Sir Brian Stock- Lord of Doncaster...

[flynnfan]

Apologies for swearing in the church of the apostle, but I have to say I thought he was awful last night.

I don't like slagging off our players, but the way I see it, he should be so far down the central midfield pecking order that he shouldn't really be one of our players. I'd put Ramsey, Ledley, Collison, Edwards, Allen, King, Vaughan and probably Dorman ahead of him.. Crofts even! Plus, he's nearly 29- the oldest of all those players I've mentioned too. I know the system didn't really help in the first half, with us constantly outnumbered in midfield, but that's still no excuse for his terrible passing and absolutely shocking positional sense. It was very noticable to me just how much more intelligent Andy 'insurance' King was in his positioning. And it wasn't just that he stayed deep either, he made some fantastic lungbusting runs forward, but seemed smart enough to know when to make those runs. And Vaughan's very first pass was better than anything Stock did in the first half. I don't think Stocks fans on this board can keep pointing to his half decent performance against Russia as a reason for staying in the team, he still cost us in that game with his positioning for Russia's first goal. So far for Wales, he's played in 2 defeats and a half where we came in level with Luxembourg. He really loked last night like the kind of player who would be released by Preston after a few games for not being good enough( which he was... and after a good debut too) I'd rather not see him in the starting line up again.

Right, I'm off to say a few hail Marys...

[Deleted]

I would put him just after Vaughan on last night's performance.

[Deleted]

and I totally agree about Andy King - he looks like a really good athletic disciplined holding midfield player - another piece of the jigsaw.

[saints19]

To be honest, I didn't notice Stock that much. However the whole side were poor in the first half, and Stock has apparently been good for us in previous games, so I say give him the benefit of the doubt - he was unlucky enough to be the fall guy for the first-half performance when any of them could have been really. I'd still pick him ahead of Crofts.

[flynnfan]

Earnie seemed to be getting the biggest slaggings last night. He wasn't great, but Stock was worse.

[welshiron]

I have always said stock should be nowhere near our first team. There is a reason he is still at Doncaster and i would have him well behind Vaughan, King and Allen and on a par with Crofts. So with Ledley, Ramsey, Collison, Edwards ahead of him we shouldnt be seeing to much more, thankfully

[Deleted]

I think it's all about perspective.

I'll admit stock was poor last night- but he's not a bad passer of the ball, I guess he's just off form.

In the run up the championship season a lot of pundits have been talking about Doncaster being "the arsenal of the championship" and playing the best football in the division and stock is the heartbeat of their side by all accounts. So I'm sorry, but you do not play as the fulcrum of a side like that by being a poor passer of the ball. You just don't.

Where he suffers is that he plays in a deep position where letting people go is more heavily punished at international level than at champ level and his defense at Donny is probably more competent than Morgan and Williams who were very poor when exposed in the first half.

I don't see that he should be relied upon to play a dm role when he really isnt, as others have noticed he doesn't have the physical presence. Put him alongside king (who is a natural dm) and then judge, putting him alongside ledley is not fair. It's also early in the season as Bellamy noted and the players who played 90 minutes got better as the game wore on. He did enough against Russia to prove he has passing ability, he just needs to be free of dm duties.

One thing he was doing last night that annoyed me was wellying his passes with more power than necessary, meaning players couldn't control it. Hopefully that's rustiness.

[Tim P]

some of his passing was diabolical - against any kind of team, giving the ball away deep in your own half is an absolute disaster for a central midfielder.

it's going to be tough for him now, but a challenge i hope he would relish.

[flynnfan]

Yeah I hope he relishes the challenge too, but to play that badly against Luxembourgs midfielders is one thing- A performance like that up against players like Gerrard and Jovetic and you'll be punished. Severely.