Danny Rose

Both are young full backs who should theoretically get better defensively in the next couple of years. My mate and I were talking the other day: at what point did full backs have to learn to attack before defending? Clearly not the finished article at the moment but there's still potential for improvement

One of my pet hates in Football is fans that say the following about full-backs:

''He's good going forward but poor at the back.''

More often than not a load of tosh and one of the biggest cliche's in modern Football.

My mate and I were talking the other day: at what point did full backs have to learn to attack before defending?

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Lionel, I see your point re fullbacks in general. It's just such an important part of the game now so I'm sure it is taught equally. Probably just the step up from youth football to first team is so cavernous that their defensive weaknesses are laid bare.

With our two though there is a far simpler answer - neither started off as a defender. Walker was a centre-forward and Rose an attacking mid then a winger.

Our next 10 games are

Tromso (H)
Cardiff (A)
Villa (A)
Chelsea (H)
Anzhi (A)
West Ham (H)
Villa (A)
Sheriff (A)
Hull (H)
Everton (A)

Only games against Chelsea and Everton worry me,

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''He's good going forward but poor at the back.''

More often than not a load of tosh and one of the biggest cliche's in modern Football.
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In some cases it's true though, other times you're only as good as the protection your getting/style of play. For example many people are raving about alaba being the best LB in the world, but heynckes had drilled it into ribery that he had to track back and help cover him, therefore we rarely saw him left one-on-one last season

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Lion-el

I agree. I do think Alaba is the best LB in the world, though. Amazing talent for such a young age. Plays in Midfield for Austria as well.

15 minutes ago



My mate and I were talking the other day: at what point did full backs have to learn to attack before defending?

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Probably when we changed from 2-3-5 to 4-4-whatever.

Lion-el

I agree. I do think Alaba is the best LB in the world, though. Amazing talent for such a young age. Plays in Midfield for Austria as well.
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He might well be but sometimes when you're not exposed to a direct threat due to the tactics the team plays it can create the impression we have of full backs. This isn't a slight on him, just that if you look at the open style of barca where teams know they can exploit barca on the wings with quick counters we all say "alves and alba can't defend". I still need to see ashley cole vs ronaldo one more time before cole retires though, always a great battle