Ben Cabango ...

[TheLoneRanger]

I'll have a 99 please Ben.



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[TerryPHELAN]

I’ve been quite critical of him recently, but he did on Saturday what he’s best at. Basic defending. Commanding the area. Winning dual battles against a big powerful forward. Ben isn’t a ball playing centre back, which is what Russ is probably trying him to be.
He just does the basics very well.

 

[K23]

I’ve been quite critical of him recently, but he did on Saturday what he’s best at. Basic defending. Commanding the area. Winning dual battles against a big powerful forward. Ben isn’t a ball playing centre back, which is what Russ is probably trying him to be.
He just does the basics very well.

That pretty much sums up what I've always thought. A lot of football is horses for courses and of all the players we've got, Ben is the one I'd always give the job to if the opposition play with a big No9 and spend most of the game pumping high balls into him looking for knock downs. It doesn't require ball playing ability, just the desire to be first to the ball and enough body strength to do it and Ben has those. He takes no prisoners when he is determined to get his head to the ball, whether they are opposition players or ours, they all get shoved out of the way.

One of Martin's biggest flaws imo, is trying to get players to do what he wants them to rather than what they are actually good at - the old square pegs in round holes approach. Best example was when we played Fulham last season and RM played Ben on the right of a 3 so when their pacy left winger was marauding, it was Ben's job to engage and the winger made mincemeat of him but the biggest error was that instead of the obvious role of Ben marking Mitrovic, that job was given to Kyle Naughton and the unsurprising result of those 2 errors was a Mitrovic hattrick. I'm not saying Ben would have marked Mitro out of the game but I'm sure he wouldn't have had such an easy ride.