So apparantly Britton is better than Xavi....

[ThatJa]

http://sport.uk.msn.com/blog/talkin...=26cdeb4c-c467-4fe3-b412-f8412cd8d9d2&_nwpt=1

One that got away??

 

[Russ]

Two page spread in the sun today, written by someone called A. Kastrinakis, with the title REVEALED: HOW WELSH SIDE ARE STUNNING THE PREMIER LEAGUE. Why don't these so called reporters take a step back and actually look at the passes he has completed. Two yard sideways passes that Ray Wilkins AKA The Crab would have been proud of!

States he is the only player to have completed a 100% success rate in passing in a game, in the 3-0 win at Bolton.

Also says only 9 other players have completed a match without a mis-placed pass in the last 6 years, but all were defenders. Erm put 2 and 2 together then, don't you realise he is a very defensive midfielder.

Also there are claims for the likes of Chancellor Leon Britton and Nathan Dyer will be selected by Capello soon. Blimey if this is the case things are very Dyer for England...

 

[sitwell]

2 points he never had the ball to pass it under Blackwell ,Macdonald has made more assist in about 6 games than Britton did in his entire time at the Lane.

 

[PeterNdlovu081]

I've never understood what's so good about these stats. Who cares if a defender or a midfielder makes loads of short sideways and backwards passes?

 

[Highbury_Blade]

2 points he never had the ball to pass it under Blackwell ,Macdonald has made more assist in about 6 games than Britton did in his entire time at the Lane.

Not really a defensive midfielders job to make assists....

Forget about the stats for a second and just look at how important Rogers sees him to the team.

Personally i don't know why people are being so negative. It's great that a player like Britton who's played in all four divisions for swansea is getting the plaudits, instead of some seriously overpaid primadonna.

 

[Cool Clint]

How many goals has he scored this season, it wouldn't be about the same as Mcdonald would it?

 

[stannyblade]

How many goals has he scored this season, it wouldn't be about the same as Mcdonald would it?

Maybe but he is coming up against better defenders than our K Mac

 

[Balham]

He's got a 0.3% better completion rate than Xavi but has passed the ball 40% fewer times. I would suspect that his assists record is much smaller too.

That said, nothing should be taken away from Swansea who have gone up and played their way in the Premier League. They'll be fine this season and next - it's sides like QPR who play the Warnock way who will normally struggle. Stoke is the only exception to this.

 

[Bergen Blade]

2 points he never had the ball to pass it under Blackwell ,Macdonald has made more assist in about 6 games than Britton did in his entire time at the Lane.

Like PeterNdlovu081 points out, his job at Swansea is to keep things flowing in midfield. He picks up the ball and quickly and neatly distributes the ball to a nearby teammate who then tries to do something constructive with it. At Swansea it is obviously working well. When he was here it was not so effective when his passes found Morgan, Monty and Ertl...

 

[TarquinDelouche]

He's apparently being considered for the England squad for the Euros. But yeah, he's shit and we're much better off without him.

 

[SwissBlade]

I wish the lad all the best with Swansea. Clearly the media are taking note and if the rumours are true then so are England. All good for him.

Stats can be manipulated to say what you want to an extent. Giant Killings sell papers and Swansea beating Arsenal is just that, so they just needed to take a look at a few stats and bingo. Not saying that its not true, the stats speak for themselves.

However, for us he was a bottler offered nothing to our side the way we played at the time and was far too deep to be effective. Personally I didn't think that he offered us anything which changed games.

In the position he played I thought he didnt offer enough to break up play and protect a very vulnerable Centre Half pairing.

Blackwell signed him and on his debut provided an assist at Cardiff, but Blackwell was gone within 3 games so can't blame Blackwell this time

I'm glad he left, don't think he did enough for us to fit in.

 

[TarquinDelouche]

Personally I didn't think that he offered us anything which changed games.

Neither did Ched for the past few seasons. Yet here he is, top scorer.

 

[SwissBlade]

Neither did Ched for the past few seasons. Yet here he is, top scorer.

I've banged on about Ched for a while before this season. I always said he would come good. Didn't feel the same about Britton for us

 

[MunXy]

i wish him luck.
to my mind like so many before him and to an extent after him he was played in the wrong position and in the wrong formation/tactics.
im pretty sure monty or doyles stats would also be quite high if they only passed a coupla yards either way in games instead of trying ambitious killer balls or 15-20 yard passes to players that can do damage.
the stats can prove something but if simmo did nothing all game but passed to full backs even he could theoretically get an almost 100% completion rate, would that mean we should play him as a "passing" midfielder?
another famous "fantastic" passer was john barnes who apart from 1 flash of brilliance in his career, to my mind got a rep for good passer for doing exactly what Britton is doing, but and this is important barnes was in a decent liverpool sqaud not a glorified championship side.

MunXy

 

[SwissBlade]

t'me t'you

 

[Houso]

He looked a different class in his first couple of games, but then the Blackwell instinct kicked in and we became shit.

And sorry, but you can't write him off as only having such good stats because he passes it short. As we saw in those first few games, Britton's best qualities are shown by his ability to find space, always be available and then release the ball to a team mate despite pressure from the opposition.

If for instance Doyle was in the same role as Britton, he wouldn't have anywhere near the same success.

