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Marlon Pack


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1 hour ago, paul_fox said:

There's a fair few players who's game suffers due to having Diedhiou up front. We have lots of busy, fast, neat players who play best when there's quick one touch football. When it's played into his feet he either not fast enough or his touch loses the ball. The difference in play today when he went off was noticeable big time 

Fair point and it really reminds me of when we signed Adebola in 2008. Completely changed the way we play as often the only outlet is a long ball to FD to try and get down and play others in. 

The problem being that was often 10-15 yards from our own halfway line and we had nothing beyond that which leads to us playing backwards and inevitably losing it in a packed midfield.

Imo, Pack isn't the problem. The problem is we rarely have players in space beyond FD so the midfield have no option but to play it short/safe. To me thats a tactical issue and thats LJ's remit to deal with not the players.

Ffs, the one player Pep Guardiola singled out for praise when we played them was Marlon and he knows more about a good player then any of us ever will.

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Packy had a poor game today - and he looked miles off the pace in the friendly v Palace too.

I disagree with those who say he isn't Championship standard. He's had some very good games for us and at his best has been a lynchpin that makes the whole Johnson system work.

BUT there is no one there when he should be subbed. In the absence of Korey there is literally no replacement,  so - as the OP says - he becomes undroppable. 

And that's a bad thing for the side and for Marlon. When a player is consistently played when his form dips it just gets worse and worse and it hinders him as well as a team. For a classic case, look at Liam Fontaine.

On today's showing, Marlon should've felt the shepherd's crook at half-time or not long after. 

He didn't and what that shows is we really need to buy a competent central midfielder.

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1 hour ago, Harry said:

Pack made 1 major error today which led to a near goal - 1st half when he gave it away when we were on the attack. 

That aside, we didn’t see much of the ball so didn’t see much of Marlon. However, I’ll bet you find he attempted more forward passes than anyone else. 

I’d like to ask, for all those who give Pack a knock today, can you please tell me what contribution Brownhill gave to this game? 

I thought Pack was “steady” today.  Thought Brownhill was pretty non-existent.

1 hour ago, Harry said:

Gonna be a long season for Marlon on otib. 

Indeed.

I hate watching on tv, because you miss so much because of the camera view.  Today I really tried to concentrate, turned the phone upside down, put the iPad away, and apart from Joe and my Dad passing their observations, watched the game.

Without going into lots of bits of detail, the one thing that stood out for me today, was that as a pairing they seemed to be very much “right” and “left” in the 2 of a 4231.  I think Marlon likes being the true Central DM in a more 4141, where he can dictate all infront if him, but today I think the way they played as a pair just didn’t work.  Marlon trying to close Down much further forward and then having to instruct the rest of the midfield where to be / go because he wasn’t in “his cage”.

Josh offered nothing really all game on the ball, and hindered our set up without it because for all his running he doesn’t position himself that great.  It meant Palmer had little decent ball to play with, and then Fam too isolated.

Pack most certainly NOT awful imho.  A 6/10, when several were below that.  Nobody, except Weimann of the starters had good games today...to many lost their individual match-ups.

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A 6/10 for Pack is just not good enough. He needs to consistently be 8 or 9/10 if we're serious about moving on. He's the captain and prime fulcrum of the midfield. We cannot afford to have a player in his position and stature only being 6/10. Not only that but he needs to be 8 or 9/10 for the vast majority of the season, something like 42 out of 46 games. Is he really capable of that? I'd say no. We desperately need an upgrade to that position and hopefully the Monaco kid is just that.

Pack is a weak link and until we upgrade that position we'll always be second best.

Give me Gerry Gow any day.

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2 minutes ago, Keyred said:

A 6/10 for Pack is just not good enough. He needs to consistently be 8 or 9/10 if we're serious about moving on. He's the captain and prime fulcrum of the midfield. We cannot afford to have a player in his position and stature only being 6/10. Not only that but he needs to be 8 or 9/10 for the vast majority of the season, something like 42 out of 46 games. Is he really capable of that? I'd say no. We desperately need an upgrade to that position and hopefully the Monaco kid is just that.

Pack is a weak link and until we upgrade that position we'll always be second best.

Give me Gerry Gow any day.

Just to state, a 6/10 from me is a player earning his corn.  A team playing as expected would all get 6/10.  If you think he needs to get consistent 8/9 out of 10 your rating system is flawed.  Sorry!  You could argue mine is too, why isn’t average 5/10.  I just adopt the old Match magazine rating system from when I was a kid. You need to rate the performance not the player too.

If Pack averaged 7/10 every week. I would be purring.

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Just now, Davefevs said:

Yep, we need to see a few more games though.  Plenty of others worse than Marlon today.

I know I saw it. The point is though that you can't have players in optimal positions playing at sub par. If you do you'll never get anywhere. Whilst I can accept that the teams performance can vary wildly from one game to the next under LJ doing so means you'll never have the consistency necessary to achieve what I presume is the intended goal i.e. promotion.

I believe that Pack is extremely limited as a player and if LJ is pinning his hopes on him as an integral part of the team then LJ is going to be sacked sooner rather than later.

As to other players having the proverbial mare then that's totally on LJ and his coaching staff. It was Bielsa's Leeds, we should have known what to expect and had a counter to it. For that I blame LJ entirely and not Pack per se.

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Hammer Marlon but let Brownhill off Scot free. 

Midfielders in front of Pack and the two centre backs were totally static all game, hence the over reliance on long balls and Marlon running into a bit of pressure a couple of times.

Mad that people blame the player holding the ball for everything, it's almost as if nobody has a clue about this game... 

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Just now, J-mat said:

Hammer Marlon but let Brownhill off Scot free. 

Midfielders in front of Pack and the two centre backs were totally static all game, hence the over reliance on long balls and Marlon running into a bit of pressure a couple of times.

Mad that people blame the player holding the ball for everything, it's almost as if nobody has a clue about this game... 

No Brownhill doesn't get off scot free, he was abysmal.

There were too many things totally wrong with the game today from the set up to the instructions, to the lumping of balls to Fam to the non-movement of players, to the game plan, to... oh I give up.

Maybe it was just a bad day at the office and everything will slot into place as the season progresses. We can but hope. (I hate hope though, it has the  propensity to kick you in the nuts).

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