And that's closest to the point, really. No, we didn't "replace" Lennon, who is a player for whom I have a great deal of respect, but that's because we made his role semi-redundant.
When we played in a 4-4-2 formation, the fullback needed protection and assistance from his winger, because of the underpopulated midfield, and Lennon is simply excellent at that: he's so responsible and effective in tracking back to defend that I think he covered up quite a few intrinsic deficiencies in the formations and tactics we adopted in those days.
But now we play an overpopulated central midfield and our semi-wide attacking players have to be able to shoot and score goals, cut inside and let the fullback overlap, as well as hugging the touch-line, beating a man, pinging in crosses and then zooming back when we lost the ball.
Lennon is great, but his skill-set doesn't suit our current approach.
They were an awful pairing.
Lennon was always crying out for the ball to be played into space in front of him but Walker did not have the vision.
Lennon and Corluka were a great pairing as of course were Lennon and Defoe.
If we want to improve from last season, we a need a speedster like Lennon to stop teams like Liverpool pressing us to the halfway line, knowing we haven't got anyone fast enough to hurt them.
Bale would do.
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