Gael Clichy - 2016/17 performances

[Hungarian blue]

Love how this thread gets bumped after we lose, acting like the whole thing has been his fault, but anytime he does brilliantly there are like 3 or 4 posts praising him, just because we won comfortably, thus there are bigger stars to praise. He shutdown Zaha when needed, did a nice defensive contribution everytime he was called into action and generally provided some nice positional play stuff.

 

[caseball]

He's actually a very accomplished footballer, technically very good. He lacks a bit physically in strength and recovery. He's not the first like that and he won't be the last. There's a lot of players less good but stronger and quicker.

 

[domalino]

Love how this thread gets bumped after we lose, acting like the whole thing has been his fault, but anytime he does brilliantly there are like 3 or 4 posts praising him, just because we won comfortably, thus there are bigger stars to praise. He shutdown Zaha when needed, did a nice defensive contribution everytime he was called into action and generally provided some nice positional play stuff.

Why wouldn't it be like that?

He had a fine game. Palace attacked very little and the vast majority was down the right hand side because of the gap naturally formed when Fernandinho tucked in. Clichy did reasonably well apart from when Palace had their best chance of the match, Benteke's header off a cross from our left.

He was not bad, and he wasn't great...he had an unremarkable game so no one is particularly interested in discussing the performance compared to those who had a great game. There's nothing unusual or unfair about that.

 

[Hungarian blue]

Why wouldn't it be like that?

In isolation, yes, you're right, nothing interesting about that, but still you get the feeling that he is about to be made a scapegoat whenever we can't make a result and he plays a role in it too (albeit sometimes a very unusal, like against Boro).

When in fact, if you look at the bigger picture, where he was making a clear progress in the way we tried to play and I'm quite sure Pep was satisfied the way he responded this calendar year, and take into account that there really isn't a plethora of left backs in the market at the moment, it only makes sense to higlight that he isn't actually the worst option out there as it has been shown these past months.

So, while it's not conclusive and I don't intend to spoonefed at all, I could really warm to the idea of offering a 1 year extension towards him. Actually, it sort of makes more sense than giving this option to Navas (given there's no Maffeo-like option on the left as it's obvious that we are about to sign a first-choice LB and RB too).

 

[RayCTID]

We still need Clichy for 3 more games.

 

[uwe rosler 28]

Another confidence player a player worth keeping for games against the lower teams or anyone at home.

 

[BigOscar]

Another confidence player a player worth keeping for games against the lower teams or anyone at home.

Fuck that, get rid and throw a party. He's not a confidence player, he's just a very very average player, at best.

 

[decmancity]

Doesn't contribute enough to the team to warrant his place in the team or earn a new contract. He did play well against Palace and he has been a good signing for us on the whole but his lack of end product and ability to contribute in any phase of the game will be his downfall. At least with Kolarov he can score goals, fairly accurate with freekicks and can deliver great crosses.

 

[Rolee]

Doesn't contribute enough to the team to warrant his place in the team or earn a new contract. He did play well against Palace and he has been a good signing for us on the whole but his lack of end product and ability to contribute in any phase of the game will be his downfall. At least with Kolarov he can score goals, fairly accurate with freekicks and can deliver great crosses.

Yep, shame Kolarov never had the engine or pace to get up and down like Clichy did. A hybrid of the two would've made the ideal attacking full back.

 

[BigOscar]

Yep, shame Kolarov never had the engine or pace to get up and down like Clichy did. A hybrid of the two would've made the ideal attacking full back.

It really wouldn't, it would just be a moderately fast player who can cross it really hard