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So i apprciate not everyone rates him but let's face it he will be back in the team as soon as he is fit so on that basis where do we play him ?

Drop Branco? Put him in midfield. What do we do with him

 He's got twice the number of league goals as our current front 2....so up front it is.

difficult one of we play as back 3, as in my eyes he's a right back.

Got a feeling the back 3 has gone now. How abouth he goes right back and Furlong over to the left

Got to be an automatic pick. What the fuck's up with people?

If he's fit he plays.

If the team shows the same application as Saturday but playing a 3-5-2 then he'll slot back into usual position.

Trickier with 4 at the back, but he could play CB, RB or as one of the holding mid-fielders.
I think he'd play as a CB which would be tough on Branco to be dropped.

Is this a serious debate? Are people genuinely weighing up Branco v Thompson?

Branco is utter shite. A liability (infinitely more than NT). He's lazy, positionally terrible and all-around just useless unless the ball's kicked straight at his head.

NT comes back in alongside Jones. Job done. He is not a modern day RB. Furlong is street ahead, and so's Brad Barry really.

My point was more will they drop Branco. As much as i agree he should be the choice to be dropped history suggests he doesn't get dropped

'Utter shite' is a bit harsh.  Branco has some good qualities: good in the air and good on the ball for a L1 centre back.  If his positional play was good (which it isn't) then he'd be in the Championship.  Clearly NT is better.  I would keep the back four (fed up of the opposition pulling the back 3 apart with simple long balls down the channels) with NT alongside Jones.  Probably won't be an issue in any event given fitness issues.

The day Branco starts ahead of anyone bar an injury struck team is when he can play consistantly for more than 1 game with a major fuck up. Fans get swayed by shouting and badge kissing

Correct. He also needs to stop running around elbowing people for no reason, standing like a statue while attackers move and generally just being utter shite. And no, it's not harsh. And no, if he was better positionally he wouldn't be in the Championship.

Agreed. Branco is a very limited footballer who has the odd good game (usually against long ball teams). His game is littered with errors and disciplinary lapses. I think we need to offload him. I'm not sure there would be many interested parties at our level.

Nathan Thompson is perfectly adequate at this level. I do wonder whether he's good enough to progress further and suspect that his only way up is with Swindon, especially with his injury record.

I've not really forgiven him (and all involved) for starting at Wembley though.

I see him turning on the ball for that first goal, and grimacing, in my sleep sometimes.

Still love him though.

I can't hate Branco that much because he seems a bit mental, and that endears me to him.

This debate mystifies me as much as the 'I'd love Red Bull to wipe our history for a few wins' one.

Branco remains the weakest of our central defenders, as he has been every season he's been here.

Branco is dogshite and the fact he has 100 appearances explains a lot of our last season and a half

Regardless of ability, or lack thereof, Branco gets kudos for 'that' forearm smash on Flint. 

similar malice to the recent Calvin Andrew one!

Overrated and  talks like a Girl.
Not captains material imo.

Yeah, let's pick on the guy for something he has utterly no control over and is totally irrelevant anyway, nice work.

I am Nathan's Number One Fan...come to think of it, does he have a fan club, with a badge, a signed photo and maybe an occasional newsletter?

You play your best players through the middle to enable them to best effect the game.  So, centre back if a 4, sweeper if a 3...or I'd like to see him holding alongside the same Yasir we had on Saturday...

Yas will be good now, until he turns out for Iraq again. That always fucks him up for a couple of months for some reason.

You were talking so much sense until the end... Brad Barry is fucking abysmal

looking on the bright side Barry has improved a bit and looks OK going forward on occasion.

nowhere near NTs class though.

My point is that Barry is a better option at RB these days than NT, because he's got a decent delivery.

I actually don't mind Barry at all. Telling he won players' player and manager's player last year, and topped our assists chart.

Thompson is a decent enough player at this level, however I suspect he would get a considerably rougher ride for the mistakes he makes and the fact that he is almost permanently injured if he wasn't one of our own'.

I honestly don't get this degrading of Thompson. One of the few players with the heart for a battle, good at bringing the ball out of defence and makes no more mistakes than anyone else.

Thompson is quality at this level & the two main reasons for him making mistakes are the style & the fact that he's constantly had to cover gaps left by players who aren't as good as him positionally.

Thompson would play in goal if he was asked. He loves the club and is easily one of our best players. He should, and probably would, be playing for a championship side except for his recurring injuries.

Probably true most of the time but he also lunges into tackles occasionally, giving silly fouls away.....and penalties (Oxford.....). Like Costanza I find it hard to forget and forgive his Wembley appearance when he clearly wasn't fit and may have cost us promotion as a result. Possibly not entirely his fault that he played and the team would probably have been just as shit anyway but we'll never know now......and he must have known at the time that he wasn't fully fit and shouldn't have risked it.

Having said that he is far better than Branco. I have no confidence when Branco is playing as he is always looks like he'll do something stupid at some point.

Yeah, I mean what's the benefit in having a player who always gives 100%?

Admittedly he might not be infallible but if he was then he wouldn't be playing for us. I like to see passion on the pitch, it is infectious.

I think too you also have to be wary of criticising a captain from what you see on the pitch. The best captains are those that have the respect of the team - it's not about who shouts the loudest, it's about awareness and relationships. We have no idea what those are in the dressing room.

Without wanting to pile in on Barry, Nathan Thompson is very obviously a better right back than he is.

The stats, albeit simplistic, appear to back up the gist of this thread.

In the last four seasons including this one, Nathan has started 73% of league games.
When starting the team has a 43.36% win rate, clean sheets in 29.2% of games and 1.18 goals conceded per game.

Without Nathan the numbers are 33.33% win rate, clean sheets in 14.29% of games and 1.81 goals conceded per game.

Compare that to Branco, who in the same period has started about 53% of league games.
With Branco starting the team has a 38.55% win rate, clean sheets in 14.5% of games and 1.53 goals conceded per game.

Without Branco the numbers are 43.05% win rate, clean sheets in 37.5% of games and 1.15 goals conceded per game.

Other than demonstrating that some people have too much time on their hands, it looks as if the team does significantly better when Nathan starts compared to when he is missing.
Not so good when Branco starts compared to when he is out.

Plenty of other variables in there though, but one constant is that the defence has been generally viewed as poor to average at best during that time.

er, good statto-ing Mr Wobbly.

Perhaps they are both shit  :hmmm: