English League Football ** spoilers ** [13th - 16th August 2010]

StewartMG said:
Wilshere provided absolutely nothing tbh.
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Yup, i'm not completely sure why, having the brains not to overcommit because he knows Diaby will get out of position, has he been told not to get too far forward because Arshavin/Diaby are horrible and providing cover, or was he a little too timid to get forward, I don't know. But its classic Wenger, he's trained his whole career largely as a winger who drifts in, he's played in a fairly similar position in preseason, he played at Bolton as a winger, its the first day of the season, its a big pressure game against tough opposition, away, so stick him in and tell him to be Fabregas and play him in a position he's unfamiliar with, its retarded.

As for not criticising a 17year old, what rubbish, age has nothing to do with it, he wasn't good, I didn't say it was his fault and I thought he should play like a player with Lampards experience. But he stayed almost entirely away from their box, he barely got within 10 yards and when he did rather than last season and preseason Wilshire, happy to try and go around players or exchange passes to get in behind, well, he didn't do that once today.

Again I don't know if it was his position, his instructions, nervousness, but his game is getting in the box, making runs, one/twos to get in on goal, and he didn't do that a single time today, he had one shot from a corner, from way outside the box, thats not a normal Wilshire game at all.

He wasn't good, neither should in any way at all be started out of position in that kind of a game, its insane.

Eboue/Diaby in the middle with Nasri ahead, Wilshire on the wing, Eboue plays central midfield for his country, in a world cup and has looked very good there in a half dozen games for Arsenal, but instead we play Wilshire out of place rather than two players in what is really their prefered positions?

AS for Nasri, no, he had an incredibly poor game, he looked slow, tired, not at all himself and where as normally he'd get on the ball and make a killer pass for Chamakh, every single pass to Chamakh was over/underhit or simply in a direction Chamakh had no chance to get to. His idea's were fine, his execution was off, like I said, he looks shattered. Playing every preseason game, lots of minutes, little recovery and what I assume is a big role for France a few days ago. He's probably played more than anyone in the past month, and I think it showed.

Eboue tends to go down easily, but as with Ronaldo, he's one of the very very few players who runs at pace with the ball, 90% of our players stop/slow down with the ball and pass, then run, Eboue is one of maybe 3 players who dribbles around players at speed, a small tap is all it takes to knock someone like that over. A little over dramatic over Gerrards tackle, but the replay shows he took pretty much Gerrards full weight through his studs in the top of his foot, ouch. Mascherano reacted as badly when the replay shows Wilshire, a player probably 5 stone lighter, tapped him on the side of his foot, with the side of his foot, no studs, no stamp, no follow through and no where near as bad as it looks.

I'd say Eboue went down stupidly easily once, the rest weren't, he only went down 4/5 times of which one was the Gerrard studs.
 
So all we need is him hoping Drogba has a great season and for Walcott to play for England regularly, and everyone will be happy?
 
Managed to get up to Anfield today, and what a breath of fresh air, everybody is positive and it helps the players actually want to be there, sending off was harsh, but we kept our heads up.For all the crap around Masch, he was immense, trully gonna miss him when he goes.

Thought the defense got better as the game got on, we desperately need a proper left back.The serb looked good aswell, kuyt kept running all game, and Gerrard showed why he should play in the middle, some great long range passing.Ngog, isnt the finished article by a long way, but I'd rather persist with him, than spend 20m on players like C.Cole.

All in all good start to the season, its gonna be tough, but the lads look up for it.
 
There's a lot to be positive about despite only drawing the game. You're right we need a left back but I also think we need another striker too. The difference in N'gog from last season to now is visible; it looks like he's beefed up and is no longer getting bullied by CB's, however with Kuyt still being used on the wing, an injury to N'gog or Torres leaves us with just 1 recognised striker.

Spot on regarding Masch too. A lot of people were against him playing today but he would have been the first name on my teamsheet. His attitude and application on the pitch is 2nd to none and he was never going to let us down. If there was another way of raising the cash to bring in a striker then I'd be tempted to take a hit on Masch's value and not sell him this season at all, the guy's a monster!

edit: and although he wasn't that involved in the game, I like the look of Jovanovic. He's like a bulldozer charging through challenges. Could prove a handy player.
 
