Eric Garcia - 2019/20 Performances

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nice to see that he played, hope he's ok. Probably misses Burnley with concussion protocol but hopefully he gets to partner Eric for the rest of the season. 15 points clear of 5th if we get our ban overturned so just blood a few guys with the 5 subs now.
Ota was being saved for the Burnley game, anyway, but hope he bounces back quickly.
 
He’s 19 and try and be honest rather than just defend the club for once.

IF we lose him through lack of game time then it will be disastrous. He’s the real deal and I’ve been saying so for a long time. He’s already a better player Ota/Stones are.
He certainly has a better ground game than either of them, but lacks some other attributes.

If anything, I think his size (height) is not an issue with good coaching (body position, improving his jumping), but his speed may be a greater issue...until he learns to create the best possible starting position for himself. This was seen, thankfully to no avail, when allowing Nkeith(?) to cut across him, due to timing. That said, he is an excellent, ball-playing, 19 year old center back, who may well have played himself into the team for the long run.

With Laporte being a definite fixture and Fernandinho having only one more year left, the right sided position is his for the taking. Now, the question is can he play left sided to give Laporte a rest and who will the two partners be? Ota won’t be here next season, IMHO, so is Stones considered one of the four, or do we need two center halves for next season, or one next season and a Ferna replacement in ‘22?

Given “COVID pricing,” now might be the absolute perfect time to buy the best young right sided CH we can in this window, if Garcia can play on the left as a Laporte back-up, and possibly even a decent left sided back up for Laporte, so Garcia can cement himself as a future right-sided CB.Also, in th back of my mind, one wonders if ‘22 could be the year for Harwood-Bellis to finally step up for good?!

While some think we have a serious deficit in the CB position, I believe we have two of the best CB prospects in British football, and the best footballing left-sided CB in world football. The only serious questions are:

- Who is the world class right CB we need to cement the XXXX & Laporte CB pairing for the next few season as Garcia develops? Would a 28-30 yr old be sufficient, or do we stay young?
- Has Pep lost faith with Stones, either due to footballing issues or off-field/professionalism issues?
- Who is the high-quality back-up for Laporte, and is there a current squad player who can fill that gap, albeit not at the same level?

Need a new, young LW and a big, strong, ball-playing box to box midfielder who can operate across the field (L, C, R) as needed. He doesn’t need to be a world-class, walk into his National team-type player, just a serious, quality player who can fill in the gaps that come from injury. We could do worse that bringing Luiz back on the cheap when Villa go down.
 
What a performance! Hope he’s ok.

Defended really well and some of his one touch passing was excellent. Quick balls deep into midfield. While he got criticized for that foul that was waved off, I thought it was smart play. Letting the attacker go creates a dangerous situation, much more so than a free kick from that position, then there’s the odd chance it’s just waved away like it was. Garcia also made some important interceptions.

Eric is already better than both Otamendi and Stones. There’s all this talk about Stones being a ball playing CB but is he one? Most of the times he fakes left, fakes right and passes to Rodri right next to him. He’s just slowing us down. While Garcia is usually getting rid of the ball with his first touch and that’s what we need. Otamendi is just past it, lack of pace and dives in all the time.
 
I thought he was very good less the very obvious foul in the first half which the ref ignored

As soon as I saw the incident, I thought it was an experience issue. Ederson comes for the ball, get out the way - if he’d have played more(as he should have) maybe this was avoidable, maybe

But interesting that Tyler said in the first half there was a gap right down the middle. Maybe that’s why, it’s the keepers’ area?

Fingers crossed he’s ok
I did wonder wether the incident was down to a lack of experience. He didn’t seem to know what Eddy was doing and when he was hit there was no bracing just before. His body positioning was pretty passive. Hope the lad is ok, it was a hell of a hit.
Thought he looked good as he has in the past. Too early to say if he is good enough though. Hopefully he will get decent game time against a variety of opponents.
 
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