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History for el grapadura

Andrew Durante (Melbourne Victory | A-Leagues)

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Posted July 19, 2018 04:16 · last edited July 19, 2018 04:17

valeo wrote:

Bullion wrote:

Leggy wrote:

martinb wrote:

Thought he did well against Peru.

Agree, but he  had a lot  better players around him and that in itself will make a big difference.

He's generally been pretty good for the AWs. Decent at the confed cup too.

I don't think correlation equals causation in that Dura has played about 75% of the games in the past 2 years and our defense has been poor - Ridenton has played the same amount of games; how much blame does he carry? Tom Doyle has played 70% of the games in the past 2 seasons, is he to blame? Scapegoating one player is a bit shark.

I would argue that defensive personnel changes is a bigger issue - we went something like 20 games in a row with a change in defensive personnel last season and was similar the season before. Is Dura secretly injuring players, getting them suspended or AW call ups?

By the same token, you can't completely admonish him of the responsibility. The fact is that he's been our most senior defender and leader, and he's overseen poor defensive records for a number of years. Yes, a lot of that is due to poor structure but a lot of that has been due to poor individual defending as well; I don't think that can be ignored.

I also don't think we can ignore the fact that he's in the twilight of his career; I, for one, was surprised he didn't retire at the end of last season. I thought it was about time.

Re: Doyle - he's a full blooded defender who still has the same old positional deficiencies. I've always seen his characteristics as suiting the CB role rather than FB, personally. He constantly fails to track his runner and gets caught for pace. 

The other thing is that, like you say, this isn't an issue of 2 seasons - we have been the worst defensive team in the league since Ricki's last year until now. That's six seasons, in which we made the playoffs only once (after we made them three times in the first five). Durante has been the one constant across this era, both as a member of the defensive unit, and the leadership group. 

If there's a consensus on this forum that the last 5-6 seasons have generally been a shambles, why are people so keen to absolve Durante of playing almost any part of that? It's just curious, considering the crap a number of other players have got through that time.

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Unknown editor edited July 19, 2018 04:17
valeo wrote:
Bullion wrote:
Leggy wrote:
martinb wrote:

Thought he did well against Peru.

Agree, but he  had a lot  better players around him and that in itself will make a big difference.

He's generally been pretty good for the AWs. Decent at the confed cup too.

I don't think correlation equals causation in that Dura has played about 75% of the games in the past 2 years and our defense has been poor - Ridenton has played the same amount of games; how much blame does he carry? Tom Doyle has played 70% of the games in the past 2 seasons, is he to blame? Scapegoating one player is a bit shark.

I would argue that defensive personnel changes is a bigger issue - we went something like 20 games in a row with a change in defensive personnel last season and was similar the season before. Is Dura secretly injuring players, getting them suspended or AW call ups?

By the same token, you can't completely admonish him of the responsibility. The fact is that he's been our most senior defender and leader, and he's overseen poor defensive records for a number of years. Yes, a lot of that is due to poor structure but a lot of that has been due to poor individual defending as well; I don't think that can be ignored.

I also don't think we can ignore the fact that he's in the twilight of his career; I, for one, was surprised he didn't retire at the end of last season. I thought it was about time.

Re: Doyle - he's a full blooded defender who still has the same old positional deficiencies. I've always seen his characteristics as suiting the CB role rather than FB, personally. He constantly fails to track his runner and gets caught for pace. 

The other thing is that this isn't an issue of 2 season - we have been the worst defensive team in the league since Ricki's last year until now. That's six seasons, in which we made the playoffs only once (after we made them three times in the first five). Durante has been the one constant across this era, both as a member of the defensive unit, and the leadership group. 

If there's a consensus on this forum that the last 5-6 seasons have generally been a shambles, why are people so keen to absolve Durante of playing almost any part of that? It's just curious, considering the crap a number of other players have got through that time.