Yoann Barbet

[karateelvis]

Came under some stick early in the season for giving away a lot of penalties? But is his absence part of the reason for our poor form recently?

Hasn’t played since the Reading game and in that time we’ve Lost 3 & Drew 1. Before that, in the league, we’d W7 D2 & L3 with him in the side.

Coincidence or just meaningless stats?

[222gers]

Well, he was highly rated and I was surprised when we got him. Obviously, he didn't get off to a terribly auspicious start with us but now has the opportunity to “go again”.
We are of course in a run of very hard games - Boro apart- that we would have been hard pushed to get anything from notwithstanding our defensive issues.
Clearly, we need to mop up some of the lesser sides coming up soon.

[jimjams]

I wish he was more proactive and less risk averse, but I think he has more technical ability than the other central defenders. He's been a bit unlucky as well, I think.

[White Duck]

I wish he was more proactive and less risk averse, but I think he has more technical ability than the other central defenders. He's been a bit unlucky as well, I think.

I think Barbet is by far the best central defender we have: he gives more penalties than Hall or Leistner as he is closer to the attacker and at least tries to get a tackle in. No chance of Hall or Leistner giving a penalty away for the first Fulham goal on Friday as they were nowhere near the forward.

[jimjams]

Yeah, you make your own luck in this game, as they say.
It's like that thing in Moneyball where people were looking at fielding stats. Some players got fielding errors against their name because they got close to balls that other players couldn't get near.