Re: Demichelis out - six weeks
mancyman said:
maybe someone could explain something to me. i have seen in other threads that demi is right footed like vinny and is his natural back up. but then people say they would be good playing together. then again nasti and lescott are both left footed so we cannot play them together. confused yes i am.
It doesn't mean much at all. You can find myriad examples of successful right-footed centreback pairings.
It's just that righties tend to have more experience playing on both sides of central defense because left footed players are rare. Also because left footed players are rare (CBs in this case), they're often the first name for the left CB spot since youth, so they usually have less experience on the right. Again due to rarity is why you don't often see two top left footed CBs playing together, but there's no reason why they couldn't. The odds are against it...90 or so percent of your available purchase pool will be right footed.
The reason why I think Pellegrini has lost faith in the Lescott-Nasty partnership is not really so much because they're left footed but because Lescott shat himself on the ball (he was playing on the right) where he seemed to have think out his every pass, clearances, etc. I commented at the start of the match that I was suprised that Pellers didn't put Nasty on the right as Nasty would be more inclined to a position change as he is the more technical of the two. Was baffled when Pellers played them again with Lescott again on the right.
Before our title winning season, I always thought Vinny looked better on the left actually. When he played there with Kolo, there was just something about him I can't put my finger on. That observation dwindled away in my mind, but in the 2-0 loss to Bayern, Vinny again impressed on the left, and I remember formulating that thought once more.
EDIT: In fact, here is a game with two righties and look at how dominant Vince was on the left. This whole right/left footed thing doesn't convince me:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIWS5Wfi6c8[/youtube]