Hypothetical question....

[Red Chilli]

It's a bit like asking, "If we sold Xabi for £20m, burnt 3/4 of it, and used the rest to buy fizzy cola bottles, would that be a good idea?"



Cahill?


He's nothing.

5 million pounds worth of fizzy cola bottles?


Hmmmmmm yes please

[bigbill]

no, id rather eat the carrots out of my own ****

Contender for the award for the best response ever to a daft forum question

[Howard_lfc]

A related but different question. It seems that our three main CMs are not well balanced hence we have to shove Stevie G out wide and put up w/the fact that Momo is not your typical attacking midfider. Xabi is great at the playmaker role but is not your Makele type holding player.

As I said the balance is all wrong. Imagine you had the chance to replace one of the above with someone under 24. Who would you sacrafice? Who would you bring in and where would they play and in what formation?

To me the above is the biggest conundrum we face at the moment.

After I've read some of your reposones I'll let you know what I think.

who do you have in mind then?

[Redlife]

To say he's 'nothing' is silly.

Even if he does 'just' score goals, that's still 10 or 15 goals from a CM, which is nothing to be sniffed at.

They would want a ridiculous fee for him, say £12m-15m, when really he's worth about 1/3 of that.


Secondly, at present he has a decent goals record, but to buy someone who 'just' scores goals and to lay down that sort of money in the hope that that good run will continue does not make sense.


Rafa doesn't even buy strikers who 'just' score goals. It's about playing for the collective, what they can do for the team, and how that will contribute to winning matches.


More simply, his overall game isn't good enough. It suits the bitter blues style of play; they hoof it up and everyone charges after it, so having a midfielder who can get in the box, but isn't that good at actual midfield play, works for them. Not for us though.

[Redlife]

5 million pounds worth of fizzy cola bottles?


Hmmmmmm yes please

Better value than buying Tim Cahill, right?

[Red Chilli]

Better value than buying Tim Cahill, right?

Damn straight!

[El Jefecito]

who do you have in mind then?

Alves

I think I'll go along w/Fiddy. I really think Rafa had intended to use 352 more than he has this season. The acquisition of Fabio and the pursuit of Alves would tend to back that up. I also think the pursuit of Neill sort of plays into this. Neill can play right back when we play a flat back four and he can cover in the center when playing three at the back.

I really really hope we can get Alves in, because at this point I think that he would improve the team most, Finnan just isn't a decent wing back. He's fine in a 442, but as we saw yesterday his inability to beat a man limits his usefullness in a 352. He provided very little width yesterday.

Obviously We'll still be using 442 a whole lot and I'd rotate Momo and SG in that formation and put Stevie out on the wing when he is not playing in the middle, given Pennants form is there really another choice at this point?

If I had to replace one of the CMs it would be Momo, I hate to say that as he is my favourite but swapping him for De Rossi/Mascherano would provide a better overall balance.

[dww]

I really can't see the benefit of 3-5-2 and Rafa has very rarely used it in his career. I think that Rafa wants attacking fullbacks to provide more wide options in a 4-2-2-2/4-2-3-1 type formation. Adding attacking fullbacks means that there is much less pressure on the two shielding midfielders to break forwards.

[Red Chilli]

I really can't see the benefit of 3-5-2 and Rafa has very rarely used it in his career. I think that Rafa wants attacking fullbacks to provide more wide options in a 4-2-2-2/4-2-3-1 type formation. Adding attacking fullbacks means that there is much less pressure on the two shielding midfielders to break forwards.

Were you watching in the first half yeaterday?

[dww]

Okay, I worded that badly - 3-5-2 can be okay against some teams, on some occasions. In general however it makes to many demands of the two wingbacks and leaves you with three centrehalves on the pitch which is unlikely to contribute anything in attacking play. There are reasons that very few teams play this system week in week out - it is just less flexible and requires more specialist players than variants of 4-4-2 and leaves you vulnerable against better teams.

[Fiddy]

Okay, I worded that badly - 3-5-2 can be okay against some teams, on some occasions. In general however it makes to many demands of the two wingbacks and leaves you with three centrehalves on the pitch which is unlikely to contribute anything in attacking play. There are reasons that very few teams play this system week in week out - it is just less flexible and requires more specialist players than variants of 4-4-2 and leaves you vulnerable against better teams.

Ok I see your point, and I'm not a huge fan of 352 myself, but surely you can see that at present that is the most suitable formation for our set of players?

And Speedy I'm not sure if all this is actually as Rafa planned it, maybe he just wanted more attacking FB's in a 442 system, because as far as I can remember he always used four at the back at Valencia?

[dww]

I can see that short term there are benefits but I still have hope that Pennant will come good and I think that Stevie has improved his play as a deep lying central midfielder to the point where we could go with a midfield four of:

Garcia - Gerrard - Alonso - Pennant

Another alternative that might work would be to play Bellamy on the right.

Part of the problem with doing this has been the crap form of our defence. I genuinely think that the midfield would improve if there was a greater confidence in the defence (as we had last year). I think long term getting a resiliant back 4 involving Agger is the way to regain this.

In either system we need to get more from the wide defenders - which is why I am surprised we have not seen more of Peltier.

[Fan65]

Sell Alonso.????

Stone me this forum is getting very silly

[Craig_H]

Sell Alonso.????

Stone me this forum is getting very silly

I love the one-dimensional viewpoints...

[tomasjj]

I love the one-dimensional viewpoints...

A bit like yours then.
I see you have dug yourself in and am still in the trenches on this.