Ready for the Tuesday's deadline day?

Thats quite a big thing to miss someone from though. My main issue with losing Samba is I don't rate any of our other centre halves apart from Givet.

I think both Dann and Hanley play better next to Givet than Samba. I have hopes that Hanley can fulfil his potential and become a top defender for us.

Samba is in my opinion an excellent defender. Put Vidic next to our other defenders and in front of our midfield and watch him struggle badly week in, week out.

However he is asked to do way too much at the Rovers and in so doing he loses focus on his primary role, which is to defend our goal. Trawling up field for every corner and free-kick as our primary target, whilst being the king-pin for every cross that comes into our box must be hugely tiring.

It would be interesting to see the big man at a much better club / team than ours, in terms of how he progresses as a defender with most of the play in the oppositions penalty box, instead of in his own areas constantly.

Along with every long throw and also captaining the team. The guy is a colossus, I think there's an element of trying to convince ourselves he won't be missed in this thread just because that makes it easier to deal with losing him.

I really can't fathom where you get that Dann and Hanley are better partners for Givet SKA. Whats that based on? Fulham at home and Everton away, 2 of the easiest games around the way those 2 are playing at the moment?

I wasn't speaking through stats or facts but merely through opinion. From what I've seen of our defence this season I feel every single defence we have had has worked better when Givet has been partnering at centre back.

I'm sorry I don't have hundreds of different little stats to back up my opinion, though.

Well I agree Givet is a class centre half and the return of Olsson is a double bonus because now he can play there. But I can't remember Samba and Givet playing together at the back this season so not sure how can you compare that partnership to Givet/Dann or Givet/Hanley to begin with.

Because it's not about Samba partnering Givet. My point is that Dann and Hanley have both performed better when partnered by Givet than when they have been partnered by Samba.
I know it doesn't have much validity as the players have played against teams vastly differing in ability but I feel that Givet adds a much more solid base to our defence that would at least partly fill the void left by Samba's departure.

Ah right, sorry got the wrong end of the stick with your original point. Well you could be right, although I think only time will tell as Givet's not had a decent stint in the position since coming to the club. He'll do well to match Samba though in my eyes. Of course no centre half is gonna look particularly good until Kean sorts out our ability to defend as a team.

QPR have already signed Onahouha, Taiwo and Diakate. Two defenders and a defensive midfielder hopefully that means we keep the sulker and he plays like a legend til end of season.

Well I agree Givet is a class centre half and the return of Olsson is a double bonus because he can play there.
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It is a double bonus we are signing his twin brother Marcus