Midweek Football; 27-28th January - *SPOiLERS*
- Thread starter DanH84
- Start date
August 2006 iirc so 2 and a half years and 2 and a 1/3rd summer transfer windows
i'm not arguing that you've improved I'm just saying that when you mentioned that O'Neill had more money to spend since he'd been there was slightly specious with regard to arguments we've had before as to the comparitive quality of the united/liverpool squads when benitez took over.
Totally agree mate although I can't see it happening. We really are in the sticky brown smelly stuff.
Panzer
Soldato
Really hacked off with that result. It's clear we're struggling to score goals and yet he still leaves Keane on the bench until there's 6 minutes to go?! Just play the best 11, Riera, Masch, Gerrard, Kuyt or Benayoun and Torres, Keane. With that result we've pretty much kissed goodbye to a title challenge bar some sort of miracle. We could've been 10 points clear earlier in the season, however now Villa have pretty much as much chance (if not more) of winning the title.
August 2006 iirc so 2 and a half years and 2 and a 1/3rd summer transfer windows
i'm not arguing that you've improved I'm just saying that when you mentioned that O'Neill had more money to spend since he'd been there was slightly specious with regard to arguments we've had before as to the comparitive quality of the united/liverpool squads when benitez took over.
I think people have taken my post about O'Neil and money out of context. As i said right away after, all i was saying was that andy's post about O'Neil and money was wrong.
Villa may not have signed anybody for £20m but they have spent more money (in actual terms) than nearly every other club in the league over the last few seasons. That's not a taking anything away from Villa as there's one thing having the money and another thing doing something with it as Man City fans could testify too.
fair enough
Keane not coming on for Torres isn't much of an issue to me. Babel was more suited to playing the single striker role.
Taking Torres off in the first place was questionable and taking Gerrard off for the sake of 10 minutes after they scored was madness.
Soldato
Lucas for Keane would be the obvious substitution and if he'd done it earlier there wouldnt have been a penalty and we'd have maybe scored more. I've stopped trying to work Rafa out now and am fast getting annoyed with his tactics and decisions.
Caporegime
Don't know how I missed that?I presume you're talking about rayb? If so then look above
The ignore button's a wonderful wonderful invention
i'm only talking about the second sub, if Torres is tired then whatever take him off, although i personally would have kept him on. my point is that a draw wasn't good for you tonight, you really could have done with going all out for the win and relying on your superior personnel to keep wigan out. stick as many attacking players as possible on the pitch.
*edit once the equaliser went in i mean.
Without trying to sound as if im defending Rafa (because im not, Lucas shouldn't have started let alone stayed of for 90 minutes), im getting a bit annoyed at the way people are calling for Keane to start or 'Keane should come on'. If you didn't know then you'd have thought Keane's actually been playing well.
You're right Lucas should have come off earlier but for Alonso.
edit: Masch-Alonso
-------Gerrard
-------Torres
That's our best central 4 and the 4-2-3-1 is out best system, defensively and it's also our most productive system going forward too.
Ok. As you said 'if you need....' i thought you meant while it was still 1-0.
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I knew deep down we'd not get more than a draw but even so after watchign football first we were awful, its not even like it was down to Everton defending well. Thank god we have 1 in form player at the moment, I really can't see us doing anything of note this season till we get some more creativity in midfield. In fact it looks to be hurting us even more than a lack of a proper DM at the mo.
Soldato
Keane has been playing well....... when he's had a run in the team. You cant expect him to just turn it on for 1 game every now and then. Benitez is doing to Keane exactly what he did with Crouch.
Personally I dont think Alonso would be the right option particularly when we needed goals. We simply shouldnt need two defensive midfielders on the pitch for playing Wigan.
I've just got back in from the match.. It wasn't the same Arsenal I'm used to see playing, they were poor. Still, am gutted to be handed a draw in the last few minutes!
Caporegime
A lot of people have said that and you could also add Cisse to that little list. Don't know why he has to be such a **** to some players.
When has Keane played well. He's had the odd decent performance. He had an extended run in the side up untill the end of November and done nothing. Fair enough he scored twice against Bolton but he then followed that up with his worst performance so far vs Preston.
As i said earlier in this thread, you just have to look at the results of games where we've played a 4-4-2 with Keane up front and compare that with when we've played 4-2-3-1.
First leg vs Liege: 0-0 (Torres and Keane)
Stoke at home: 0-0 (Torres and Keane)
Fulham: 0-0 (Torres and Keane)
West Ham: 0-0 (Keane and Kuyt)
I won't count the Villa game because Torres was injured early on (replace by N'gog) and Keane only played up front for 3/4's of it up front.
Only once when we've played Gerrard behind a striker have we failed to score and that was Stoke away when Kuyt was up front.
edit: Including Torres in this; Gerrard's our best attacking player and especially when the team as a whole isn't playing well, Gerrard needs to be as far forward as possible as he's the one that has and will win us games.
edit2: The list above doesn't include the amount of times where we've started with Keane and Torres, failed to score and then taken Keane off and pushed Gerrard forward and gone on to score (Sunerland opening day and the other day vs Everton).
Completely different situations imo. Crouch was unfortunate that Rafa didn't fancy (and tbf when they played it didn't really work) the Torres-Crouch partnership. Keane's simply not playing well.
Lets no forget that when people were moaning about Crouch in his first season with us Rafa kept with him as he was offering something to the side. The same can't be said about Keane, you said yourself that he's been literally a by stander in recent games.
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Soldato
To be fair I've not a great memory, but there was a period I'm sure where Keane was starting and although he wasnt scoring, the team was playing well and winning. Even if we didnt use Keane, put Kuyt up top with Torres and give Benayoun or Babel (although not on recent performances) the wing. We know they can play together and Kuyt has played great when he's been given the opportunity to drift into the middle. We need to do something because we are clearly lacking attacking options. Relying on Torres and Gerrard solely will be the death of us and maybe already is.
Thats the way it goes, glad we got something from the top 5, its was at home so we had the advantage.
You have been riding you luck all season and Benitez has bottled it big time since his outburst, his stupid tactics and squad selection is showing him up more than when he first started in the EPL, he has built up a decent team but I cant see him winning the EPL ever, you will probably win the CL.
I just cannot see Chelsea, Liverpool, Aston Villa challenging Man United for the title now.
anyhone dug out any of the " ZOMG why the hell would we want mido" quotes yet
Its not hard to score from the penalty spot.
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