Greenlizard0 Weekend Football Thread ** spoilers ** [2nd - 5th March 2012]

Stewy said:
As for what I've said recently, that I think Berbatov and Hernandez (and myself ;)) are better strikers than Welbeck or?
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If nothing else need I remind you of your agreement with Baz that Busquets is average (or to be exact not a million miles from average)? ;)
 
I think he is, although I will agree he is world class as long as nobody posts that ****ing youtube video of him turning in to space for 7 minutes again :p;)
 
Tom84 said:
It's not irrelevant at all, if you go by that logic then why not just abolish the whole academy system and be done with it if your answer is to simply buy every player in your squad?

You're also failing to take into consideration the necessity of the quota of home grown players and the 25 man squad ruling. Say we sold Welbeck at the start of the season and replaced him with someone like Ba not only does that reduce the overall number of home grown players it also takes up a spot in our 25 man squad a spot of which Welbeck wasn't taking up as he was under 21 at the start of January 2011 and thus didn't need to be registered.

There's a reason there's very few English players making the grade and being good enough for the National side and you've just highlighted it with your mentality
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I'm not failing to consider it, you never said it, the ONLY comparison you made was how much City spent and how you much you spent. As for homegrown players, if you bought someone cheap and young they'd count as homegrown.

Anyway, considering the ONLY comparison you made was price, and nothing to do with homegrown players, City both have bought all their strikers and none count as homegrown, yet have filled their quota, because there isn't any rule that says you HAVE to have a homegrown striker, what I said was relevant and your counter point is a seperate argument entirely.

You were saying expecting Welbeck to be as good as a 30mil player was daft, and it is, expecting him to be as good as the average 5 or 10mil premiership striker however isn't.

Especially considering Holt, Graham, and a good portion of that list are both homegrown and were immensely affordable to a club like Utd.

Welbeck isn't nearly good enough for a top 4 club and likely never will be, I currently see no aspect of his game that shows potential for being great, let alone his whole game.

Ultimately in talking about price, he'll be on a hefty wage and one significantly higher than many of those other strikers in the league, while providing a much worse return.
 
drunkenmaster said:
I'm not failing to consider it, you never said it, the ONLY comparison you made was how much City spent and how you much you spent.
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So for you to consider your argument you need someone to spell out all the variables beforehand? I wouldn't mind but it was a question Shami asked and I was replying to him.

As for my response to Shami the money spent is a completely viable argument to his question, you say we could buy a cheap striker and he'd still be better than Welbeck that may be so but our set of strikers would still fail to match that of City's because of the money they've spent. The home grown/25 man squad ruling argument comes into effect when you have someone sticking their oar in saying we could sign player x, y and z from country A, B & C

Oh and correct me if I'm wrong was it not you that was talking up Taarabt's championship form last season as some kind of justification of his ability over proven PL players? How's he doing this year with the step up? I only mention this because you may want to give the likes of Holt and Graham more than just 1 season in the PL before you go talking them up as these proven PL goal scorers because as well as both have done this season they wouldn't be the first one season wonders ;)
 
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I don't think I've posted in this part of the forums before.

I thought that QPR documentary was great. When Briatori was telling those fans, you just pay £10 i put in £39million. lol!! :p
 
I'm surprised at some of the criticism Welbeck is getting :confused: He was given nothing today at all, so it's not the best time to judge him really...But he's very young and for me just needs to have more confidence. If he had half the arrogance Sturridge shows he would be twice the player he currently is but it will come.
I thought it a little worrying how content SAF seemed to be with both Tottenham running all over us and Jones struggling at the back. Sometimes he seems very slow to react but you only have to look at the mess that is Chelsea atm and it's tough to feel anything but appreciative of him.
Still, Jones has been struggling of late and I thought it strange Lennon wasn't used to target him in the 2nd half.
 
Tom84 said:
So for you to consider your argument you need someone to spell out all the variables beforehand? I wouldn't mind but it was a question Shami asked and I was replying to him.
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What, seriously, just what? Your argument was you can't compare your strikers to City's because they spent more... implying you couldn't spend as much..... NOTHING to do with homegrown. I didn't consider it because its irrelevant to what you were saying, and irrelevant to buying strikers and irrelevant because you can buy better homegrown players for vastly smaller sums than City are paying for strikers.

