Micah Richards made several forays in the opposing penalty area in last Saturday’s pre-season game at Bradford, and with what he saw at the World Cup as well as last season’s Premiership Pearce will be encouraging his wide defenders to move up when they can.
When asked about Richards’ display at right back, Pearce responds: “With the way professional football is going nowadays, you only have to look at the World Cup and the thrust from the full-backs to see that getting forward is absolutely vital.
Whoever plays at full back, be it Micah, Ben, Danny Mills or Steven Jordan, it is essential that they get forward because quite often in the Premiership it’s a game of chess and the full-backs are the ones that can time their runs and free themselves up a touch.”
City’s summer signings look to have given strength in depth to the middle of the side, but the Manager is hinting that the flanks are where he is still looking to improve.
“We have more options than we did last year, we would like more thrust in the wider areas if possible, but we are addressing that. I think we are pretty strong in the spine of the team but maybe we need some options out there, but time will tell on that.”
