**Summer Transfer Thread: News, Rumours and Speculation**

Oh please, Eduardo/RvP starting at any club in the world?

No. They would be rotation players, just like they are now.

The reason that RVP doesnt play every game is that he is prone to injuries. Wenger is trying to help him recover. Better to drop him than get him injured for three months.

If you want to compare strikers with barca, I dont think any ManU strikers would be in the starting lineup for barca. Does that make them squad players? :rolleyes:
 
9 goals in the league in 17 starts, which is pretty damn impressive

Actually he only scored 6 goals in all those games he started, you can't count total goals and then only list games started, otherwise a player could make dozens of sub appearances scoring every 5 games or so, very few starts and look like a world beater from such stats.

Take Macheda, 2 Prem starts, 2 goals scored in Prem - looks the business. Yet he's NEVER scored when he's started a game. Obviously that's a statistically small sample but the same applies if you scale it up to players who make many sub appearances, you can't start counting those goals in the same breath as claiming how many starts they've had while completely ignoring all the sub appearances.

If we look at Adebayor he has 9 goals from 21 starts, which surely must also be pretty damn impressive compared to 6 in 17. Plus, if assists are so important, remember that Adebayor made DOUBLE the number of assists Bendtner did last season in the league, from 5 fewer appearances (and only 4 more starts). And I'm speaking as someone who thinks Adebayor should be sold for the right price and has been full of praise for Bendtner on this forum some years ago.

To be honest, from my perspective 17 league starts sounds fine for a player like Bendtner, especially at a club with two world class strikers who would get a place in any team in the world and thus you would expect to be above him in the pecking order.

Number of starts is always a bit dodgy anyway, far better analysis is number of mins played because players can get injured after 5mins, they might get subbed at halftime or whatever. Remember in terms of goals to minutes played, Michael Owen was the most prolific striker in La Liga during his time there. Adebayor played 1878 mins compared to Bendtner's 1713 last season. So Adebayor actually has a better minutes played : goals ratio than Bendtner, and a far, far superior assists record. Plus for all the love on this forum for Prem-only stats, Adebayor also looked good in the CL statistically, with 5 goals and 2 assists from 7 starts. Bendtner? Er, 0 goals and 0 assists in the 4 games he started.

I'm not going to argue that Bendtner hasn't been played out of position on occasion, but the point is, it's not like he's really grabbed his opportunities when they have come, even literally when I think back to some of the sitters I saw him missing (certainly no better than the much-maligned Adebayor). I thought Bendtner's link up play looked good from the stands but also his first touch was terrible at times, I don't know what was more frustrating, his 10-yard traps or Walcott's continual dribbles out for a goalkick / backpasses to the keeper.
 
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Where's Babel going?

No where. He's only 22, bags of potential, keep a hold of him. Apparently coaching staff have been working really hard to with him to improve his game over the past 18 months. Rafa seems keen to want to work with him and help him challenge Riera for that LM spot.
 
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If you want to compare strikers with barca, I dont think any ManU strikers would be in the starting lineup for barca. Does that make them squad players? :rolleyes:

No, but if someone comes out with a statement saying that they are strikers that "any club in the world would start", it's perfectly valid to compare them with Barca (or anyone else for that matter) - last time I checked the Nou Camp wasn't on Mars.
 
No where. He's only 22, bags of potential, keep a hold of him. Apparently coaching staff have been working really hard to with him to improve his game over the past 18 months. Rafa seems keen to want to work with him and help him challenge Riera for that LM spot.

Bags of potential, yes but a terrible attitude. The only reason why he won't leave would be if we don't receive a reasonable offer for him, in which case there's no point in letting him go.

Benayoun and Kuyt are certainly not leaving and it's common knowledge that we're after another attacker/winger so his chances are going to get less and less (unless he starts playing as a striker and even then he'll just be cover). So if we do sign a winger then it's going to be a straight choice between Riera and Babel and although Riera is far from spectacular, he will always do a job and that can't be said about Babel. He'll be fantastic 1 game and won't do a thing for the next 5 or 6.
 
Have Manchester United secured their first signing of the season? Or is this just another story speculated by the media? After months of speculation, People newspaper says that Man Utd have clinched Wigan midfielder Antonio Valencia for £15.25m.
 
No, but if someone comes out with a statement saying that they are strikers that "any club in the world would start", it's perfectly valid to compare them with Barca (or anyone else for that matter) - last time I checked the Nou Camp wasn't on Mars.

Well they did look out of this world compared to ManU in the champions league final ;)
 
Barca do seem to want to get shot of him, despite him being such a prolific scorer. He must be a disruptive influence in the dressing room.

He seems more of a team player this season but I don't think Barca care if he goes.

They could play Shola Ameobi in Eto'o's role and he'd get about 20 goals in a season such is the service.
 
Apparently Chelsea are offering £50m for Pato and another £50m for Ribery, riiiight...
One paper said we were after Fabregas as well.
 
Tevez will no doubt get the same amount of games for City as he did for United. Santa Cruz will probably be the main striker as Hughes loves him, and Eto'o is better than Tevez. That's assuming they play with two strikers.
 
Ah, Citeh have Real Madrid syndrome.

"If we throw enough money at buying forwards, we'll win everything and our defence won't matter!"

Is Hughes not fussed about the fact that they can't defend?
 
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