All New Summer 2008 Transfer Merry Go Round/Rumour Mill
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Caporegime
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Bullards quality, if he wasn't so dodgey looking with a ridiculous haircut he'd be at a top 4 club. Plus, when he's fit and on TV, he's generally doing something funny.
AS for Toure not being very good, are you on some kind of crack, our worst games defensively, didn't include Toure except a few with him over at right back out of his practiced position even though he's fairly solid there. Toure/gallas was the majority partnership last year, in a year where we had the EQUAL LOWEST LOSSES in the league, with Chelsea, yes, Man U lost more games than us, but Toure isn't very good and the partnership is bad.
Toure/Gallas is a very good partnership, last year we were hampered mostly by Flamini very very rarely, and more throughout the season, not playing as a defensive midfielder. Gallas/Senderos didn't look anywhere even remotely close to solid, but we still lost very few games with them involved. The biggest problem is that Senderos/Toure didn't play much together as they are the opposite types of defender, you need that in a partnership. Senderos/gallas like to step up, and Toure likes to mop up behind. If you'd notice, all the best defences have opposite style centre backs, Rio steps up, Vidic mops up everything he misses, they make each other look good.
Silvestre, a 31yr old back from long term injury, clearly no chance of being match fit is not going to step in ahead of Toure, to suggest that is ridiculous. I do wonder if we might not playing some musical chairs with players to cover the defensive mid position. Though the news is that we are signing another midfielder within a week, so most likely Silvestre is only cover, again, on high wages seems absurd considering our policy of over 30 players and high wages. Flamini was on something in the region of 20-30k a week last year, and we're probably going to pay Silvestre twice that to be a substitute?
Wengers lost his marbles.
AS for Toure not being very good, are you on some kind of crack, our worst games defensively, didn't include Toure except a few with him over at right back out of his practiced position even though he's fairly solid there. Toure/gallas was the majority partnership last year, in a year where we had the EQUAL LOWEST LOSSES in the league, with Chelsea, yes, Man U lost more games than us, but Toure isn't very good and the partnership is bad.
Toure/Gallas is a very good partnership, last year we were hampered mostly by Flamini very very rarely, and more throughout the season, not playing as a defensive midfielder. Gallas/Senderos didn't look anywhere even remotely close to solid, but we still lost very few games with them involved. The biggest problem is that Senderos/Toure didn't play much together as they are the opposite types of defender, you need that in a partnership. Senderos/gallas like to step up, and Toure likes to mop up behind. If you'd notice, all the best defences have opposite style centre backs, Rio steps up, Vidic mops up everything he misses, they make each other look good.
Silvestre, a 31yr old back from long term injury, clearly no chance of being match fit is not going to step in ahead of Toure, to suggest that is ridiculous. I do wonder if we might not playing some musical chairs with players to cover the defensive mid position. Though the news is that we are signing another midfielder within a week, so most likely Silvestre is only cover, again, on high wages seems absurd considering our policy of over 30 players and high wages. Flamini was on something in the region of 20-30k a week last year, and we're probably going to pay Silvestre twice that to be a substitute?
Wengers lost his marbles.
Caporegime
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Just
Flamini was our best player last season. You're seriously deluded.
No, but most people are, seriously, get some footage and watch the games, first 10-15 games of the season Flamini drops significantly deeper than Fabregas, and Fabregas gets forward so much he scores 11 goals in those games. AS the season progressed you can 100% see, multiple times that Flamini creeps further and further forward as the season progresses. There are a dozen or so games where we are chasing the game where you see Flamini running around the opposition box trying to create and putting in lots of comendable effort, but he created very little and scored what 2 goals? But at the same time you see Fabregas drop VERY deep, like inline with our back four to pick up the ball and try and create a goal. ARsenal as a whole scored less and less goals, and Fabregas, spending a heck of a lot less time running into the box scored smeg all after the first 1/4 of the season.
