Not going to turn this into a tit for tat, willy waving bore fest Arcadia. Merely pointing out, that you said on a number of occasions during the course of last season, Levi Ives is good enough so he's old enough ( unfortunately I can't find the posts, I know they are out there) You now tell us in your opinion he lacks strength and experience, if you can't see how that fly's in the face of your own argument, all I can do is shrug my shoulders and conclude I'm exchanging opinions with a brick wall.
One post of yours I did find was on this thread page 3 about 12 posts down when you said in response to Mattpuma.
http://www.torquayfans.com/forum/viewto ... 1&start=40
This is where you fall down, at this age the lad is you can see that he is a different class and it takes experience to spot this and I expect you will come back and say you have this. Hargreaves knows he's better and that's why I guess Cruise is not on a long contract. Cruise has improved going forward but defending will always be a problem for him. :
A player going missing every few weeks is disruptive to the squad as a player has to be dropped every few weeks.
Compare that view point, to what you're saying now, what's changed ? are you making it up as you go along ?
I have no doubt that a Paul Cox TUFC team will be both physically and mentally fitter than what Chris Hargreaves put out, but then, that will not be difficult, in fact considering the team last season looked like a bunch of over weight, unfit jellyfish I'm sure most managers would be able to improve on that. I have no doubt Paul Cox will remind our midfield not to neglect their defensive duties either, and there's nothing wrong with that.
What your suggesting in my opinion, is we double up on Ives to protect him, if you can't see that could/would cause more problems than it solves, I'm back to shoulder shrugging, with relief I never played for or watched one of your teams.
After all we're not talking about local youth or senior football, we're talking about professional football, and the smart arsed coaching staff sat in the opposition dugout will take all of 5 minutes to figure out we're protecting our left back, and exploit the spare man they have down our left sided defensive channel.
Would an experienced manager identifying his left back as lacking strength and experience, play that lad in his first 11 and adapt the tactics to protect him, thus inviting pressure down that side, NO., he wouldn't, what he would do in the case at TUFC, no reserve or development squad, he would find a suitable loan placement for the player to gain the strength and experience, as no professional manager worth his salt would put a young player in to the detriment of the first team.
Again in the case of TUFC what the manager would surely do, is phone around to see if there's an Adam Smith or Bailly Cargill out there, he could bring in on loan, a player who wouldn't need protecting, a player who could contribute to the attacking play, a bit like Nicho in his prime, rather than having a left back that needs a midfielder to race back every time we lose the ball to bail him out.
As for your viewpoint on Lavercombe Arcadia, I've no doubt Lavercombe is a competent and talented young keeper, more than capable of holding down a place in our team next season, but, if you think PC is going to bring in, an experienced keeper as a player/GK coach, and tell him he's going to be sat behind Lavercombe all season you must be barking mad.
What I expect PC will do, opinion only, is what most fit for purpose managers do, and tell both keepers they are joint no 1's, I expect PC will surely tell them, who has ownership of the shirt will have to maintain a high standard to retain his place, the keeper who's on the bench will have to take the jersey of the lad who's starting, it's called healthy competition.
Like it tommyg! Although all we really did was try to keep the forum lively during the long boring close season last year, but then because the season turned into a bore fest as well we forgot there were other things to think about and kept going!
