by > YOU'LL NEVER BEAT DES WALKER
>have suddenly disappeared from the vocabulary of the English fans.
Des is so ***this season. In my opinion, it has got to be due to the new back
pass rule.
Des was always brilliant at acting as a libero in a 4-man back four. He was always
quick enough to sweep across the back four to cover the other three defenders, but
also do the man-to-man marking if required. Thus, the Forest/England defence
could sometimes appear to be five-man instead of four-man. However, so much of
this sweeping role depended on covering the full backs by running the ball back to
his own keeper from the vicinity of the two touchlines.
He has now lost this luxury, and he seems to have found it difficult to decide
what to do when either running back with a defender (Holland's penalty) or running
towards the corner flag (Norway's 2nd goal). He can't stick his leg out and run it
back to the keeper because he will get a good bollocking (e.g. against Poland, when
Woods was forced into playing it straight to the attacker), and he seems loathe to
belt it into the stands for a corner (not the done thing in Serie A), so he just
seems to back off and wait for a moment to decide when to challenge, by which time
the attacker has stuck the ball in the net (Papin's goal for AC Milan is a case in point).
I think that the English have to face facts - Des's career has been ruined by the
rule change. He should be appreciated for what he has done for England in the past,
especially Italia '90, but he has to go away and sort himself out before he can
be considered an international player again.
Any opinions ??????