Aquilani HAS to play on Monday!

[Exiled_red]

personally i wouldn't have started with either ngog or voronin (who i wouldnt have near the first team - i wouldn't even have him near the reserves - nemeth has to be recalled in jan in my view) - the team i would have started with last night would have been:

I'm not wanting to get in to a discussion about whether or not we should recall him I'm just wondering is it possible to recall him? I guess this depends on the terms of the deal, I just wondered if anyone knows anything?

[Shanks]

nemeth has to be recalled in jan

I was hoping we'd sign Villa or Ribery in Jan..

[Le Chef]

personally i wouldn't have started with either ngog or voronin (who i wouldnt have near the first team - i wouldn't even have him near the reserves - nemeth has to be recalled in jan in my view)

Why bring him in and play him above Ngog, he's hardly setting the Greek league on fire, so I would imagine he would do very little here.

I'd play babel up top as opposed to Voronin, but Ngog in terms of development is far ahead of nemeth

[Exiled_red]

Why bring him in and play him above Ngog, he's hardly setting the Greek league on fire, so I would imagine he would do very little here.

I'd play babel up top as opposed to Voronin, but Ngog in terms of development is far ahead of nemeth

[Exiled_red]

I'm not wanting to get in to a discussion about whether or not we should recall him I'm just wondering is it possible to recall him? I guess this depends on the terms of the deal, I just wondered if anyone knows anything?

In reply to my own post, according to wikipedia he's on loan at AEK Athens for all of this season. I believe that you can't usually recall a player from a season long loan, so it would seem unlikely he could be recalled

[Ballykissdevil]

He doesn't HAVE to play at all. We've just paid 20 million quid for him. He's had a months long injury and has only played 15 minutes of football since, an that was in a slow paced reserve match. Since then, he's had a 'heavy bout of flu' and was allegedly very weak in training because of it.

If we bring him in too soon (and it is too soon, he might be fit for half an hour at the end but I'd in no way start him) then we risk undoing some of the months of recovery work he's gone through by rushing him. Was anybody truly expecting him to be fit enough to start games before December anyway?

There's bugger all wrong with Lucas. He's by no means the worst player we have at present, in fact he's arguably one of our better performers at the moment, and yet every. single. day I hear people having digs at him.

But yes, by all means, lets rush back a player who has only played a small part in a reserve game since in about six or seven months.

[The Birdman]

Lucas is a holding midfielder and we can't play two all season. Especially at home. Its an easy choice between Lucas and Masch. Aquilani is needed for some creativity. It's unlucky for Lucas, but it's only because of his position. The person who deserves to be dropped is Dirk Kuyt.

Your right it is an easy choice between then, Lucas has been trying his nuts off in every game, Mascherano is still sulking about not getting his move to Barcelona, he is captain of Argentina and it's world cup year, lets see if a few games on the bench kick him into life

[dww]

I agree with Ballykissdevil that rushing Aquilani back would be a mistake.

I also don't quite get why people feel the need to bash either Lucas who has been good but possibly not in the right combinations all season or Mascherano who has been starting to find his form. We actually played well against Lyon and only daft individual errors cost us the win. Fulham we had a good first half by many accounts. I think we need to build on the positives and not look for scapegoats and make panic decisions.

If we can keep improving the core parts of our game then hopefully Aquilani can provide the boost we need to turn our season around but at the minute it seems wise that he does it from the bench and is eased into the starting team as he reaches full fitness.

[Tee]

I say play him. Home game against mediocre opposition he should be given as much playing time as he can handle to allow him to adapt in the team asap. We need him right now.

[lickedlollipop]

btw around no. 10.. i dunno why aquliani wears no. 4 and not no. 10 ?