Football Banter/discussion Thread

[smudgedj]

i completely see your point about how toure plays, but im not so convinced Barry has anything to offer going forward. i just think if they had a CM who did very little in the way of defending, they would be far more potent, and much less boring to watch. silva was impressive, id like to see him and johnson playing wide, de jong and toure in the middle and this more attack minded player i keep on about in the middle with them. with the quality city have/will buy soon, against the majority of teams they can afford to have a midfielder not pulling his defensive weight. scholes done it for the last 20 years, and Zidane reckons hes the best player of his generation. and it didnt exactly stop his team winning

a good exmaple of this is taraabt (if thats how you spell it) at QPR this year. he gets free reign to do what he wants when he wants. QPR had enough quality to dominate the championship all year, they could afford to have one player not 'sticking to the plan' as such. reading an interview with the QPR boss, he was telling his team not to pass the ball to taraabt if he wasnt in the opposing half, his team mates didnt expect him to defend or tackle back, and always assumed he was going to drive on forward and shoot or create chances. now they've been promoted, they've got to think differently about how they use him. but this is what man city can afford to do against most, weaker teams, have a floating, highly skilled offensive midfielder who doesnt have to track back with the rest of the midfield.

as for cabaye, i know very little about him, nothing that i havnt read in the paper. but hes got to be better than some players we were using last year, so its a good thing. if we can get barton and nolan to stay on, with guiterrez and ben arfa on the wings and tiote in the middle, thats a very decent midfield. just need a 10 million + forward to lead the line.

Well reports over here are Sánchez signing for City sometime next week...can't tell if it's true as you can never be certain with football. So that will be an attacking midfielder.

Who do you want as your forward?

 

[moochy13]

i dont know. i suspect the owner will fob us off and not spend anywhere near as much as he could do. im no businessman, but the way i see it we should have what we got for carrol (35m), plus whatever he was planning on letting the manager spend anyway, say 10m. i dont think thats unreasonable to assume, but theres no way pardew will get that to spend. really i have no idea who we should try get in up front. i dont keep tabs on any football outside england, so no idea what sort of form/quality is on the continent. no premiership player springs to mind who we could realistically attract to the club, so i suspect its going to be another foreign import.

 

[smudgedj]

You can have Jo from city mate, if you fancy a relegation battle!

 

[holidayinn]

Liverpool only played well this season when under no pressure...Very similar to Arsenal who felt the pressure in April, Liverpool felt it in October....

Any of the big 5 (Utd, Ars, Cit, Che, Liv) could win it, all depends on the transfer activity in this window, which looks like being one of the busiest for England in a few years (esp with fifa financial fair play set to kick in next year). But, I think it'll be out of UTD and Chelsea again...

 

[james_fish]

Free tickets to games fan! rugby fan, but follow football.

Seen United, City, Liverpool, Blackburn, Wigan & Bolton all play at home.

James

 

[KkAaNnEe]

Nice thread lol just stumbled across it

Well, im a gooner, always have been, even if my dad tried to make me suppot West Ham. So been pretty shameful season for both of us

Havent really thought about football much since the end of the season, just feel gutted when I think about it, I was at cardiff in 2005 when we last won a trophy, would have never guessed what the next six years would have in store lol, anyway it could be worse!

 

[smudgedj]

Nice thread lol just stumbled across it

Well, im a gooner, always have been, even if my dad tried to make me suppot West Ham. So been pretty shameful season for both of us

Havent really thought about football much since the end of the season, just feel gutted when I think about it, I was at cardiff in 2005 when we last won a trophy, would have never guessed what the next six years would have in store lol, anyway it could be worse!

Are you one of the Arsenal fans who want a new manager? Are would you rather see him put his hand in his pocket and buy 'big' You still need to replace Vieira, in fact a new defense wouldn't go amiss! I was a bit shocked at your collapse after the Carling Cup final. Fibreglass looking to move to Barcelona again, let him go and try to keep Nasri?

 

[StandbySetting]

I'm liking the way our new team at Derby is shaping up, so far it looks as though we'll be playing a 4-3-3, signings so far:

Jamie Ward, Frank Fielding, Theo Robinson, Craig Bryson, Nathan Tyson, and in the future it looks like we'll be getting Jason Shackell, Martyn Waghorn and Chris Maguire.

 

[KkAaNnEe]

Nice thread lol just stumbled across it

Well, im a gooner, always have been, even if my dad tried to make me suppot West Ham. So been pretty shameful season for both of us

Havent really thought about football much since the end of the season, just feel gutted when I think about it, I was at cardiff in 2005 when we last won a trophy, would have never guessed what the next six years would have in store lol, anyway it could be worse!

Are you one of the Arsenal fans who want a new manager? Are would you rather see him put his hand in his pocket and buy 'big' You still need to replace Vieira, in fact a new defense wouldn't go amiss! I was a bit shocked at your collapse after the Carling Cup final. Fibreglass looking to move to Barcelona again, let him go and try to keep Nasri?