 

[Sothall_Blade]

2 points he never had the ball to pass it under Blackwell ,Macdonald has made more assist in about 6 games than Britton did in his entire time at the Lane.

He looked a different class in his first couple of games, but then the Blackwell instinct kicked in and we became shit.

He only played 3 games under Blackwell. One assist.

 

[Darren]

He looked a different class in his first couple of games, but then the Blackwell instinct kicked in and we became shit.

And sorry, but you can't write him off as only having such good stats because he passes it short. As we saw in those first few games, Britton's best qualities are shown by his ability to find space, always be available and then release the ball to a team mate despite pressure from the opposition.

If for instance Doyle was in the same role as Britton, he wouldn't have anywhere near the same success.

You say in his first couple of games (Cardiff and Hartlepool) he looked a different class; then "the Blackwell instinct kicked in". As Britton only played one further game under Blackwell (v QPR) before he was sacked, that instinct must have a bloody long lasting effect.

I wonder if Blackwell is also responsible for global warming, kidnapping Shergar, 9/11, the soverreign debt crisis and the fact that Simon Cowell is a multi millionaire?

 

[Houso]

Sorry, I didn't actually mean Blackwell specifically. I meant the Blackwell Instinct as more of a generic term for bypassing the midfield.

Edit: Although, I guess in this case it actually suggests the opposite.

 

[bricktop]

You say in his first couple of games (Cardiff and Hartlepool) he looked a different class; then "the Blackwell instinct kicked in". As Britton only played one further game under Blackwell (v QPR) before he was sacked, that instinct must have a bloody long lasting effect.

I wonder if Blackwell is also responsible for global warming, kidnapping Shergar, 9/11, the soverreign debt crisis and the fact that Simon Cowell is a multi millionaire?

I wouldn't have said anyone looked a different class at Hartlepool last season, it was up there amongst the poorest showing's i have seen in a lifetime of watching the Blades, don't even think we had a shot that night, we was that bad.

 

[judge]

why waste time talking about a player who never cut the grade at the lane ? he is doing well and we are doing well so maybe letting it go would be a good idea

remember britton was part ( a small part admittley ) of one of our worst ever sides

 

[FleaPitBlade]

The only conclusive point to make here is that a player of Britton's class was totally lost at Bramall Lane which is as damning an indictment as your likely to find of how shit we were and the incompetency of the managers we employed.

See Ched's resurgance and the amount of goals scored by Billy Sharp for further evidence for the prosecution.

 

[Darren]

The only conclusive point to make here is that a player of Britton's class was totally lost at Bramall Lane which is as damning an indictment as your likely to find of how shit we were and the incompetency of the managers we employed.

See Ched's resurgance and the amount of goals scored by Billy Sharp for further evidence for the prosecution.

On Ched, there is the small matter that he is now playing against Third Division defences. Remember in the reasonableish 2009-10 season (when we finished just outside the play offs), he only managed four goals in the second tier.

 

[bricktop]

The only conclusive point to make here is that a player of Britton's class was totally lost at Bramall Lane which is as damning an indictment as your likely to find of how shit we were and the incompetency of the managers we employed.

See Ched's resurgance and the amount of goals scored by Billy Sharp for further evidence for the prosecution.

I didn't think he was class, and still don't think he is class. All Swansea do is play him in a system that suits him down to the ground. With Swansea it is not about the individual players, but more about the system they play, and at the minute i think they have one of the best managers in the world tactically.

 

[JohnDenver]

and at the minute i think they have one of the best managers in the world tactically.

Not sure I'd agree with that. I'd put their success down to having a consistent tactical method across the tenure of three managers and many years.

Of course, the guy may be a genius too...

 

[Balham]

On Ched, there is the small matter that he is now playing against Third Division defences. Remember in the reasonableish 2009-10 season (when we finished just outside the play offs), he only managed four goals in the second tier.

Did he play consistently in that season? I thought he was in and out of the team with a significant number of substitute appearances? I'm probably wrong though!

Ched strikes me as a striker overly reliant on confidence: ie if things are going well, he will score goals without thinking. When things aren't going too well, he struggles. Maybe it's the Robbie Keane syndrome: if he has to concentrate harder and isn't confident, he is much less likely to score but if it's instinctive, he's more likely to?

 

[Bergen Blade]

having a consistent tactical method across the tenure of three managers

We're the opposite, as far as manager's reputations go:

Heath SHORT
Warnock LONG
Robson SHORT
Blackwell LONG
Speed SHORT
Adams LONG
Wilson SHORT

 

[shorehamview]

Leon Britton - the football equivalent of the squid wank.

 

[super_pig]

britton will be glad that monty is scottish then

 

[Jonny G]

Britton is the kind of player my Uncle would refer to as "tidy".

Personally speaking I expect more than just tidy play from someone on the pitch and his lack of any physical involvment made him way too much of a luxury for probably 90% of sides in the country. Tidy play on its own without the outlets to use the ball afterwards was never going to work for us and probably means he won't excel at any other club. He failed for us because we didn't need a player to feed the midfield, we needed a midfielder to feed and create the attack.

Good luck to him and his world beating stats, but I've yet to see any highlights of a game he's played since he left that have made me wish he was still ours.