In all the fuss over Honda in January, it appears no Rami topic was ever posted!

So I'll do it here, and feel free to move this to players, mods, and change the title.

I dunno, I'm far from won over by him. His positional sense is suspect, and he doesn't seem the strongest. He's quite effective marauding forward but that's not what we signed him for.

I see him as exactly what I originally classed him as, a slightly inferior version of Mexes.

And he's done nothing to dissuade me of that.

His only con is his positioning. Other than that, he's very good. Super-strong physically, great in the air, great at tackling. We need players like him.

tbh if he was as good as this Valencia wouldn't have let him go for free.

He had a brawl with their coach or something, that's why he was left out of the team. But does it really matter what Valencia think? I judge Rami based on his contribution to our season, and despite a few stinkers here and there, he's been very solid overall.

It's really funny. I follow a number of Italian football-related sites on Facebook, and when we signed Rami and during his first few games with us, a lot of people where so easily discarding him as a cheap defender. But now you won't believe how many comments he gets in his favor. People really want him to stay, because he's proved that he's worth the shirt, and I really hope we sign him permanently. Him and Mexes form a really nice duo. Sure, it's no Costacurta and Maldini or Nesta and Thiago Silva, but given our current possibilities, it's the best we can afford.

I think his positioning is okay, not bad but not great either.

My biggest issue with him is his sudden bouts of head spacing.

Other than that, I agree with x-off, he's been really good for us, he brings qualities to this team that I personally think are needed, plus him and Mexes form a very solid pairing.

I think if we can sign him and extend Mexes's deal with a lower wage, plus have Abate and DS both starting regularly next season, we'd have a pretty great defence

Yeah, but I wouldn't call it great. Pretty good defense.

Good by our current woeful standards, dismal by ordinary Milan ones

Nah, good by Serie A standards. Napoli have Maggio, Albiol, Fernandez and Ghoulam for crying out loud, and Roma have Maicon, Benatia, Castan and Romagnoli.

I think it's great by today's standard of poor defences. Even in other leagues

Barca have Pique and Mascherano. Real have the idiotic duo of Pepe and Ramos. Juve have Elbow to the face Chiellini and Bone head Bonucci. Man U have Jones and Evans, Chelsea have Terry and Cahill, Bayern have Dante and Badstuber, City have Kompany and freaking Demichelis!

None of those are all that great either. So Mexes and Rami in my book are on an even keel.

I think the only duo that are really great in there are Cahill and Terry, mostly because of the understanding they have with each other.

In terms of Serie A. Juve aside, you don't have much to talk about, Napoli's is average at best. and Roma's is good as well.

I think defending in general has taken a massive nose dive in recent years, so Mexes and Rami are pretty good compared to any duo out there right now, even at the top clubs in Spain and England

John Terry and Gary Cahill p*ss all over Mexes and Rami tbh.

And even that Demechelis/Kompany combo you deride only conceded 37 goals last season.

Juve conceded 23, we conceded 49.

Let's face it, we can try to paint it however we like but our defence sucks, and other clubs' are much better. I agree that Barca and Real's defences aren't marvellous, but Atletico's is.

Then there's Bayern whose defence let in 23 goals, same as Juve.

We're miles off the top clubs and Mexes and Rami are just ordinary/good defenders.

Laugh at Roma and Napoli if you like but it's the lack of goals conceded which makes them miles ahead of us. They would easily laugh at us and say 'they've got washed-up Mexes and meh Rami for crying out loud. Plus Silvestre and and Zapata'.

How much of our huge number is down to instability in our selections? We seemed to rotate our CBs every game. How can a pairing ever gain an understanding if they can't get a run of games together?

You can't really make the comparison though, most of our goals were conceded during the first half of the season plus during Seedorf's first 2 months with us. All of which during a constant rotation of CBs and when Rami wasn't even playing


This, also taking into account that Rami could only start playing with the team at the turn of the new year

Like I said, how can you make that comparison when there has been such a continual shift and instability in defence for us during this season, mostly due to the coaches/changes in coaches and injuries

Mexes and Rami have only really been playing regularly as a duo for these last 3 and a half months or so. Before that Seedorf hadn't played the same CB pairing for 2 games running. Allegri also continually messed about with the defensive pairing, especially since Rami wasn't eligible to play during his time

That's why most of the top clubs have a better defense than us this season, statistically speaking.

Exactly.

