I actually think our defence will be fine for next season and is the least of our worries, I rate Bartley and have him as a player of the season candidate, I think Furlong and Townsend are fine and O’Shea is improving, Ajayi I see as more of a risk as he never ceases to make one huge blunder per game. For me as other posters have stated it’s the engine room that I worry about, no Gallagher, Niles or Okay next season leaves a massive hole...
For me Furlong is the weak link. He gets caught out a lot positionally, his awareness and footballing intelligence is very poor.
The first position in defence I would improve is RB.
I think that you're being a bit harsh on Furlong. Yes, his positional sense needs attention but he does have other attributes and I feel that he could become a decent player for us. Some of his tackling has been superb and has often been left exposed as he certainly was against Arsenal. All opinions though!
I think that Furlong and Townsend will be fine in the Championship next season but should we manage to get promotion, they have shown that they struggle in the higher grade.
Furlong has been great even in the Prem. Tons of desire and has really put himself about, lots of goalmouth clearances and keeping really good players at bay. He's made mistakes but really? Don't ever expect no mistakes or even the odd howler. They ALL do it. Townsend has more than proved himself but Furlong has too.
I think he'd do okay next season in the Championship if he was 1st choice RB. But he's not good enough to be a starting Prem full back in my opinion. Whereas I think Townsend is.
My view is he is the weakest of the 4. And if I was in charge of rebuilding next season, I would bring in a RB. I think he's a good back up though.
Question for all of you: How much of an upgrade, if at all, would Hegazi have been over Bartley and Ajayi?
I thought that Hegazi was excellent when in the Prem. but had a very average season in the Championship before he left us.