THE Ryan Babel thread

[Kenneth]

no. drop lucas. he isnt up to it but stays in the team. untill aquilani gets fit drop ste back with mash and play babel up with torres. at leats then if he fails he cant say he hasnt had afair chance playing his natural position.

True, well worth risking dropping points for.

[the rev leeroy brown]

True, well worth risking dropping points for.

eh we're dropping points as it is just now. we are lucky to have as many as we do. why not give babel a shot? cant be any worse than we are now!

[red g]

no. drop lucas. he isnt up to it but stays in the team. untill aquilani gets fit drop ste back with mash and play babel up with torres. at leats then if he fails he cant say he hasnt had afair chance playing his natural position.

a player with remarkable gifts, but remarkably lacking in a brain. He’s from the Milan Baros / Ronnie Rosenthal school of forward, head down and run.

Yet in his first season he displays a gift that could potentially put either of those to shame but then so did ronnie and Milan

who says striker is his natural position? oh yeh .....him.

i could see him being offside more times than heskey playing upfront!!!

[the rev leeroy brown]

a player with remarkable gifts, but remarkably lacking in a brain. He’s from the Milan Baros / Ronnie Rosenthal school of forward, head down and run.

Yet in his first season he displays a gift that could potentially put either of those to shame but then so did ronnie and Milan

who says striker is his natural position? oh yeh .....him.

i could see him being offside more times than heskey playing upfront!!!

who else would know his best position?

[Kenneth]

eh we're dropping points as it is just now. we are lucky to have as many as we do. why not give babel a shot? cant be any worse than we are now!

Unfortunately, we can.

[red g]

who else would know his best position?

The Manager?

and i would give Gerrard as a perfect example of that

[Craig_H]

no. not proper ones anyway. on the left wing for minutes at a time. 1 game against spurs where the whole team were **** this year. noit enough. he is a striker. he is a talent. give him a shot i say.

So are you suggesting he should play ahead of Torres?

Because we only play one striker.

He might get more chances if he actually put in a shift at least. Having a bad game is one thing, but when you appear not to be putting in 100% and pulling out of tackles etc, it's obvious that the manager will not look too fondly on it.

[Craig_H]

True, well worth risking dropping points for.

To be fair, we've not exactly been faultless as it is.

I dont think playing 442 with Babel upfront and Lucas dropped is something which would obviously cause us to drop points.

[Molby]

To be fair, we've not exactly been faultless as it is.

I dont think playing 442 with Babel upfront and Lucas dropped is something which would obviously cause us to drop points.

Babel is so frustrating to watch (i'm sure rafa feels the same) - when we signed him, i like most people put his name into utube - i thought we had signed the best thing since sliced bread !!

I think it's fair to say - we still haven't seen the Babel from his dutch days, can't remember him doing anything memorable for us which could be posted on utube?? (apart from score against Scumchester Utd)

[tomasjj]

That wasn't really the point i was making - I have been a longtime critic of Babel and I'm still not holding my breath however the way I see it is thus:

His strengths are his pace and when he comes on to the ball he can take people on and has a good shot. In the Spurs game a couple of times he used these qualities to mean that he ran in from the left to take a position centrally where you might expect a forward to be. this sort of position is currently not being generated often by us as our creative play is not gooe enough and our team is disjointed - therefore teh opportunities arrive mainly from long balls which are by their very nature low odds.

If the team gelled (I think it will do given time with Lucas but I know people don't have faith and I'm willing accept i may be wrong hence my mention of Aquilani) I think more of the type of situations babel is best suited to exploit would be created.

In addition to this I agree with many that he is a confidence player. We have also seen how much better Kuyt looks when he is confident even though he isn't a stereotypical confidence player as he always contributes no matter what. Even so i think some of the criticism of babel is unfair as his technique is no where near as bad as is made out. His decision making is however poor.

I know that wasn't you point, Dave.
And my facetious comment wasn't directed at you really.


Babel can dribble, if he is able to get control of the ball without it bouncing one meter up in the air with his first touch.
Yes, facetious again.

[dom9]

If he was good enough, he would play more.

[Craig_H]

Babel is so frustrating to watch (i'm sure rafa feels the same) - when we signed him, i like most people put his name into utube - i thought we had signed the best thing since sliced bread !!

I think it's fair to say - we still haven't seen the Babel from his dutch days, can't remember him doing anything memorable for us which could be posted on utube?? (apart from score against Scumchester Utd)

He was alright in his first season.

[Delinquent]

**** off Ryan. A manager can only promise you opportunities - it's your job to take them.

Let's remind ourselves of Yossi Benayoun's predicament, who commented early last season that he wasn't involved in as many games as he'd like, and then set about changing that through hard work - consequently becoming one of our best performers in the second half of the season.

Now contrast that with Ryan Babel, who just four games in, has seemingly decided that it's not his fault he's not being picked, and therefore, far from working hard to change his situation, he'll just sit it out for a loan deal in January.

Useless, lazy cunt. He's the proverbial big fish, small pond type of player. He hasn't made the transition to a larger pond because he can't handle it when the going gets remotely tough. He should return to Holland and stay there - it's made for him.

[Craig_H]

This is already being discussed in the Babel thread.

[Rich]

Groundhog day