I dont know if im a stereotype of either of the types you mentioned but yeah, i am up and down with it. I dont want wenger to go, who would replace him? No one in my books. But yes he is blinkered with things, i dont think we need a new defence at all, i believe for a majority of the season we conceeded less than united.

But we are shaky, big time. We need someone with PL experience like Samba or Cahill for example. And on the fabregas front, i have no prob with him leaving, he offered nothing this season. We would need to replace him with another CM, or Nasri, who is being a mug but i dont think will leave.

I also think we need a CF, Van Persie is great but will prob not manage the all the games, plus there were alot of matches last season when we struggled to score. So three signings in my books, and if clichy goes just move Vermaelen to LB.

 

[moochy13]

vermaelen is quality, id keep him at CB. if clichy goes give gibbs a chance, arsenal gave ashley cole a chance after silvinho left, and hes now regarded as one, if not the best LB in football right now. certainly, i think a quality CB is needed at arsenal, im talking top quality. somebody imposing like sol campbell was. bringing in another unknown doesnt put the doubt in opposing forwards minds. i dont know how many of you have played football, ive played up to county level, and you get to know players you are likely to come up against, even at local youth football level. knowing you're coming up against somebody who maybe last time marked you out of the game, or that you know is regarded as one of the best in the world makes a big pyschological difference to how you prepare before the whistle even goes.

once vermaelen got injured, if i was a premiership forward, especially a high quality one, the prospect of getting past kosceilny or squillaci would have been far more encouraging than the prospect of getting past sol campbell in his pomp, or paolo maldini etc. i think this is what arsenal lack in defence, other than sagna who i highly rate, and vermaelen, there are no defensive players that will make the best opponents think twice about trying to get past them. i also agree about a new CF. i think bendter is lucky to even be in the arsenal squad, let alone thinking he is some sort of footballing genius

saying that, wenger has always maintained he eventually wants walcott to play up front. considering how poor his final ball still is, maybe its the time to make the change. wenger signed Henry as a winger, with the same idea to turn him into a forward. id say that went pretty well.

 

[KkAaNnEe]

Vermaelen is quality but i was just thinking if we got a Good CB, Djourou can partner him at CB, vermaelen plays LB for Belgium as captain anyway. I think Gibbs is a great player but not quite yet, plus he gets injured so much... So who would replace Gibbs? Yet again if we 'make do' what could be the consequences?

 

[moochy13]

ahh, i didnt realise vermaelen was also a LB. in which case you're probably right. maybe let gibbs out on loan for a season, when he comes back put him in at LB, if he gets injured vermaelen plays there, and you've got your 'new' CB to cover. despite what you say about vermalen at LB, i was well impressed with him at CB, so much so he was in my dream team till he got injured, hes your best CB, id leave him there.

i went to watch norwich a few times last season, they had Henri Lansbury on loan for the last half i think. he looked pretty good at championship level, though ive heard very little baout him coming from the arsenal camp. is he just not good enough, or is he just unfortunate thats hes trying to break through at teh same time wilshire and ramsey are ?

he was apparently very happy at norwich, and by all accounts wenger likes him being there. norwich like to try and play football as arsenal do, although to a 'slightly' lesser ability norwich also had the liverpool youngster Danny Pacheco for the last few months of the season, and he made a very big impact. looked like real star quality. again, Dalglish is apparently happy for him to stay at norwich another year believing its a good palce to be for a young player, both football and lifestyle wise. Paul Lambert's Celtic links also help with persuading Dalglish to lend him his best youngsters.

 

[smudgedj]

moochy13.....Can't believe you've just sold Nolan..That's shocking

 

[moochy13]

ive only just seen. what a joke. this is what newcastle fans have to put up with. to not offer your best player a contract hes happy with, then sell him is ridiculous. it will cost far more to buy a replacemnt of equal quality than it would have done to give him a better contract. i even think the disagreement was over the length, not even the money ! i believe its the same with barton, newcastle wont offer a contract length he wants. ive seen 5 years banded about as what barton is after, that only takes him to 32, which as a CM is still not the beginning of the form/fitness loss associated with age. proven again that newcastle are run by idiots. Barton has 'tweeted' that he thinks himself, enrique and guttierez are next. our midfield was the only thing we could be proud of. its what got us promoted, and what kept us in the premiership. now it looks like its going to be decimated.

 

[holidayinn]

Wouldn’t get too disheartened, Barton although becoming a decent player is still as stupid thug, its not his place to comment on other players at the club, point proven! Anyway, Gutierrez and Enrique were never gna spend their entire careers at Newcastle, not with their Latin backgrounds.


The Nolan transfer is puzzling, surely there were other prem teams interested? Must be the Allardyce factor or the ££££ that swung it. Anyway u still have Tiotte!