Seriously deluded

[bigfooty]

There's no doubt the squad is still short of what is required. Keane is a very capable player but I just don't see how he fits in to the 4-2-3-1 formation. People say he can play off Torres, in the trio, but in this formation Nando likes to move about a lot, pull out wide, use his pace, sometimes play on the shoulder of the last defender and use his pace and movement to get that chance to beat the keeper 1on1. Keane is too similar for me and likes to play off a more static type of target man - he's simply not a natural attacking midfielder as he's made his name scoring goals and not creating them for others.

For me our two biggest weaknesses at the moment are the striking positions and the lack of a natural wide player, especially one that can play on the left. Say we go for Silva, that would give us the option of this formation:

Pepe
Arbeloa-Carra-Agger-Dossena
Mascher-Alonso
Yossi-Gerrard-Silva
Torres

or against weaker sides

Pepe
Arbeloa-Carra-Agger-Dossena
Mascher-Gerrard
Yossi-Keane-Silva
Torres

Thus meaning against the lesser sides we have five attacking options instead of the current position where we field Kuyt on the right and end up with only 3 genuine attacking threats (Gerrard, Babel and Torres last season) with Yossi often relegated to the bench.

We also lack the option of a target man. Someone we can go long to and use as a buffer against physical defences who will destroy Nando when the the ball just keeps being played long and in the air. I really don't know who could take that role and if we've even got the funds to buy such a player but it's interesting that only Utd out of the top-half teams don't have that option - Arsenal have Adebayor, Chelsea have Drogba, Villa have Carew, Pompy have Crouch / Kanu, Man City have Benjani, Blackburn have Santa Cruz. Rooney's robust stature means he puts himself about in a similar fashion but if Utd were to get Berbatov he'd perform that role as he is great playing with his back to goal.

[friedk]

if you think rafa has cracked it.

that tonight was shocking. don't get your hopes up, if you think champs league qualification is fine, then wooop wooop lucky you.

bunch of no marks we are now.

this is either a wind or seriously idiotic.

I saw the scum drew 0-0 with Juventus, their fans must be livid, I mean they have absolutely zero chance of winning anything this season now.

[barnes10]

this is either a wind or seriously idiotic.

I saw the scum drew 0-0 with Juventus, their fans must be livid, I mean they have absolutely zero chance of winning anything this season now.

not so sure, it seems their fans were actually watching our game before posting on here doesnt it...

[Rashid]

this is either a wind or seriously idiotic.

I saw the scum drew 0-0 with Juventus, their fans must be livid, I mean they have absolutely zero chance of winning anything this season now.

Except their fans know from past history that their team WILL be in the mix whereas we are just looking for signs.

[kop-al-74]

deleted

[kop-al-74]

if you think rafa has cracked it.

that tonight was shocking. don't get your hopes up, if you think champs league qualification is fine, then wooop wooop lucky you.

bunch of no marks we are now.

Yea,thats convinved me.You have showed me light!

[friedk]

Except their fans know from past history that their team WILL be in the mix whereas we are just looking for signs.

not so much looking for signs as clutching at straws

[dww]

I'm not sure that the negativity on this board of late has any justification really. I know things aren't ideal and we really could do with at least one more player but here are some reasons for us to be mildly optimistic:

United haven't improved and we have. Adding an extra goal threat to the team in Keane is significant progress IMO.

Dossena looks to add all the things we need to the left fullback slot. Many people felt that Riise was terrible imagine how good our defensive record will be if he is even decent

In general all the signings we have made do address problems within the squad and we have done so on a reasonably small budget (when sales are considered).

Alonso has taken the **** well and looks motivated, fit and ready to return to his best form.

We have a lot of young players who have been improving and we can expect them to continue that.

We have an assistant manager to take some of the strain off Rafa.

We weren't actually that far behind last year in the sense that two results against United would have flipped the positions of the two clubs. It is all about the small deltas - therefore the progress we have made may well be the necessary difference between challenging and not.

[Darth Marty]

Good post DWW, and all fair and valid points. I too feel as if people are being overly pessimistic and truly think we will be in the mix come next may.

That said when Rashid appears everything has a tendency to go to the dogs. Ban him already.

Said in jest.

well, maybe.

[bigbill]

Best you go back to lurking mate.

Here to stay now...

[bigfooty]

I'm not sure that the negativity on this board of late has any justification really. I know things aren't ideal and we really could do with at least one more player but here are some reasons for us to be mildly optimistic:

United haven't improved and we have. Adding an extra goal threat to the team in Keane is significant progress IMO.

Dossena looks to add all the things we need to the left fullback slot. Many people felt that Riise was terrible imagine how good our defensive record will be if he is even decent

In general all the signings we have made do address problems within the squad and we have done so on a reasonably small budget (when sales are considered).

Alonso has taken the **** well and looks motivated, fit and ready to return to his best form.

We have a lot of young players who have been improving and we can expect them to continue that.

We have an assistant manager to take some of the strain off Rafa.

We weren't actually that far behind last year in the sense that two results against United would have flipped the positions of the two clubs. It is all about the small deltas - therefore the progress we have made may well be the necessary difference between challenging and not.

Yes, there are reasons to be positive. There are however reasons to be concerned.

For me losing Crouch leaves a hole in the side. We don't have a proper target man in the squad and already Keane has shown signs of struggling to adapt to playing a much deeper and less defined role than would normally be the case. When you spend £19M on players it shouldn't be with a view to not playing to their strengths.

We still haven't solved our continuing set piece problems. Xabi's delivery was pretty bad against Lazio and our short corner routines still tend to result in little danger being created.

We look solid at the back but bereft of genuine creative quality up front. Against the three best teams we have faced in pre-season, two of which were much further behind us in fitness, we've gone 0-0, 0-0 and 1-0. We were arguably lucky to escape with a draw against Villareal as they hit the post a couple of times and some desperate diving blocks were needed to keep the clean sheet. Yes we scored goals in the other matches but Rangers were clearly well below their best and Valarenga are a very weak team.

Personally I don't see what Keane adds to our team in our current style of play. To get the best out of him he needs to be playing alongside Nando. If we do that then we have to go 4-4-2 and play with two out and out strikers, not the "second striker" stuff Rafa likes to play. I think Keane is a great little player but I don't go in for this "signing of the season" nonsense because I'm not entirely sure what he's going to bring to us given the way we play.

[dww]

I'm not necessarily wanting to paint an entirely rosy picture - I'm just tired of the current rash of negative posts before the season has even begun. Especially as I think we have seen a lack of strengthening from our rivals both above and below us in the league.

I disagree fundamentally about Keane's role actually. I think in his time a Spurs one of his great strengths was coming from deeper positions into the areas around the six yard box - giving a target for crosses or following up the shots of others. Last year I felt this was badly lacking in our play. For me Keane will adapt after a few games to the change in emphasis asked of him by Rafa.

I don't think we need an out and out target man. We didn't use Crouch all that much last year so I don't think it is a huge loss. United don't have a target man and Chelsea did just as well last season when Drogba was out (rather counter intuitively). It would be a nice option but I'm not sure it substantially weakens us and I feel the loss is more than compensated by having Keane and if Ngog proves to be useful then we will overall be much better off up front IMO.

I think we have more to offer than what we have shown in pre-season - although I would like to see us have more creativity up front I do think that Benayoun, Gerrard and Keane will provide a lot of chances over a season. We are relying to some degree on an improvement in the contributions of Kuyt and Babel though to my mind at the minute, which is not ideal.

I do whole heartedly agree about set pieces though.