News

Early season review: The Defence

|

With the international break bringing our season to temporary halt, I thought I would go through our players and give a little review as to how I feel they are getting on so far. Today we will take a look at our back line and over the weekend we will look at our midfield and forwards. It’s safe to say that as a team we are struggling a bit nut certain games have produced some great individual performances and Berardi and Taylor certainly deserve to be picked out ahead of this defensive review…

Goalkeeper:

Marco Silvestri

Well. It’s much the same from Marco really isn’t it, we see the good that he can bring and almost in the same breath the absolute calamities that cost us so dearly. Bristol City was obviously the low point of our season, really. With Silvestri he can easily win us points, but we have seen more of the down side of Silvestri this season. He has no confidence in dealing with crosses, or commanding his area at all. For me, I think it’s time to either bring in Turnbull to take some pressure of Marco or he really has to pull his socks up and start to improve and show the potential he has. 5/10

Ross Turnbull

Very harsh on giving him an evaluation after only playing once this season, I would certainly like to see him get another chance in-goal.

Defence

Gaetano Berardi

For me, this guy goes from strength to strength. We all know the infamous start he made last season but he really kicked on when he got a chance in the team and is without a doubt one of the most reliable players we have now. You can tell he wants to play for the club and it does show in his performances, credit where credit is due, this was a great bit of business. 8/10

Scott Wootton

I’m still unsure as to where his position is, we have seen him at centre half, right back and holding midfield this season. I think we can all certainly agree he isn’t a holding midfielder! I though Wootton had a fairly solid game against MK Dons but I think it;s fair to say he’s a backup player at best and will only play when Berrardi is rested or the centre half’s are banned or injured. 6/10

Sol Bamba

Sol has had a solid start to this season and has been a rock at times, he is very solid and take away the slip against Middlesbrough and his first half performance against Wednesday and he’s done very well. It’s to have a leader back at the club who cares and can captain the team with a passion and lead by example. Definitely a key player for us. 7/10

Liam Cooper

Liam Cooper is showing a lot of development and maturity about his game this season. Still, can’t work out why he didn’t play against Middlesbrough, but that’s another story. If I had to pick up one negative about him this season then it would be his distribution, he seems to love the ling diagonal ball up to the top and we lose possession a lot through this but other than that he has been solid and I think he will go on and become a key member of the squad this season. 7/10

Giuseppe Bellusci

I think that Middlesbrough performance just flat-out sums this guy up. We can all see that he can play football and does have a decent pass but his defending is just pure school boy and in truth it was last season and has been again. The calamitous own goal at Boro just summed him up, rash and unaware of his surroundings. It’s time to get him out. 4/10

Charlie Taylor

For me, Charlie has been the player of the season so far. Really picked up on his attacking play this season, and that performance at MK Dons was just brilliant. It’s always nice to see one of the youth players come through and impress and you can tell how much it means to him to play as he doesn’t go into hiding during a game, is reliable in a battle and as we saw at MK Dons he has that ability to just grab a game by the scruff of the neck and take the team forward. Brilliant for me so far. 9/10

Check back for part two tomorrow!

Share this article