I agree, providing your back 4 are all consistent and can do a bit of everything, defend, attack and most of all work well as a unit.
I do think people over exagerate when it comes to johnsons discipline/concentration/poor defending whatever you want to call it but he still isn't the best either. Prone to making mistakes far too often.
Kelly is a young lad with no experience who in my opinion will burn out if he is given 38 games a season ahead of johnson next year. We also risk losing johnson who won't be happy sitting on the bench, but his attacking skills are certainly an asset to us so its something we can't do.
For those reasons, a bit of swop and changing here and there between the two wouldn't harm us IMO.
I do think people over exaggerate Johnson's defensive frailities at times, blaming him for things that aren't his fault - same way people have blamed Kelly for things that aren't his fault either. But unfortunately, for Johnson anyway, his problems are shown up much more because they're more regular and for a vastly overpriced fee - he comes in for scrutiny much more because expectation is much higher.
As for Kelly burning out - really irriates me that argument. These super fit human beings can't last less than 3500 League minutes over the course of 9 months, then there's serious trouble. If they weren't F***ing off to endorse some brand new product or release a new book or do some new interview and instead focused solely on football then maybe they could last a League season out. Also, there's so many breaks that players get now (internationals, cup games, rearranged fixtures) that there's no reason players - no matter what age - can't last 38 League games. Plus if they are struggling, there's a rule called substitutions where you can bring a tired player off and replace him with a fresh player.
If Johnson is unhappy about being on the bench, tough sh*t. It's up to him to prove his worth in training and force Kenny to pick him. Same way it is for Kelly if it's Johnson who gets the nod. And if there's a drop in form/injury/suspension to one who is selected then it's up to the under study to take their chance and make them undroppable - pretty much what Kelly did this year before his injury. Got the chance, took it so well that he was almost a certainty to start the following game.
And I still believe swapping our back line is gonna harm us more than benefit us. Defenders need to get to know one another on the pitch, know when the centre halves are gonna step up so they're not playing everyone on side. We need a settled back line, that's how a successful club builds up - from the back.
Get the back four sorted so you have a platform on which to build. We already have a top quality keeper, providing we can keep him this summer, and with a little bit of tweaking we can have a great defence. That's the start of this side being built into League champions.
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