Simon Francis

Some great positive comments on Francis. THATS what I call Real Fan Support; and if he happens to read them, can only boost him for some top performances between now and whenever its his last game for us. As with us all, age will bring things to a finish some time - but we've had a great ride with this bloke in a key role!
 
I might be making excuses for him but I didn't think the formation helped him at Huddersfield. Three at the back is fine but it does leave you exposed to balls in behind the wing back - centre backs get dragged out of position leaving big gaps. Happened against Arsenal too.

Hudds were killing us with this in the first half hence the change in formation at HT.

 
SlowDownDerek - 17/2/2018 14:39

I might be making excuses for him but I didn't think the formation helped him at Huddersfield. Three at the back is fine but it does leave you exposed to balls in behind the wing back - centre backs get dragged out of position leaving big gaps. Happened against Arsenal too.

Hudds were killing us with this in the first half hence the change in formation at HT.
Click to expand...


Having Weeman at right back didn’t help him either ( no criticism of weeman). Franno always has to have one eye on getting across to two different positions for aerial duels.
 
Very tactical little article from Eddie. He knows just as well as any of us that Franno has been poor recently, and has been deservedly criticized. If this gets him to perform better, good job.
 
Having a natural defender in Smith back at RWB will help Franno compared with Fraser, as brilliant as Weeman is and as amazing as he was up at Chelsea. Franno right of a 3 with Smith as RWB will see us through to the summer, just please Eddie, please sign one or two right sided defenders.
 
A former RB who now plays CB ought to be ideal to play right side of a back 3. With his instincts as a RB he should anticipate danger in that area of the pitch much quicker than any of our natural CB's.

I don't really buy the excuse of playing behind Fraser either. If WeeMan is further up the pitch like a winger rather than wing back, it should be a simple shift for Franno to cover as a RB, Daniels drop into the LB position and have the other 2 defenders as centre backs. Its just a temporary adjustment to a back 4.
 
I am also in that camp, for all the reasons mentioned. If we lose that one 2-1 and have a couple of chances in the last few minutes (which seemed likely with the attacking offense we had out there), I think we go away relatively satisfied with the effort.
 
Agreed... Ive given him stick of late, but today was his best game for a while... All the lads had good games today... Never a 4-1 game...

 
Think he should have been dropped a few times this season but he was solid last week and I don't really recall any major error during the game, aside from the free kick that he passed short to Lewis ahead of their third goal. Son had stood two yards away to stop him launching it, he really should have just waited and got Son moved back. But aside from that, very good today.
 
I think it was definitely not a 4-1 game more like 6-1 if it went on any longer, yet it could have been 3-1 to us if we didn't allow them to take charge in our fortress for 60 minutes of the game! This why players like Arter make a differerence. Rose and Wanythingyama went from defence to attack like they were ice hockey players.
 
I think it was bad judgment to play the free kick quickly to Cook for their third. Especially as he was last man but other than that he was solid. Although I want to see their first back as some how Ali was able to score
 
Brilliant again today, despite some twarts claiming he's past it.

Even "give up Francis" man behind had nothing to moan about, or perhaps wasn't there today :)
 
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