Javi Garcia

[Cobwebcat]

He's a good passer and can keep things ticking over when we have the ball.

The problem is clearly when we dont have the ball and Garcia is playing.

He is like an open door to our defence...he might as well just not be there. He watches players go past him and jogs after them with no belief he can make a difference. By the time he arrives the ball is sometimes already in our net.

It happens time and again. He can rescue a defeat from the jaws of victory and his negatives far outweigh his positives.

I thought my x-mas wish would be for a centre half but I think that can wait now. Desperately need to sell this guy and buy a proper DM. He has cost us and will continue to do so. When people say that he has had a good game because he has done nothing wrong you know he's not good enough. We need a DM that makes a positive difference to the team as a whole.<br /><br />-- Thu Dec 05, 2013 9:22 am --<br /><br />

I think we loaned out the wrong player when Gareth Barry went to Everton.

I can only think that was a wages issue. Barry is on the decline but still far better than Garcia.

 

[Cobwebcat]

Its no coincidence we fell apart from the minute he got on. Useless. Must have no dignity to sit on the bench and take a wage knowing how crap he's been for us. It just hasnt worked out for him here, he'd be best going back to Spain.

For all his faults, I don't think it's fair to blame the collective mini-collapse squarely on his shoulders. He was poor, again, when he came on but there were ten other players on the pitch who were also culpable.

The gulf between our strongest eleven and some of the back up players is an increasing worry though, and must surely be addressed in the next two transfer windows. It's why I've never bought into the suggestion that our squad is so much stronger than anyone else's, as it's patently not.

I know exactly what you mean but still disagree. I think our reserve team is average when they are all played together but we can play any three or even four of them with a starting line up and the team will still be very strong indeed.

I think we clearly have the best starting 11 and our squad is second only to Chelsea. The one area we suffer is that there is no top class back up in centre midfield. That one purchase would make such a difference to the squad.

 

[Thaksinssoldier]

Come now. What is Bluemoon if we can't have one to three scapegoats to place all our ills squarely upon?

Our back line lost its concentration. Period.

No, our midfield collapsed leaving our back line with too many options to defend.

Are you including Milner, Navas, Fernandinho and Yaya in the criticism, or just Garcia?

Navas and Kolarov were being marked out of the game by West Brom's tactics, so it's unfair to point at either players performance in this game. West Brom left their middle wide open for us, and we duly took advantage, hence Fernandinho, Yaya and Nasri having a field day. When we made our changes, all of this should have stayed in place, so for me this game was the easiest of all games this year to put Garcia or anyone else into the middle for the closing stages.
However he was awol, and this pulled everyone in the teams backline out of position for those closing minutes.

I'll criticise them all if they deserve it Ric, but to me it was painfully obvious what happened in those final minutes. I hate to harp on about De Jong(and I don't normally) but think how many times we could put him on to close out a game. This is effectively Garcia's role now, and he's miserable at it. I agree Rodwell didn't cover himself in glory in those final minutes either, but he's coming back from injury and only got 5 minutes to bed in. Garcia has no excuse on this game I'm afraid.

 

[Cobwebcat]

I'll criticise them all if they deserve it Ric, but to me it was painfully obvious what happened in those final minutes. I hate to harp on about De Jong(and I don't normally) but think how many times we could put him on to close out a game. This is effectively Garcia's role now, and he's miserable at it. I agree Rodwell didn't cover himself in glory in those final minutes either, but he's coming back from injury and only got 5 minutes to bed in. Garcia has no excuse on this game I'm afraid

So true.

 

[Happy Feet]

Just not good enough.

 

[aguero93:20]

he's great at taking the pressure off dzeko...

 

[Cobwebcat]

he's great at taking the pressure off dzeko...

He does but we won the league with Dzeko and Kolarov playing regularly so I dont have a problem with either.

If Garcia played regularly where would we finish?

 

[NQCitizen]

Zabaleta and Demichelis (twice) get embarrassingly beaten and it is Garcia's fault.

No wonder he's so popular within the squad, he's like a flak jacket.

 

[aguero93:20]

Zabaleta and Demichelis (twice) get embarrassingly beaten and it is Garcia's fault.

No wonder he's so popular within the squad, he's like a flak jacket.

it was Garcia's fault, the only job he has in his role is to protect our back 4 from the opposition midfield, when he goes missing, one of the defenders has to come out and close down the space, messing up our backline.
this is the problem here, we don't exactly ask much of him, and he doesn't do it.

 

[Thaksinssoldier]

Zabaleta and Demichelis (twice) get embarrassingly beaten and it is Garcia's fault.

No wonder he's so popular within the squad, he's like a flak jacket.

It's a team game, and his role in the team is causing the others all types of issues. It's the one position in the team that the back four shouldn't have to carry..it's his job to protect them, not cause them to be dragged all over the place to compensate for people skipping past him every time.