Konchesky/Insua

[Drago]

I was on about the FA Cup games. Could have swore that guy was called James Harper. Either way he was some average nobody and he tore Insua to bits.

[Arn]

I was assuming so but thought I'd better check!

That really is shocking, I think this time it will be the ****e old players that get him the sack (Konchesky, Poulsen) or at least I hope...

He always names young players when he mention that our squad isn't big enough......

Kelly will soon again be benched and Shelvey won't get a place in the squad when the injured players get back.

In the Northampton game when Shelvey played a good game after coming on as a sub he said his usual negative stuff about a young player.

[Pablo]

He always names young players when he mention that our squad isn't big enough......

Kelly will soon again be benched and Shelvey won't get a place in the squad when the injured players get back.

In the Northampton game when Shelvey played a good game after coming on as a sub he said his usual negative stuff about a young player.

John W Henry has been quite open about his admiration for Arsene Wenger. Well I hope now he realises that Roy Hodgson is the absolute polar opposite of Wenger in just about every respect.

[danperkins]

To be honest I think that Konchesky and Insua are much of a muchness, but on current ability neither is good enough. Insua is young and would get better, whereas Konchesky is or should be at his peak now so the decision to spend £5m on Konchesky was utter madness in my opinion.

I'm not a big fan of Insua, but I think last season he suffered alot, because he was our only senior left back for large parts of the season, and he clearly needed taking out of the firing line, which was something we were unable to do. I don't see that situation improving if he'd been here this year (Aurelio's injury), and I think his development could have been harmed were he putting in performances like those last of last season and fans were getting on his back.

The bottom line IMO is that neither are good enough, if we'd been able to get a decent left back who wasn't horrifically injury prone I wouldn't have minded Insua as a back up being brought through.

EDIT: the money we spend on Konchesky and Poulsen (~£10m) could have probably bought us a decent left back

great post

[frank the tank]

suppose the question shouldn't be "Is Insua better than Konchesky".....it should actually be "Is Konchesky ****ter than Insua!"

[Lecter]

"Young players get you the sack"

No but **** tactics do

[Neil Young]

The thing is though that Roy isn't a great manager for young players. Perhaps on a personal level the loan might be good for Insua. Hopefully he will come back with a season of first team football behind him and kick on.

While I think he is in many ways a better player than Konchesky even now I'm not sure that he wouldn't have been even more exposed than last season to balls in the air. Our strategy this season encourages teams to look to play balls into those areas and if we form two banks of four one natural approach is to test the full backs aerially if you think they are weak in that way.

That said when Villa tried that against him last season he stood up to it. Perhaps it would have been the making of him but I personally doubt it.

It's no less true just because it's obvious.

[Kenneth]

Hodgson.

To be fair, that is possibly the ****test source ever.

[danperkins]

Think we can all agree that we need better than both Insua and The Konch, and that money was wasted in other areas when the LB position should have been nailed down. The Konchesky signing was. catostrophic, as was the Poulsen signing, we didn't need Meireles either. Thats 20 million squids Roy!

[Lecter]

Think we can all agree that we need better than both Insua and The Konch, and that money was wasted in other areas when the LB position should have been nailed down. The Konchesky signing was. catostrophic, as was the Poulsen signing, we didn't need Meireles either. Thats 20 million squids Roy!

Throw in Brad Jones as well and Joe Cole

[danperkins]

Throw in Brad Jones as well and Joe Cole

Yup true but i suppose Jones will hardly ever play, and i'm a big fan of Cole, i think he's hopelessly out of form and ineffective for us on the left. But Roy's signing has been calamitous, no way of sugar coating it.

[Maxiedge]

Young managers get you the sack

[Fredo]

Yup true but i suppose Jones will hardly ever play, and i'm a big fan of Cole, i think he's hopelessly out of form and ineffective for us on the left. But Roy's signing has been calamitous, no way of sugar coating it.

I've never been enamoured by Joe Cole to be honest. He's a good player, has a 'bag of tricks' (befitting what could have been said by someone like Harry Redknapp - I remember Redknapp saying he could become our new Kenny or something of the sort ), but he's never won me over.

There's a good reason he was never really a fulcrum of Chelsea's sides. I think his main problem is with his obsession of wanting to play 'in the middle'. Then, his end product has never been good enough.

It was a good deal all in all, because we've sold Yossi who is 31 and got Cole who is 29 and we got £5m in the bank. But I think that Yossi has more talent than Cole - scores more goals for a start.

[Exiled_red]

I've never been enamoured by Joe Cole to be honest. He's a good player, has a 'bag of tricks' (befitting what could have been said by someone like Harry Redknapp - I remember Redknapp saying he could become our new Kenny or something of the sort ), but he's never won me over.

There's a good reason he was never really a fulcrum of Chelsea's sides. I think his main problem is with his obsession of wanting to play 'in the middle'. Then, his end product has never been good enough.

It was a good deal all in all, because we've sold Yossi who is 31 and got Cole who is 29 and we got £5m in the bank. But I think that Yossi has more talent than Cole - scores more goals for a start.

Cole is a good player, but as you say playing him on the left isn't his favourite position, and that's the problem for too long we've been sticking players out wide when they are either central midfielders (Meireles, Murphy), in the hole players (Berger, Smicer, Barmby, Le Tallec, Litmanen) or strikers (Kuyt, Cisse, Heskey, Diouf, Pongolle). Most of these have been good players, but we've not really got the best out of them, because we've either not known how to use them or we've used them out of position. We need to sign proper wide players. IMO it's no co-incidence that we had our best season in years when we had Riera playing regularly, he wasn't the greatest winger but he allowed us to use an area of the pitch we haven't been fully utilising for years.

[danperkins]

I've never been enamoured by Joe Cole to be honest. He's a good player, has a 'bag of tricks' (befitting what could have been said by someone like Harry Redknapp - I remember Redknapp saying he could become our new Kenny or something of the sort ), but he's never won me over.

There's a good reason he was never really a fulcrum of Chelsea's sides. I think his main problem is with his obsession of wanting to play 'in the middle'. Then, his end product has never been good enough.

It was a good deal all in all, because we've sold Yossi who is 31 and got Cole who is 29 and we got £5m in the bank. But I think that Yossi has more talent than Cole - scores more goals for a start.

Valid points for sure although Cole's injury record hasn't helped his productivity, lets hope this latest injury isn't the start of another injury hot season for Cole.

I always liked Yossi, sometimes a bit of a head down job but still a good player. Cole is having a nightmare thus far and by his own admission the worst form of his career, he is so predictable at LM, i mean how many players left footed and right footed players have played there over recent years and done exactly what he is doing... cutting inside every time,narrowing the play, can't beat a man , doesn't get down the line and doesn't get service into the front men?

I'd like to see Cole or Meireles behind Torres, seems Roy wants Stevie in CM, and to be fair Gerrard has been excellent of late. Unfortunately for us we're going to have to wait until January to make vital additions to the squad. Lets hope a combo of NESV/Roy/Comelli can pull something out of the bag.