Flamini was great at the beginning but barely defended from Xmas on, this is very very easily seeable on all footage of Arsenal after the first 1/4 or 1/3 of the season. Gilberto would run forward, and into the box but most, 99% of his duties were staying behind the play. Denilson is doing somewhat the same, he doesn't sit behind the play and is very very often chasing it. While in every game Eboue has moved into DM position instead of Denilson we instantly get 500% more solid defensively and most of the game he spends behind the ball and not chasing the ball. Flamini was the same, he was always chasing. Senna barely got foward and was always behind the ball not chasing, its why Spain were great, every great team has a DM that stays behind the ball. You really should check out our season, bar the first 2 games, the first 1/3 of the season produced better football than the rest combined, far more attacking, far more chances and theres a reason.
SO many people rate players because they run loads, thats completely deluded. For instance Rooney tonight, utterly completely hopeless, loads of running, but not where he was needed at all, he never came close to looking useful let alone dangerous. Theres nothing worse than a player you say had a great game/season purely because he ran a lot. The best players aren't always chasing the ball if you ever notice that. The best players have other players chasing them for 90mins NOT the other way around. More than anything Flamini didn't ahve the discipline for DM, rarely stayed there and Wenger seems to have lost control, why he hasn't told Ade to stop pretending to be a winger just because he thinks he has the same skill as Henry is beyond me. Fabregas for instance just takes a single step away from a player and makes players chase him all game long.
I also meant defensively we were hampered most by Flamini, our centre backs did incredibly well as we were under attack far more on the break than Chelsea or Man U had to cope with(in general). Overall Hleb was our biggest weakness, useless twit. in 4 minutes Nasri showed how to play as a direct player who can cross, pass, keep the ball and create chances.
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Soldato
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from the BBC:
Caporegime
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Is Riera really that good 
According to Man City, no.Is Riera really that good
Caporegime
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Gilberto being terrible doesn't make Flamini the best player ever. Neither does it mean Flamini made the difference, every player makes a difference of some kind, he was better than Gilberto who was horrific all season except maybe his last two appearances, he's completely lost his pace, had no match fitness to speak of. Its really very simple, watch early season games, Fabergas in the box constantly Flamini rarely forwards, watch mid season/later games and the roles are reversed. Fabregas is simply way better offensively than Flamini, who is ok, and defensively Flamini just wasn't there from mid season onwards. Simply watch any games and you'll see this if you take your blinkers off.
I still wonder how exactly you can call Toure not very good, if we managed to lose less games than Man U. Senderos looks shakey, but we still didn't lose many games with him though we tended to concede more goals with him in, thats mostly down to the best to fullbacks in the league last year, and Gallas being solid despite having one game where, he made zero defensive errors and didn't watch a penalty scored against us, he got so much flak in a game he made no mistakes at all.
Just way way to many people equate good player with the amount he runs or the number of touches on the ball, neither of which have anything remotely to do with how good they are.Fitness does not equal quality. To claim Flamini was out best player last year, when Fabregas plays for us, just shows how shockingly little you know.
If you think Flamini was better than Fabregas last year, I honestly suggest you go and get your head scanned for a brain tumour.
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What? What are you on a about? When did I say this.
Seriously, you're really odd.
EDIT
I never said he was. Do you read something, process it in your head and then allow it to come back out as a completely different phrase?
It's a bit hypocritical to say I know shockingly little when you think Eboue is a good midfielder. Actually, you're just a walking quote machine.
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Caporegime
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Firstly, I seem to be arguing with several ARsenal fans, I don't remember claiming anywhere in my post i was replying to you and you alone.
Secondly, there wasn't a game, AT ALL last year(against Man U) where Flamini came off for Silva, so actually that would be you thats wrong. HE stayed on all game in the early season draw and we dominated that game till Eboue came off. AS several games Eboue + sagna was immensely strong, early season Giggs and Evra were on top form and eboue/sagna just completely and utterly owned them, within seconds of Eboue going off they began to run riot down our left flank and 5-10 mins later and 4-5 attacks Evra set up the goal down that side, smeg all to do with Flamini, Eboue was the difference in that game, and Theo being far to small to be a premiership winger and getting pee'd on was the problem and why we didn't win. The 4-0 he came on late in the cup game, the 2-1 he didn't play at all.