The key thing here is that whatever the decision it get done quickly. The biggest mistake we can and have consistently made is to wait for the last possible minute to get in players. We always lose points beginning of the season due to the ensuing lack of synergy.

Put Kompany and Demichelis in the Milan of this season. They would look like crap. That's the whole issue here. How central defenders perform depends on how the team performs. Benatia and Castan are average at best, yet they had an amazing season because Roma had an amazing season.

To make this even more obvious, Milan had Maldini and Costacurta as CBs in the late 90s/early 00s, and we conceded from left and right. Does that make them poor defenders? I wouldn't say so. It's not as simple as looking at the numbers and saying those defenders suck because the team has conceded too many goals. There are other factors you must take into consideration. A smart person like you should be aware of this, Danny.

They didn't exactly great at City half the time, Demichelis most the time.

Today's standards are no standards at all. Even if they are the best in the world right now, it still does not make them great. I know for a fact that Abate has hit a ceiling and he'll probably never be labeled as a great of the game. Mexès would have been a sure bench warmer among the greats, and Rami is even worse.

Only The Scig has a chance, and that is only because of his potential and the fact that he is still young.


Too true. Most of these players get far too much credit than they deserve. Someone being good does not make them automatically great, though, and the names listed above, many are abhorring bad when it comes to the art of defending. Tactically weak almost all of them.


Very much. Add in Abate and The Scig, then we have a good back, which still is by no means watertight.

Agreed.

There's a huge difference between being great and being a "great of the game"

Personally I think there's also a big difference between a player that is great and a player that is WC.

There are many great players in the game but very few that are world class

And that's what I don't see in today's defenders, aside from Thiago (who has also seemingly hit a brick wall at PSG) there aren't really any world class defenders out there

So Mexes and Rami imo can be classified as great considering what the media labels as "world class" these days (Ramos, Kompany, Pique, etc)

Well, I think Pique, Ramos and Kompany are better than Mexes and Rami, honestly.

Kompany yes, definitely.

But the other 2?

Pique would get creamed in any normal side that is not Barca, Ramos is either really great on his day or can have some serious stinkers

Kompany I personally regard highly but even he can make some seriously idiotic mistakes at times.

Pique is garbage IMHO. Weak in the air, weak in the tackle, questionable positional awareness. I'm at a loss as to how such a mediocre defender has become 'one of the greats'. Because he is anything but.

The one thing he has is composure on the ball and good use of it, but then, Barcelona LIKE that don't they?

Well Rami and Mexes have been our pairing for the final 5 matches of the season IIRC. We still friggin' lost to Atalanta.

He struggled to start with, became their black sheep but Pellegrini stuck with him and he improved to a point no one was moaning about him anymore.

Not having a go at you, but there's always some excuse, isn't there? I mean why can't we just actually accept Mexes isn't what he was and Rami never was much in the first place?

I accept the rotation argument to an extent but a major cause of its occurrence was how rubbish Mexes was until about March.

Here's another issue for consideration. Zapata and DS both made the world cup. Neither Mexes nor Rami did, and they play for a weaker national team - no one is going to tell me their defence is embarrassed by riches. Muntari and Essien made the Ghana team for crying out loud!

I don't think Mexes and Rami will ever attain the heights of Nesta and Maldini at the centre of our defence. That being said, I do think it is a pairing capable of conceding far less goals than they have this season.

Yes, our players are not top notch, but I'm certain that our lack of cohesiveness and confidence has also made a few good players look far worse than they actually are.

But we're talking about CB partnerships.

Not just one CB. Yes, you're right Mexes struggled in the first few months of this season (like basically the rest of the team). But we can't really make judgments on the pairing based on the entire season's stats since Rami missed an entire half of it and for the most part it was plagued by a constant rotation of the back 4, something that is not optimal when trying to get the best out of your defence.

And I don't think it's an excuse. You pointed out a fact that we've been a abhorrently bad defensively this season due to the fact that we conceded a lot of goals. But it is also a fact that our defence has been under a constant shift for the entire season barring these last few months, in which we have actually seen an improvement in goals conceded compared to the rest of the season

Also, the reason why NT coaches don't pick players is vast, and never just related to how good the player is.

Tell me that if you had been the French coach you'd have left Rami and Mexes home in exchange for the mediocrity that they chose.

Mexes is still a tactically smart defender, he's also a great overall footballer, he's got good positional sense, he's good in the air, great on the ball. His biggest weakness is concentration, same could be said of Rami.

Thank you.