Also yes, if one of your main points is that he's homegrown so it somewhat limits choices, its useful to say that and not hope people magically guess this.
Wait a sec, I mean something else as well that will apparently make your next argument irrelevant, but I won't tell you about it till after you post, sneaky huh, but I guess as you'll consider every single possible "variable" that you'll consider it when you reply....... wait, that almost sounds.... completely ridiculous.

As for my response to Shami the money spent is a completely viable argument to his question, you say we could buy a cheap striker and he'd still be better than Welbeck that may be so but our set of strikers would still fail to match that of City's because of the money they've spent. The home grown/25 man squad ruling argument comes into effect when you have someone sticking their oar in saying we could sign player x, y and z from country A, B & C

Oh and correct me if I'm wrong was it not you that was talking up Taarabt's championship form last season as some kind of justification of his ability over proven PL players? How's he doing this year with the step up? I only mention this because you may want to give the likes of Holt and Graham more than just 1 season in the PL before you go talking them up as these proven PL goal scorers because as well as both have done this season they wouldn't be the first one season wonders ;)
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Firstly no, I haven't been talking up Taarabt, at all, secondly, Holt and Graham might be worse next season..... so might Welbeck, Welbeck has only played for effectively 6 months longer than those two in the prem league, and he wasn't very good then either.

You're saying it like Welbeck is established and Holt/Graham "could" get worse. Problem is both are doing better than Welbeck has EVER done in this league? The only thing Welbecks extra year in the league suggests is, he'll struggle to ever be an AVERAGE 10 goal a season striker, let alone a good or great striker, hence him starting while the team you are in direct competition with has significantly better players is ridiculous, not least because Berbatov is just a much much better player.

Being homegrown is never a good reason for keeping a meh player. Isn't that a large part of the reason Fergie went for Smalling/Jones early and has since got of O'shea/Brown/Gibson, he replaced homegrown players with better ones.
 
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drunkenmaster said:
~Welbeck = poor
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I think you are being very harsh on him. Firstly, if you look at his frame and how he comes across in interviews, he's still more boy than man. He's got a lot of growing still to come and that will make a difference.
Secondly, you seem to be judging him mostly on his goal return. This ignores the many strengths he has shown (he holds the ball up very well, makes intelligent runs, has pace, works hard and can spot a pass). The lack of goals is an issue but one fairly average season return does not define him as a player. Lets look again in 5 years. Besides, having seen a fair bit of him at various levels, the quality is there - he's scored some very fine goals.
Also, one advantage with Welbeck is he's been with the club since he was a child and it shows. He links up with the team better than both Berba and Chico imo.
So I for one think he deserves the benefit of the doubt with that because although he has of course had his bad games this year, for a youngster coming into the deep end, he's been a success and shows a lot of promise for the future.
As for Berbatov, if it wasn't Welbeck it would be Chico in his place. For all his skill he is unreliable and given how desperate he appeared to join us, he has made it hard for himself by not always giving 100%.
Still, I agree he is a fine player on his day and am surprised by how little he has played. There has clearly been a very big shift in SAF's mind over him (at one point he seemed almost undroppable) so I would have thought it in his and the clubs interest for him to have left in the summer, if he isn't going to use him that is.
 
drunkenmaster said:
What, seriously, just what? Your argument was you can't compare your strikers to City's because they spent more... implying you couldn't spend as much..... NOTHING to do with homegrown. I didn't consider it because its irrelevant to what you were saying
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Right let me right this down as simply as I can

  • Shami says he's disappointed with Welbeck only scoring 9 goals
  • I then compare him with other strikers in the league who have a similar goal return
  • Shami then says I should be comparing him with City's strikers
  • I then say that's unfair because we dont have the same money to spend as they do
  • You then come along and stick your oar in saying we should have signed players like Yakubu & Ba and play them instead of Welbeck

The fact of the matter is when you decided to get involved and start naming foreign players we should have signed and be playing instead of Welbeck you then create the argument against yourself about the 25 man squad rule and the quota of home grown players. The argument wasn't relevant to begin with when it was me and Shami discussing this because it wasn't him saying we should buy average foreign players over the age of 21 like Yakubu, it was you

drunkenmaster said:
Firstly no, I haven't been talking up Taarabt, at all
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Really???

drunkenmaster said:
Taarabt is a significant upgrade from Obertan, Bebe, Park(offensively, not sure what Taarabt is like on workrate/defence) and frankly, would probably be better than Valencia and Giggs at this point in his career.
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drunkenmaster said:
Giggs is one of the worlds best wingers, right now, really? Valencia was by far, I mean by a mile the worst player on the pitch for Utd against Real, and simply hasn't been very good. His highest scoring season.... ever(well in this league) 5, he's got over 5 assists in a full season, once, he got 9. He's never been anything more than average, he's not young, there's little to no potential for him to improve. Taarabt is still improving, he's shown FAR more goal threat and assist potential than Valencia.

