions actually make improvements to the squad.

The "team" did the defensive job at the expense of our offensive play.

 

That's statistically not true. The Top 3 were more or less equally as 'defensive' and got automatic.

Mansfield, were easily the most attacking and didn't get in the Top 7.

We saw what happened when we went out on full attack, a 3-2 defeat at Crewe which involved eight shots on target. It was easily our most reckless performance of the season.

Defensive pragmatism, wins in L2, which is why Carlisle are now in L1.

Better chances need to be created and players taking these chances in a better / more ruthless manner, (i.e. we could have been 3-0 against Carlisle in the first half) we do not need some kind of new 'attack at all costs' mindset.

 

So the stats you've quoted show that he's bang average. Right, so why can't we do better than bang average?

 

Top 50 out of 350 is not "bang average". Presumably, you want a new RB as well - but strangely you think Halliday, who has slightly worse overall stats than Ridehalgh, is OK.

Both are very good L2 fullbacks and it would be far more sensible to spend the money on other essential areas, CB (if we're playing three), CM and a striker.

 

Stats can be misleading and twisted to suit an agenda. If the stats you're looking at say that Ridehalgh is even on a par with Haliday let alone better than him then there's no point discussing this anymore. Halliday is head and shoulders above Ridehalgh in every department.

 

You're right stats are misleading. In the two key games away at Crewe and away at Carlisle, Halliday was shocking.

Ridehalgh was consistent 7/10 every week.

They've both had decent seasons, overall, and are absolutely fine for where we are.

Halliday was absolutely woeful at Carlisle. Literally couldn't control the ball and pass it 5 yards, yet you've decided Ridehalgh is the weaker one.

At the end of the day, this back 5 conceded 19 goals from open play in 46 league games.

 

As this sites self-declared expert on full backs I can confirm that Ridehalgh is indeed a better defender than Halliday , and that's not knocking Halliday

 

He’s not my god what a comment

 

Nope. That might have been the case earlier in the season. But we had settled in a 4231 formation, with Gilliead and Smallwood as DMs and Chapman, Walker and Banks playing behind Cook. We were winning games with that formation and lineup and really starting to look like the autos were on the cards. Then Chapman got injured and it all went to pot. MH tried other options on the left but all were hopeless, so he he switched back to the diamond out of necessity. The loss of an adequate deputy on the left was a much bigger problem than Ridehalgh at left back. It basically cost us auto promotion.

 

As many have said happy with this, yes he's no Roberto Carlos or anything like but he's a steady head and no doubt offers the club great value for money to cover Lb without breaking the bank. He seemed to take a fair bit of unnecessary stick on here last season for some reason, but I think not having a proper left sided player in front of him left him too exposed. If we play a back 4 in certain games or switch to a 4 mid game and we're in an old school position of wanting our fullbacks to just defend then he's perfectly sound.

 

Considering he had no-one decent in front of him during the time he was available, I thought he was decent enough. Needs a settled partner down the left to build a trusting relationship. One where he can overlap and not be left exposed if the attack breaks down.

 

At the end of the day, this back 5 conceded 19 goals from open play in 46 league games.[/QUOTE]
The "team" conceded those goals from open play. The fact other players and the team was set up to prevent goals hides the the fact the actual players who played in the defensive roles were lacking at times. This also meant it cost the team offensively at times and is shown in the fact that besides Cook no other player got near double figures when it came to goals. You would expect the defenders to stand out when it came to set plays to prevent goals -- the record was not very good. Add to that the amount they assisted, scored from free kicks and corners where they were found wanting.

 

How many silly penalties did Ridehalgh concede ? None. How often were we torn apart down the opponents right ? None. Rides is a good steady LB and not a position we need to worry about at all.