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BaZ87 said:
There's a lot to be positive about despite only drawing the game. You're right we need a left back but I also think we need another striker too. The difference in N'gog from last season to now is visible; it looks like he's beefed up and is no longer getting bullied by CB's, however with Kuyt still being used on the wing, an injury to N'gog or Torres leaves us with just 1 recognised striker.

Spot on regarding Masch too. A lot of people were against him playing today but he would have been the first name on my teamsheet. His attitude and application on the pitch is 2nd to none and he was never going to let us down. If there was another way of raising the cash to bring in a striker then I'd be tempted to take a hit on Masch's value and not sell him this season at all, the guy's a monster!

edit: and although he wasn't that involved in the game, I like the look of Jovanovic. He's like a bulldozer charging through challenges. Could prove a handy player.
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I think Jovanovic can play up top, and Im hoping Woy can work wonders with Babel, i think he could do a job up top, then we've got Pacheco, so a bit of cover, I can see Roy giving the young uns a chance unlike Rafa, hell i'd be inclined to give Nemeth another go!

One think that I really admire about Masch is his unerring ability to give 100 percent every game, theres a lot of professionals that could take a leaf out of his book.

For Arsenal, they really need to stop playing this to me to you football, get a winger signed and get the best out of RVP and Chamakh, who I think we'll do well in this league with the right service, imo, they are a keeper and a winger away from the top 2.
 
Nemeth's being offered around Italy after being injured for the best part of 2 seasons now.

As for Jovanovic and Babel (Pacheco won't be played as a striker, at best he'll play in the Cole role but more likely out wide), not only are there question marks over them being able to play up front (neither are suited to playing the 1 up front system we play) but we'll then end up short on the left if either are having to play through the middle.

Imo, 1 more striker and we'd then be set up nicely, numbers wise, in attack. Too often last season we picked up a couple of injuries and although we, on the most part, managed to pick recognised wingers or strikers in our first 11, we had nobody on the bench.
 
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I was very pleased with Jovanovic. A couple of good early runs made him look dangerous. I think we were very unlucky not to win today. Have to agree, masch was solid.
But I was most pleased with the defence. It's looking much better to last season, it was pretty solid and thank god hodgson has changed the corner defending. At least now we don't look like we're going to concede from corners.
All this with Torres spending most of the match on the bench
Far more positives than negatives for us in this game. For Arsenal though it's a different story.
 
manic111 said:
Was Aquilani unfit tonight by the way, or is he massively out of favour?
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i dont think he is good enough for liverpool and the EPL doesnt suit him.

he isnt physical enough and gets bullied. technically gifted though and would maybe suit the la liga. liverpool need defenders and strikers, their midfield is fine.
 
BaZ87 said:
Yea because our record at defending corners under Benitez was so bad, wasn't it?
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Well, I think that it was a lot more solid today. And I just didn't feel as insecure as when we conceded corners under Benitez. I was just going with my gut feeling after watching the first couple of corners today :)
 
Psycho Sonny said:
i dont think he is good enough for liverpool and the EPL doesnt suit him.

he isnt physical enough and gets bullied. technically gifted though and would maybe suit the la liga. liverpool need defenders and strikers, their midfield is fine.
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He showed a lot of promise in patches towards the end of last season and in the Spurs game at Anfield in particular, he had no problems getting stuck in.

Whether he fully adapts and settles over here will remain to be seen. A lot of players have taken time to settle before coming good (Malouda and Pires spring to mind) and considering his injury problems last season, it's a bit early to write him off.
 
anant_shah94 said:
Well, I think that it was a lot more solid today. And I just didn't feel as insecure as when we conceded corners under Benitez. I was just going with my gut feeling after watching the first couple of corners today :)
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That's probably because you listen to the likes of Andy Gray and Jamie Redknapp too much. You should try not to, it's not good for you.
 
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anant_shah94 said:
No I wasn't. I don't pay much attention to that stuff, I just watch the match and ignore the pre and post match analysis.
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Then I don't understand your anxiety towards us using zonal marking in the past.

Sure, occasionally it didn't work and teams would get free headers and we might concede the odd goal but overall our record at defending set-plays was 1 of the best in the league throughout Rafa's time at Liverpool.

If you're man marking and a player doesn't do his job then the oppo player gets a free header and it's the same for zonal marking. Unfortunately the likes of Andy Gray et al can't work this out.
 
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