His form has been poor of late, but I'm not quite sure how you can surmise that he lacks pace. He's a former sprinter, and one of our quickest players. There are very few who can get the better of of him in a foot race.
Jose Enrique
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His form has been poor of late, but I'm not quite sure how you can surmise that he lacks pace. He's a former sprinter, and one of our quickest players. There are very few who can get the better of of him in a foot race.
Well, Ramires is one of them
He's got good pace, but when he gets caught flat footed, over the first couple of yards he can be sluggish, and that's where it costs you in this league, it's not always about how fast your top speed is, it's how quick you are over the first few yards, his acceleration isn't all that. If he has space to run into then when he get's over the first few yards he builds up speed and is then difficult to catch, but one on one he's been failing to cut crosses out all season and has been on the end of numerous bollockings from Pepe for it.
There's no doubt Ramires is very quick, but it wasn't Enrique's pace that let him down yesterday - it was his judgement.
Quite.
This. It reminds me of the time when many were raving about Jaap Stam, but we usually did well against him because Michael Owen would get on his shoulder, then peel off and do him over those first ten yards, which Stam needed to pick up speed (though he was then very quick for a big man). Baros did the same against him for the Czech Republic in the Euros. Stam got away with it more often than not because few teams had the cojones to attack ManUre. Unfortunately they're quite happy to attack us at the minute, which is when Enrique can get exposed.
He's a capable Prem standard full back, no more, no less. He was when we signed him, he is now. These types of players have up and downs, usually downs when we sign them.
I don't think Enrique is particularly slow over the first few yards either. People seem to be taking the Ramires example and applying it across the board. He wasn't outstripped for pace against Ramires - he made the mistake of trying to intercept the ball early and then had to double back on himself, by which time Ramires (who is also very quick) had stolen a yard on him. But yeah, all the other concerns about him over the second half of the season are totally valid.
He's pretty crap in the final third so it's not hard to understand why he doesn't get picked for Spain. Alba is very quick and seems more at ease when attacking. Enrique often plays like a central midfielder.
As for the pace thing, he's known for it but has looked very sluggish in the last few months. I agree with what Mark said but I think it goes beyond that. At the start of the season he'd regularly catch players up, even over a short distance, and bully them off the ball. How often do we see him do that now? He doesn't look as fit these days at all.
As for the pace thing, he's known for it but has looked very sluggish in the last few months. I agree with what Mark said but I think it goes beyond that. At the start of the season he'd regularly catch players up, even over a short distance, and bully them off the ball. How often do we see him do that now? He doesn't look as fit these days at all.
Agree mostly with this and what Mark said. I thought it was his indecision that cost against Ramires; he could have got the ball but hesitated for a moment and then couldn't get it. Never looked likely to catch him after that which is what has saved him in the past. Despite what he posted above Ryan has been pretty surprised at how well Jose has been playing; I was very surprised. I said back in September that he held the ball too long but it was pedantic cause he was playing well above 5.5m.
That said I do think he's just tired. As a sprinter he'd be trained to get top speed at a certain time and this isn't that time. They generally class sprinters in two categories; power runners and rythmn runners. Those running on rythmn don't need to be as precise in training - Lewis, Bolt etc. Those relying on power do require precise timing; their physical form and stature suffers when they get tired and for some reason this impacts on their pace a lot more than with rythmn runners. Ben Johnson admitted he had trained on the wrong time frame before the Olympics and found himself running nearly 11 second 100's. That's a massive difference and the reason he went home 2 - 3 months before the games; the only solution he could think of was to use steroids to overcome his fatigue - we all know the results.
I don't know for sure but I wouldn't be surprised if it is fatigue that's affecting Enrique who is clearly part of the "power" category when it comes to sprinting. What it has shown us is how reliant he is on that speed; without it his shortcomings become very exposed as he doesn't have the pace to cover for them.
Found out last week that he is best mates with a good spanish friend of mines boyfriend!! For years the silly tart knew I'm a massive Liverpool fan and never once mentioned that she knows him well!!
I havent asked her to ask him (via her boyfriend) what the fuck was he thinking for the first goal yet...
I havent asked her to ask him (via her boyfriend) what the fuck was he thinking for the first goal yet...
No one wanted to agree with me when I made a thread about how clumsy and shit his judgement is in possesion about 6 months ago, nothing has changed since then except he's looked a bit tired defending. So why the sudden swing in forum opinion? With Enrique its simple, for the most part you'll get a solid defender, with a mistake in him every ten or so games, yet despite the fact he's got the raw attributes to do so, he'll rarely offer anything going forward.
I'd like to think I agreed he was wasteful, but I can't remember
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