Karim Rekik..

[Jumanji]

No doubt in my mind that Rekik could be a great player. It will be interesting to see if he will win the left CB spot from Nastasic in the future.

 

[Raggi01]

No doubt in my mind that Rekik could be a great player. It will be interesting to see if he will win the left CB spot from Nastasic in the future.

Imo we should make him a right sided cb and pair him with nastasic for the future

 

[Benarbia]

Disgusted the amount of times the senior players ignored him out on the wing. Very composed debut

 

[Blue Elmo]

Couldn't fault the kid, he had a very very sound debut. Looks promising for the future. I'd like to see him get a chance at centre half though, but with Nasty playing like he is, it'd be tough for him.

 

[Forzacitizens]

Watched him a lot of times in the EDS, knew he was going to make it.

 

[Nixon_The_Bike_Thief]

Do you not think it could be a reluctance to go wide in general rather than just not passing to Rekik? If we put it in we have 2 very small strikers in the middle who are unlikely to win anything in the air.

You don't have to cross the ball just because you have used the width, this spread is used to stretch the opposition back four and create the gaps that the Tevez's, Agüero's and Silva's need in the middle. When play developed down the right Rekik did a good job of occupying a back space that restricted the Reading right back from tucking in too centrally and flooding the centre. This is also the case when we play the ball back and across the defence, attempting to draw opposition on and create the gaps in behind. Unfortunately some teams will play with a level of fear (or discipline in the odd case) that they concede all possession and stick to a very rigid setup that includes dropping attackers into midfield roles and sitting the midfield on the toes of the back four. All IMHO of course.

 

[Blue Mooner]

It's far too simplistic to think that simply by having wingers it will make it easier to break teams set up like this down.

Reading you could see worked incredibly hard and their wide men were coming so far back that they effectively became full backs and the full backs tucked in which congested the middle.

I thought we got in behind a number of times but failed with the final ball or shot, had we got the goal the game would have opened up, we didn't, hence it became a game of attrition.

The good thing is we still won the game, but we have to become more clinical when chances/openings present themselves. This is where the rags are better than us IMO.

As for Rekik, he did well, but you could tell that left back was not his natural position but under the circumstances he did a good job for the team.

 

[Marvin]

Disgusted the amount of times the senior players ignored him out on the wing. Very composed debut

You'd have looked assured playing against Reading

But he did look very comfortable on the ball, and was up against their best player Jimmy Kebbe

 

[kunaguero10]

it doesn't matter that nastasic is only 19 and playing so well - football is a SQUAD game

to have these 2 in our set of defenders for the next few years will be brilliant - both classy footballers, pace, power, versatility

add zab, richards, vinnie and clichy and you realise we have a good set of defenders for the next few seasons

 

[Kompany is King]

Very assured performance from the 18 year old Dutchman.

I very much like his composure on the ball and feel this guy will prove to be a top player.