Mikhail Chigorin wrote:Ted Hughes wrote:blues2win wrote:I think that's a stretch Ted really. Where's the evidence he's such an outstanding centre back. He's quite short for that position; under 6 feet although I accept he does have a good jump on him. He is a nice guy but personally I don't think he's got a great football brain or positional sense. Bottom line though it seems it's Micah's decision to leave and I wish him well except in games against City.
Tbh I thought I'd already addressed that side of it by comparing the ridiculously short spell Micah got in his chosen position, at a time of crisis followed by upheaval at the club, then was kicked over to fullback. Compare that to the careers of Nastasic etc, who we have been repeatedly told require loads of time in order to become decent players. & we have to be fair & give them a chance.
They require many seasons playing in their chosen position alongside world class players but Micah is supposed to know the job by playing there two games per season.
How does that work ?
As tor being small, he would out jump & out strength & out sprint Nastasic & Rekik wearing a full suit of armour.
Just being relatively small doesn't automatically mean that you'd be useless in the air.
Delving back into the mists of time, in the late 60s and early 70s, Liverpool had a [utility] defender called Ian Ross who was only around 5'8" or 5'9" tall.
During a lengthy injury spell to one of their centre-backs (Tommy Smith), Ross filled in, in that position and all the so called pundits of the time predicted that Liverpool would struggle in the air because of his short stature (it was an era of especially sizeable centre-forwards such as Derek Dougan, Ron Davies, Wyn Davies, Bobby Gould and others of that ilk).
It was soon noted that Ross's timing and jumping ability were excellent and he soon put such aerial concerns to bed. He had a lengthy run in the first team, so much so that the only way Tommy Smith could initially get back into the side was at right-back and this only followed an injury to Chris Lawler.
In this analogy, I suppose you could try to argue that "if you're good enough, you're big enough".
Contrary to the bollocks Carl came out with, one of the few players I've seen beat Richards in a straight heading contest is Tim Cahill, who isn't tall at all, at all. But he would also easily beat all of our other defenders as well.
