Tommy Elphick - signed for Huddersfield

[olaftab]

Being out for the best part of 6 months with an ankle injury tends to stop you doing much for the first team

Typical modern footballer

[wittonwarrior]

He needs to forget all  his daft antics and concentrate on what is front of him  for 90 mins.

He has  been poor no ifs  and  buts.

[Tayls_7]

A professional footballer whose left leg is purely for standing on. Awful and drives me crazy. If you're  that limited Tommy I only want to see industrial defending from you in future.

[Ads]

The formation didn't help today. A few times Elphick, Chester and Pointy were having a conflab about what they were supposed to be doing.

Fell apart first half. Didn't have much to do second.

[SoccerHQ]

He's very very average.

Make no mistake Bournemouth didn't get promoted because he was marshalling clean sheets week in week out, they actually conceded plenty the year they went up but could outscore teams.

They had the second best defense in the division that season.

Bournemouth 1-2 Forest
Blackburn 3-2 Bournemouth
Bournemouth 1-3 Leeds
Derby 2-0 Bourenmouth
Bournemouth 3-2 Brighton
Bournemouth 2-2 Ipswich
Bournemouth 2-2 Millwall
Bournemouth 5-3 Cardiff
Bounemouth 1-2 Norwich
Brentford 3-1 Bournemouth
Bournemouth 4-2 SHA
Bournemouth 2-2 Sheff Weds.

All games Bournemouth conceded 2 or 3, I presume Elphick played in most of those as captain.

[PeterWithesShin]

And the other 30?

[pauliewalnuts]

Elphick played in every league game for them that season.

It's nice he did well for them, but he looks dodgy as fuck for us.

[SoccerHQ]

And the other 30?

Yeah there were a few more times but tbh I lost the will to live posting Bournemouth results from 14/15 at midnight on a Saturday!

The point is they pretty much conceded 2-3 in a third of their games so it's not really a water tight defence he was marshalling.

And as we've seen so far we're not winning games when we concede 2 or 3.

I don't mind Chester that much, he's a decent player but him and Elphick are too similar, where is the pace? It's a shame Okore quickly gave up on the season with the Luton debacle as I really believe he could've been useful for us if he'd been bothered this season.

As bad as it is I really don't want to see Richards starting games so we need a more mobile CB for January.

[adrenachrome]

The formation didn't help today. A few times Elphick, Chester and Pointy were having a conflab about what they were supposed to be doing.

Fell apart first half. Didn't have much to do second.

Very right sided, as we already knew. Memo to to RDM: do not play him in formations where we he might have to make interventions to the left of the goalpost.

I guarantee you that Rafa will not be risking MOTM Clark on his right side.

[PeterWithesShin]

Thing is if you look at end of season tables not many Division 2 sides finish with a great defensive record. Conceding less than 40 doesn't happen that often. And teams have won it conceding 50+. Elphick hasn't convinced me at all but we've conceded 9 in 9 despite all our fuck ups so it's not a disaster. Yet. Hopefully.

[Matt Collins]

He started quite well but in recent games he's been lucky to have got away with so few assists for the opposition. 

If baker is fit I'd definitely consider him and Chester. But I don't expect RDM will drop him

[Villafirst]

Clark got man-of-the-match. Miles better than Elphick. Put Clark and Gana in our team now and we'd be sorted.

[Matt Collins]

I thought Clark was decent - no more

[PeterWithe]

He's shocking. I'd have taken him and not Baker off at half time. In fact I wouldn't have started him. He's an accident waiting to happen. He gets caught in possession, out of position and is outpaced regularly.

Elphick was indeed very poor, Newcastle seemed to know this and let him have the ball before pressing him quickly when he either gave it to them or thumped it aimlessly out of play, I wasn't convinced when I saw him at the Weds game, the chest thumping seemed to conceal some large problems with his ability, that said to take him off and leave the injury prone Baker on may have been a risk too far.

[PeterWithe]

Ps Clarke was MOM? Blimey, he was adequate I suppose but looked very ropey when we ran at him. I think he could have expected a better reception from our fans to be honest.