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[Albion] Matt Clarke
- Thread starter redoubtable seagull
- Start date
HastingsSeagull
Well-known member
Tough choices like this will have to be made about a lot of promising young players every season now. It really is first world problems though!
I'd compare him to being the Christian Walton of the promising defenders. The reliable slightly older one with a lower ceiling rather than the Sanchez or McGill who would probably be Ostigard and Roberts in the analogy.
I'd compare him to being the Christian Walton of the promising defenders. The reliable slightly older one with a lower ceiling rather than the Sanchez or McGill who would probably be Ostigard and Roberts in the analogy.
schmunk
Why oh why oh why?
Roberts is still only 19 - he has another 3 seasons as an 'under 21' player who doesn't need to be named within our 25-man squad.
Struggle to see him as a central defender in the Premier League. 175 cm (or in English: too few sticks and stones) is just not enough to make it as a CB in England. Needs to be converted into a left back or something.
Machiavelli
Well-known member
Would work in a back three though, wouldn't he?
Maybe. I struggle to remember any successful PL central defender below 180cm.
Maybe. But not yet - two or three years down the line could be a different story if he does well on loan at a higher level than he's been at so far. Not impossible for him to have grown a couple of inches by then too.
Curious Orange
Punxsatawney Phil
Steve Potts at West Ham - he is 5' 7".
Daniel Passarella 5 foot 8 (an inch shorter than Roberts) did OK. Central defender and captain of Argentina's WC winning 1978 side!
Cowfold Seagull
Fan of the 17 bus
Things were rather different back in the 1970's and 80's though, besides Passarella didn't play in the Premier League.
Loads of world class players have never played in the PL (or in division 1 before football was invented). Still world class though - judging them on whether they ever played in the English top flight isn't really a good guide! People are generally a little taller than 50 years ago, but even then most CBs were 6 foot and over.
(Plus in 1978 English first division players weren't good enough to even get to the WC, let alone win it! Passarella would have got into most English teams at that time).
- Nov 11, 2009
- 12,273
Ive got a mate whose a Derby STH and he pretty much confers what our resident Derby Supporter says, good enough championship defender, not quick and has been caught out on occasions and not good enough for the PL??
I've mentioned him before but Baresi, arguably the best CB of all time, is "only" 1.76m. If don't think he'd have shone in a PL team, frankly, you're an idiot
Why on earth would I think he wouldn't have shone in the first division, and in his later years in the PL? I said Passarella would succeed there, so why would I think Baresi wouldn't? The second part of your answer just doesn't make sense!
Matt Clarke = latter day Geoff Pitcher - who is probably still rumbling around on loan out there somewhere
A bit harsh.
I was agreeing with you!!!
There are a few people on here who were claiming that no CB under 1.80 could hack it in the PL - you may not have said it, but others did
AZ Gull
@SeagullsAcademy @seagullsacademy.bsky.social
Unfortunately, wikipedia is a bit "misleading" here. While Pitcher was at Albion (3 full seasons, from 2001-02 to 2003-04) he had the following loan spells.
2001-02: 3-month loan spell at Woking
2002-03: 1-month loan spell at Dagenham & Redbridge;
2003-04: 1-month loan spell at Stevenage Borough; 1-month loan spell at Woking; 1-month loan spell at Barnet; 1-month loan spell at Havant & Waterlooville; 2-month loan spell at Farnborough Town
I can see where THPP is coming from!
OK - I'll accept that you were calling them idiots then!
Clarke is young, still, right? Pitcher had no career at all - his 10 games with us in Division 4 were his pinnacle, after a few games at Watford over 2 seasonsa few years earlier. Far cry from player of the season at Derby in division 2, I would have thought
AZ Gull
@SeagullsAcademy @seagullsacademy.bsky.social
Clarke is young, still, right? Pitcher had no career at all - his 10 games with us in Division 4 were his pinnacle, after a few games at Watford over 2 seasonsa few years earlier. Far cry from player of the season at Derby in division 2, I would have thought
I took THPP's comment as drawing an analogy to Pitcher, who also spent most of his career at Albion out on loan - nothing more, nothing less.
I certainly wouldn't compare Clarke the player to Pitcher the player.