Wolves (a) 3pm Saturday 20th November (not on TV)

Lukerz

Zouma goes back to the right & Diop plays LCB. He played there every week under Pelle when he was paired with Balbuena. Or we go back 3 in Oggy’s absence & play Diop - Zouma - Cresswell.

thornburyiron

Not sure Rice was ready to play if he’d had flu in the last couple of weeks.

jay_in_cpt

So we beat Liverpool the week before with Dawson coming on and putting in a more than decent performance, now we want Dawson out of the team?...
Not sure Diop is any more of an improvement , even if means moving players around a bit.
If Zouma is that good, he should be able to cope.
He was equally as poor yesterday as Dawson, that was evident to see for me....He was 2nd best and hesitant quite a few times....

IronHerb

I think Zouma was carrying a knock to his right knee.

OutcastLondoner

Dawson gave the ball away twice and put us on the back foot and completely lost Jimenez for that chance from the Nevez deep ball that he put wide. Tried to play him offside and failed and completely lost him. He's had a lot of mistakes like this since late last season. Liverpool suited him because he just had to head away TAA crosses.

Diop would be purely because he can play LCB and we can have Zouma on the right.

I think yesterday we suffered because not many teams like to keep possession like that anymore, as they did a few years ago. Those who try are like Brighton and actually not that good at it (I know people think Brighton are good, I don't). Wolves did very well. They wanted the ball and held it well. It seemed we waited for their mistake that never came and when we tried to counter we rushed it and gave it away.

It was the rare time Moyes as been tactically outdone I think.

alderz

I think there really isn’t much between Dawson and Diop, but Zouma is worse on the left than he is on the right, and he’s our best defender when he plays on the right, so for me it makes sense for Zouma to play where he’s best, and then look at our best available LCB

jay_in_cpt

IronHerb said:

I think Zouma was carrying a knock to his right knee.

If that was the case why Did Moyes play him, if he was not 100% and we have Diop on the bench....either it was very,very minor or he doesn't trust Diop.

I agree that Dawson is prone to the odd blunder, but not one of our CB's are excused of that, even Ogbonna, he gave away that needless foul that sadly led to the Brentford winner, yesterday Zouma looked average at times, at best, he was slow, mistimed efforts and was not at the races....Diop in his last Europa league appearance looked very dicey....

Personally think if Moyes does spend in Jan it might be a new CB.....just my opinion, mind.

OutcastLondoner

I missed our last Europa game but Diop has looked decent the rest of this season. Both he and Dawson are prone to mistakes but I think Dawson is the worst for unforced ones that suddenly put us on the back foot. Diop makes errors of judgement mostly. Dawson's a good defender for when we're under pressure but we get a lot more respect nowadays than we used to.

My preference for Diop is what Alderz says above - just so we can play Zouma on the right.

Expat_Hammer

Agree about Zouma and Diop too. Plus they're both French so less room for misunderstandings due to language.

chicagohammer

My frustration is with Vlasic,l feel that he really had a chance to step up yesterday, those “ahead” of him were off the pace and he really had the opportunity to shine.

He has the pedigree and I think he is a decent player, Croatian international and was he not recently voted as the player of year in Russia?

I get that the Premier League is probably a step up but he is not a kid, has been here before with Everton, (albeit unsuccessfully) but I had high hopes that he would make a solid claim for a first eleven place yesterday

claretandbluesky

I am not sure if Vlasik adds anything at present and should the rumours of Lingard's return be true it's hard to see too many opportunities for him to establish himself.

BubblesNeverDies

Expat_Hammer said:

Agree about Zouma and Diop too. Plus they're both French so less room for misunderstandings due to language.

BubblesNeverDies said:

"something potentially special about the Diop-Zouma pairing"

Well for a start, they speak the same language so communication will definitely be better.

Seems to be a bit of an echo here.

yoyo

To be fair they should be able to play along side anyone. They've played in England long enough to know how to say " your ball, play it , get rid, left,right,keepers, man on "etc. If they don't then there's something wrong. Presuming they can then You pick the strongest pair, regardless of where they come from

claretandbluesky

And shout ave it... as you hoof it up the pitch.

Maybe that was just the centre backs in the teams I played in.

OutcastLondoner

I think they both speak pretty good English tbh. I'm sure Diop already spoke it before he came to this country. But from training pics they seem quite close, probably because of the shared cultural connection, and that might be useful.