The Voice - Match preview #18: Crewe Alexandra vs Bradford City Saturday 7th December 2024 12:30pm

Non related to the point that I was replying to Jon . One goal conceded less by Notts County isn’t a benchmark to quote re Platt imho . They have by your definition had a stable defence , so again not a fair, nor reasonable comparison .

One could say based on the original comparison , we have the best attack in the division because Cook is the leading scorer .
ie it’s a cobblers statement .

 

And every other teams forums are filled with tales of woe regarding refs decisions and what could have been.
For all the points we could have won,every other team in the EFL can cite similar occasions when they’ve been “robbed”

Of course we’ve had a few iffy decisions but the same refs who make them for us are also making them for every other teams.
They don’t suddenly turn in to infallible automatons when they’ve ref the other 91 teams.


Refs make mistakes.
Not just for us.
For every team.

Just get on with doing the things that you can control.

 

I don't think you can judge defenders purely on team goals conceded anyway. There's too many variables including the other team members, playing style, strength of opposition faced so far etc, etc

 

Yepp better than ours, they’ve gone from the worst defence in England to a defence better than ours. That makes a huge difference starting from ground zero.

 

Disagree with Platt. He can pick a pass

 

Barrow and Notts fans agree with this statement and that he is a good player, I'm sure most if you gave them a realistic choice would pick Platt over Byrne. In fact, individually who would any of our fans pick ahead of Platt?

 

Marshall, Daley or Reid would walk into this team. Sadly wasted at wing back though.

 

Yeh 10 yards to his right. Anything further and it was out of bounds or to the opposition.

That said he was a solid defender. We needed better though. But ended up with worst

 

Some of our fanbase would pretend they'd pick Ash Taylor if he was still at the club.

 

If that’s your way of describing a complete unscientific comparison, that they have conceded one goal less than us against different opposition,at different venues with little defensive injuries ……wow, just wow.

 

Precisely Dave. It’s impossible to make a logical comparison.

 

Come on then Kev what’s your scientific comparison to say Platt is crap and what we have now is better?

 

That’s an odd way to back peddle. I didn’t say he was crap , if you go back a few comments I said he’s an average L2 defender…

To even suggest he’s a better defender just because NC have conceded one less goal in the league is rather simplistic and frankly silly .


Anyway please find the quote where I said today “ He’s crap” .

I expect I to contribute £20 to BBU if you can find it or YOU to contribute the same if you can’t.

Bet?

 

I’ve not back peddled anything Kev so no idea what point you’re trying to prove. You may not of said them exact words, but you constantly and I mean constantly when it comes to Platt call him average at best. Personally I think he’s well above that for league 2 and that’s from his time with us not just Notts. Notts fans rate him, Barrow fans rated him and expected him to move to league 1 and despite you not rating him plenty of City fans did and I bet plenty would have him over our current crop.

Notts fans rate need for science or whatever you want to go on about.

 

Just an eye test and an opinion for me and my opinion is that both Platt and Stubbs were better than Baldwin and Byrne and we've downgraded.

There's obviously no fact in that though and clearly others have a different opinion which is fine but it's a largely insignificant debate as history will show that none of them were good enough to play a major part in a Bradford City promotion.

 

That’s an opinion as opposed to stating one has a better defence than the other based on they conceded one less goal than us ….

 

What the hell are you on about, the need for science?

Yes I’ve called him average multiple times , I won’t change that opinion but never crap so you were not mindful of accepting my small change bet , in other words you made it up to try and support an opinion.

One goal conceded less , which you hadn’t even realised until it was pointed out. I won’t dare suggest you knew , thus omitted deliberately, before making the statement as it would make one look rather ?…

 

Christ is this centre back argument still dragging on? Personally I'd have liked to keep Platt, he was the archetypal steady Eddie. But he chose a better option. And defence ain't our problem this season, well not when Alexander decides to play players in their right positions. Probably least of our problems.

 

League two defenders are 100% horses for courses in my view. It completely depends on your system, there's been guys that look tragic in some setups and get promoted the next year in the other. That Piergianni lad a few seasons back, he (and a fair few others) looked hopeless playing for Oldham, relegated with a whimper and he was dropped for most the end of the campaign. Joins Stevenage and slots in the middle of a back 3, completely different man appears, gets in the EFL and PFA teams of the season for L2 and a promotion under his belt. It seems like Platt is a horse far more suited to the course at Notts. This season so far they have conceded 18 from 18 games with 6 clean sheets, compared to last season when they had conceded 31 from 18 games with 3 clean sheets. Their defence has vastly improved from this time last season. Obviously it's a unit and many factors work into a defence, but Platt seems to be doing his part.

Looking into the "who scored" database which the EFL use for their teams of the season and stats to see who is doing well. Jack Shepherd is statistically the 3rd best CB in L2 so far this season, he doesn't have any glaringly brilliant stat other than he on average blocks the second most crosses per game in the league. Everything else he is sort of top 10/15 in. Which shows how many one or two trick pony's are at this level which nowadays needs to change as defenders are asked to do far more.

For the players in the conversation, Stubbs is 6th ranked. Another who is just a steady all stats defender but he has the 2nd most interceptions in L2, 5th most clearances. Platt is 12th, another just top 10-20 in most stats but he has the most passes of any CB in L2, he averages 79.9 per game with the next best in the mid 60s per game, Citys most passes per game from defence is Shepherd with 48. Byrne is 34th ranked, the only top 20 stat he lines up in so far is that he commits the 17th most fouls on average for a CB per game and he losses on average 2.7 aerial duals per game with is 19th most in L2 and only 3 defends in the top 20 of that stat have lost more duals than they have won, in which Byrne is one of them. Diabate is 40th ranked, Baldwin and Kelly haven't played enough minutes for the main database. The main DB is for people who have played a certain amount of minutes so that guys who might play 2 games in 20 but give out some good stats don't spoil the soup.

 

Are there any stats for passes received? I just wondered if his fellow CBs received an average of 79.9 passes per game . Just for the record I'm not knocking Platt. I think he's a no nonsense defender and I wish we had kept him, but not for his spectacular range of passing.