[moondog]

pique isn't a vidic, he's more like rio as in he's a footballing cntre half. the thing we lack is a player who who can come in for vidic who is agressive and that can go and attack a ball and compete with the bigger stronger strikers like vidic does. at times i think brown can easily do this as he does it at full back but im not convinced he's comfortable at center half now i think he's found his position at centre back ... talk about standing up and being counted this is when we need a captain figure such as a keane a cantona ... maybe a certain gary nevile ?? C'MON GAZ GET BACK ON THE PITCH SON

I know that I am going to get a lot of stick for this, but I think we miss Vidic WAY more than we will Rio. If you look at games where either one is out - the back four is simply much more stable with Vidic (without Rio) than it is with Rio (without Vidic).

And unfortunately, Rio seems to be more intent on blaming other players for lapses on defense than figuring out ways to stop them! The two goals that boro scored were right up the middle...would we have had the same defensive blunders with Vidic in there? Something tells me he would have been there to shut them down.

IMHO the goal against bolton may have looked like Pique's mistake, but Rio should have dealt with it. After all, he's supposed to be the big guy back there, isn't he?

Captain eh? He wouldn't be my choice...

 

[moondog]

Might his comments be a ploy to get more playing time? I hope so, because from what I've seen of Pique, he is a keeper. Perhaps SAF should rotate him into the back four more frequently next season. Vidic and Rio need more rest and more experience for Pique would allay some of the fears we all had recently when it looked like both vid and ferdinand would be out injured.

Lots of competition in the back 4 next year though...