Greenlizard0 Weekend Football Thread ** spoilers ** [1st - 2nd September 2012]

[Azza]

Florent Malouda banished to the reserves / U21s.

This is where I'll train for my last season with the blues !!

https://twitter.com/realflorentm/status/243307407252533248/photo/1



Surely he might have thought something like this could happen with Marin, Moses, Hazard, Oscar etc coming in. Poor fella!

 

[Icm76]

Surely he might have thought something like this could happen with Marin, Moses, Hazard, Oscar etc coming in.

I thought he might've expected this to happen after any number of apathetic, **** poor performances last season.

Poor fella!

No sympathy, he's been a passenger collecting a cheque for too long. He should've found a new club during the summer, now he's going to rot and will find it more difficult to get a fat contract in USA or China to retire on.

 

[Somnambulist]

I know DM wasn't impressed but I enjoyed watching Diaby at the weekend, recap of his involvement in the game (1:26, 2:42 and 3:00 were my fave bits)

Better full screen for some of the quick feet etc. Just needed a goal to cap it off. Could have had an assist if Giroud's finishing wasn't as wayward.

 

[fez]

I know DM wasn't impressed but I enjoyed watching Diaby at the weekend, recap of his involvement in the game (1:26, 2:42 and 3:00 were my fave bits)

Better full screen for some of the quick feet etc. Just needed a goal to cap it off. Could have had an assist if Giroud's finishing wasn't as wayward.

I fear that Diabys quality was aided massively by the amount of time and space he had on the ball. I will believe Diaby is a good player when he does it against a mobile midfield that closes him down. Cazorla on the other hand looks like a great bit of business for you guys. He was a bargain and if you did sell him in a few years you would make a good profit.

 

[drunkenmaster]

Most of that video is bland guy in middle of park designated to be passed through for everything, but mostly just gets ball, turns, passes it sideways. He did fairly well in tight spaces on occasion, but that is the bare minimum you'd expect for top 4 club. I've said before though I've said for years now, its what he does at the end that is the problem.

THe turn and run at goal is harder, more vital to the team and he does try to do it, just not often enough. But I'd point out that the pass for Giroud, Giroud makes the run, and Giroud sticks out an arm to tell Diaby where to put it, the quality there was from Giroud pulling the defenders across with his run then quickly changing and running to the space, its an incredibly simple pass and he was told where to put it.

One of the best things Diaby did in that video was nick the ball inside our half on the wing and power up the field, its ridiculously easier to score on the counter than playing through an entire team. We won titles because we were so good on the counter with top players, most teams who can counter brilliantly become successful. So what did he do at the end, blast it so far over and past Giroud that the whole run became worthless. Football is about the start middle and end of something, nicking the ball and running in space is worthless if you can't put the ball somewhere dangerous and 95% of the time he can't do that.

He wasn't terrible, but his total attacking contribution to the game was ineffective in the end, and defensively he was no where at all. At best I'd say he didn't give the ball away much, but ultimately would the teams performance have changed if he wasn't there and the players passed directly to the guy who then ran it forward?

For Diaby to get really good, keeping in mind he is rubbish defensively, is he needs to make those attacking runs, forward passes, and counter attacks 7 or 8 times out of 10, currently its 2 out of 10 and the rest is just pushing the ball sideways pointlessly, then he needs to improve his final ball/shooting/crossing to make it worthwhile.

Again though, this was against a team that defensively looked very poor, a central midfield that was not really working for Pool but when they had possession and were getting down the wings, Diaby looked lost for me. Considering Liverpool managed significantly more chances than us, and this is a team playing poorly, Diaby or whoever starts in his position needs to do a hell of a lot more defensively.

 

[Tom84]

Diaby's always been potentially a very good player, just been hampered by injuries. If he can stay fit you can see why Wenger had no problem letting Song go, it's just a gamble with Diaby's fitness (much like we're doing with Cleverley & Anderson)

 

[drunkenmaster]

Diaby's always been potentially a very good player, just been hampered by injuries. If he can stay fit you can see why Wenger had no problem letting Song go, it's just a gamble with Diaby's fitness (much like we're doing with Cleverley & Anderson)

He's hampered by looking like he could achieve something, but never doing it. Gervinho is Diaby Mark II, Diaby started on the wing, had a very good ability to hold on to the ball, run down the wing and ultimately do exactly nothing at the end of it

Injuries stopped him having a full season as Gervinho had, for the fans/manager/pundits to be able to say "he's had a full season, or three, injury free with no more excuses, he's just not good enough", while its 2 games here, 5 games there, people put his final ball and not actually being involved enough down to, "maybe he needs some form/sharpness, maybe he's not good enough", and that maybe has won him years of extra pay for being not good enough.

He's had MANY performances like that one, many better performances, then been so horrifically poor the week after its a joke.

Diaby, 2 goals against Pompie, everyone raving about his performance(in reality that performance was actually less good than the one against Liverpool, just better shooting), then next league game, scores a ridiculous own goal against Utd, was terrible throughout the entire game.

If you regard Liverpool as a top top side currently that is one thing, if you rank Liverpool's current quality then you'd say Diaby had an ok game in which nothing he did really made a difference against a very average league side, he's always been capable of that.

Where Song/Diaby/Denilson/Walcott have cost us is in 9/10 games against the difficult sides in the league.

 

[Somnambulist]

I'll give him a chance now it seems he's established in the first XI - he said himself last season when he wasn't injured that he played with a bit of fear and overcompensated by trying to fend off tackles with his strength - dwelling on the ball too long and giving it away.

Diiiiaby
Diiiiaby
He knocked out John Terry
Abou Diaby

etc etc