Caporegime
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So please tell me why we looked far better against Stuttgart, much better in the 2nd half against Ajax, and better in the second half against West Brom defensively, when Eboue was the man playing in the DM position on each of those occasions, played the whole game there against Stuttgart and was moved to the middle from the right in the other two games. To watch them and say we weren't far more defensively sound after he was put there is to be blind.
Yet again you ignore what I read, not the other way around, I was very clearly talking to OTHER people in this thread when you popped up mid conversation and precede to ignore the fact that I'm responding to 2-3 people. Look up the page, someone else claimed Flamini was our best player last year, to which I responded that he needs his brain checked on. If it doesn't seem like someones talking about something you've said, in a thread with several hundred pages, I would use my brain, process the thought in my head, and come up with the idea that maybe that wasn't being said to me.
But back to you, Could you explain the logic that, Flamini was far better than Gilberto last year was the piece of information you came up with, you took this and turned it intoo Flamini was therefore the difference in the team, which he wasn't. YOu said he was a difference in some phantom game he didn't play in, one where, go and watch it, Eboue was the difference. I really wouldn't mind someone explaining to me what Flamini did, last ditch tackles? no, stood behind the play intercepting attacks? rarely, settings up goals? no, scoring? no starting attacks that turn into goals, rarely, crossing, rarely, shooting, LOTS, on target, rarely. What exactly was it that stood out for you that made Flamini really good and the "difference" in many games. Was it simply the fact that he was on the ball a lot because he ran around a lot or was there some key significant thing he did in these games.
Remember also that the appearance of your players can be severely limited if you watch say, 5 games a season, or even 20 our of the near 60 games most seasons. I think i missed between 4-5 games last season, including preseason. Match of the day often shows you, the best and the worst, which is the minority of the game. They can show you 5 minutes of brilliance of one player, and not show the 85minutes where they did nothing at all.
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I watched every minute of every game last season, including pre-season. I know what I saw. Flamini and Fabregas formed a brilliant understanding and Flamini was top class at breaking up the play, putting himself in the right positions and making intelligent tackles. He was the best DM in the league last season and I'm pretty sure even Man Utd fans would agree to that.
Please don't compare Eboue at DM to Flamini at DM. There's a reason one of them was wanted by Europe's elite and the other is a laughing stock (even amongst his own fans). Especially when you criticise Flamini for getting forward. Did you see Eboue against West Brom? His 30 shots? They were good weren't they.
You're ignored now anyway.
Caporegime
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3 shots if i recall correcty, I also compared Eboue to DENILSON, his shooting ability doesn't impact his defensive ability in the slightest. How many of Flamini's shots were on target then and he scored every game I guess unlike Eboue?
Ronaldinho turned us down at the last minute because Barcelona was his dream, to follow in the footsteps of Ronaldo, Rivaldo etc... He was as definitely coming to Man Utd, he'd even stated he'd had dreams about 'little red devils'
.Robben went to Chelsea for more money because turncoat **** Kenyon knew exactly what our offer was, then RVN called him a 'stupid little boy' or something similar for being greedy.
One thing I will credit Silvestre with, he's always a thread from corners and he's one of the best deep ball crossers I've ever seen.
However his clumsiness and willingness to push people in the box will be the worry of many an Arsenal fan now \o/. Can't believe Arsenal fans are raving about him, there's a reason Man Utd fans have wanted rid of him for well over half a decade.
However his clumsiness and willingness to push people in the box will be the worry of many an Arsenal fan now \o/. Can't believe Arsenal fans are raving about him, there's a reason Man Utd fans have wanted rid of him for well over half a decade.