Spector And Morrison’s Partnership

Spector is someone who I have known about for a long time. I often go to youth games for a variety of teams, just to see who will be the next big thing. On my travels, I saw Spector play for Manchester United as a young lad.

To be honest, other than the fact that he looked a bit taller than everyone else, I hardly noticed him. At youth level it is usually the attackers who catch the eye, mainly because the defence takes longer to learn their positions and their partnerships.

Now, Spector has grown into his own. He reminds me of Rio Ferdinand in the way that he plays. He is calm on the ball and can play it out whilst also being fairly strong. But he isn’t one of those players to really stick his neck on the line and put his face where he knows it’s going to hurt. This isn’t a criticism, it’s just something which I have observed.

These kind of players are the ones that have always wanted to be a midfielder but have been stuck in a less creative role at the back. For these kind of players, they need a partner who will block anything that comes their way and be the presence at the back. Spector is not a leader and therefore his partner needs to be.

So there is no better person to partner Spector than the captain himself, Morrison. Morrison will never shy out of a challenge or a tackle. He would throw his body in the way of a missile if it meant that the Blues’ kept a clean sheet. This type of defending is admirable but then his partner needs to sweep behind and be the calm presence. Again, this is why the partnership works so well.

Another thing that I do like is how well we deal with set pieces. Sometimes in the past, I think that we have not dealt well with them and this is marked improvement. It helps that big Tom is in goal because I think that he is very vocal and also very capable of taking catches. But I also think that Morrison and Spector not only have great aerial ability, they position themselves really well.

Man marking only works if everyone does their role correctly. We seem to have nailed this and not only that, we also attack the ball in order to win it before the opposition. Sometimes with a man marking strategy, there is so much focus on the man that when the ball comes over, the player is not prepared to deal with it. However, I can see that we are being strong in the air and this is very pleasing.

To sum up, I think that the partnership with Morrison and Spector should be preserved at all costs as they work so well together and it helps with the balance of the team.