He's 22, he got 19 goals and 16 assists last season, Valencia is older(not as old as I thought) and hasn't shown any hint he could be a 10 goal a season winger. yes its hard to compare Taarabt could be crap in the premier league, he was under 20 when he played for Spurs, from how well he played you'd think he'd do pretty well in this league.

Frankly I have no idea where Valencia's reputation comes from, hope? He's done very little of anything at Utd and even less at Wigan. Nani had an excellent season this year but was still less than half as successful as Ronaldo in his best year, Nani can be conceded an excellent winger this season, Valencia's BEST season in 5 years in the league got essentially half the goals and half the assists than Nani did, thats his best season, his average over 5 seasons is frankly, for a top 4 club, pathetic. I also said Taarabt would PROBABLY do better, because he PROBABLY will be better than a not very good Valencia and a 58 year old Giggs. He's 22, has more potential than Valencia by a mile, he might turn out crap, he might be a fantastic winger for the next decade for you, theres potential there, Valencia, he won't ever be brilliant, he's 25, he's shown not even a hint of being a world class winger, not even a really good winger.
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drunkenmaster said:
Taarabt has had 2 very good seasons, he's 22, he's still improving, I've not once said he(nor Eboue) was world class, but he HAS POTENTIAL, maybe he'll be awful next season, maybe he'll have an even better season in the premier league, maybe he'll continue to get better for a few seasons and be a brilliant winger. Valencia will not be epic next season, or the season after, or the season after that, I rarely think he's even slightly good. I'd bring in someone who has the potential to be that good over someone I know won't be world class every time, one's a waste, one might be a diamond, if he ends up not being one, move on, thats football.
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The ironic part is that last quote as Valencia has been in your words Epic this season as prior to injury his last 13 games produced 11 assists and 2 goals, 1 of those goals against Arsenal and 3 of the assist's against City, Arsenal & Liverpool but hey ho that's another argument all together
 
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Moses said:
Two of your strikers costs £30m each :confused:.

Balotelli/Agüero/Džeko = ~£83m*
Berbatov + Rooney = £60m + the money for Hernández and Bébé (7+7) = £74m

Hardly a huge difference in spending.

*God knows how much Tevez has cost, but he hasn't been there all season, pretty much (three appearances), and has just been fined to kingdom come - he hasn't been available, as he bailed, is my point... so he can possibly be excluded from the reckoning.
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Rooney cost between 25-28m
Berbatov cost 30m
Hernandez lets say cost 10m
Welbeck cost us nothing
Total: 68m

Aguero 38m
Dzeko 27m
Balotelli 18m
Total: 83m

I did actually include Tevez initially because we were comparing Welbeck with what City have spent their money on but fair enough take Tevez away if you want and you've still got a City strike force accumulated in 12 months that costs 15m more than ours that has been accumulated over around 6 years (Rooney bought back in 2004, Berbatov bought in 2008, Hernandez bought in 2010)

(not sure why you mention Bebe if you're not counting Tevez though seeing as Bebe for one isn't a striker and has played even less games than Tevez has)
 
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and the ~£30m difference in cost between Tevez and Bebe, but lets just ignore that as it works better for you that way :rolleyes:

If you are including the price for Rooney (spent 8 seasons ago) yet you arent including the cost of Adebayor or anyone else from City from that period either.....another £20m or so? Im sure there are others too.....
 
Moses said:
GBP_Transfers1.png

http://tomkinstimes.com/2011/02/tpi-world-record-transfer-fees-and-lfc/
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Jesus, look at the 3 liverpool buys in the top 25.

All that money on 27 players, it would be interesting to see how many of them are considered flops. I'd say 8 of the 13 to English clubs certainly are.
 
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