Match Day Thread Norwich City v Liverpool

Completely agree and anyone who thinks the captain's role in football has any great meaning nowadays I'm afraid is sadly mistaken. Yes, to a certain extent you do want your captain to be a guy is respected by the rest of the dressing room who can gee up the troops when the chips are down, but it really is nothing like the role of captain in cricket or even rugby, I'm sorry but it just isn't. I'd actually argue that at this level we should be looking to have eleven captains on the pitch, rather than looking to one player to take responsibility for everything, or the blame when things go wrong (which is pretty much what ILD is saying as far as I can see).

 

Perhaps not, but surely a lack of any reasonable, unbiased substance whatsoever is never a good thing in a debate is it?

 

Well if its meaningless lets give it to whoever is centre forward for any given game. At least we'd save Martin the jog back to CB from the centre spot.

 

You could, but it would be largely pointless to do so in my opinion

 

Maybe thats the trouble. Maybe we shouldn't accept that the captains role is meaningless and expect more of him. Just because you or anyone else thinks the role is meaningless doesn't mean that anyone who has an alternative view is mistaken.

 

But I don't think you're being reasonable or unbiased. As I said two different points of view.

 

I can recall captains who were exactly that - leaders on the field and figures of inspiration - Forbes, Stringer, Watson, Mackay and more recently Grant Holt. We need a figure like that leading the team now - may I suggest Mr Naismith for the role ????

 

I am defending Martin, but I think you'll find I have highlighted his glaring error on saturday without attempting to make excuses for it, and I have admitted that he has defficiencies and that we need someone better to play at CB for us if we want to be comfortable and make progress at this level.

All you have done is criticise and pick holes in every aspect of his game, blame him for everything on saturday, you're even inflating the role of captain just to slate him more and make him look even more of a liability and not once have I seen you say anything even remotely positive or 'balanced' about him, nor have I seen you lay any of the blame for saturday's defeat at the feet of any other player other than Russell Martin, despite the fact other players were clearly at fault for some of the goals.

And you think you're being the reasonable one in this? Really???

If you really do think that then I think we might have found the problem, and (as I suspected all along) I really am wasting my breath 'debating' with you

 

I'd say Huckerby played the talisman role very well in his time with us and I don't recall him ever wearing the armband.

 

So why have a captain then, make everyone captain, collective decision making. No one taking responsibility is a recipe for disaster as we saw on Saturday.

 

Are you really saying the captain should be taking responsibility and showing 'leadership' for every situation that happens during a game, or just when their name is Russell Martin?

 

Yep - Hucks was the talisman but Malky was very much the leader !

 

Pick your toys up and put them back in your pram. So I have to agree with you to make the debate reasonable, that's not debating. As I said before I'm happy to leave it here, if you are?

 

Yes any captain should take responsibility for the team that's what being a captain is all about. Russell Martin in my opinion is NOT a captain or leader. If you're in charge of anything you have that responsibility , the buck stop with you and you should be aware of that.

 

I wonder if you were singing his praises so highly last season then when he captained a promotion winning side to victory at Wembley? I wonder if you were saying he should be given a new improved contract as he had been so superb in captaining us during such a successful season? In fact I wonder if he received any credit at all from you last season, despite the fact that as you think the captain should take so much responsibility that surely we would still be stuck in the Championship had it not been for his sterling captaincy getting us over the line?

Or does it only become the responsibility of the captain (Russell Martin in particular) when things go wrong?

 

No in Martin's case I would say he should take responsibility for organising the defence. Quiet happy for him to keep his nose out of whats going on up front, unless of course it's impacting on the defense.

 

I think for once you have a point, championship is his level. If he's doing his properly then he won't get noticed, should he get praise for doing his job? You only get noticed when things start to go wrong, that's why he's in the limelight now.

 

I've changed that for you, I think that's what you meant to say

 

Fixing my posts now eh? Lol

 

Er, yes, that's why I said that I had