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Andrew Durante (Melbourne Victory | A-Leagues)

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Posted July 19, 2018 03:56 · last edited July 19, 2018 22:08

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 absolve 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. 

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Unknown editor edited July 19, 2018 22:08
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.