Rooney has just been stretchered off. OH NOOO

I'd say there's a distinction between the positions. In the hole means bridging the gap between midfield and attack. Second striker means giving support to the man up top.

I think players great in one would be good enough to do the other though. By the time Scholes was tried in the support striker role he was already past it and not performing in his usual position. Hardly a fair comment.
 
A striker stays predominately up front having the ball supplied to him. Someone playing in the hole drops deeper, picking the ball up & attacking with it & linking up with 1 striker, like Lamps does.
 
Gilly said:
I'd say there's a distinction between the positions. In the hole means bridging the gap between midfield and attack. Second striker means giving support to the man up top.
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So which role would Rooney come under because it seems to me he does both.
Gilly said:
By the time Scholes was tried in the support striker role he was already past it and not performing in his usual position. Hardly a fair comment.
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I was mentioning the season they signed Veron, after Scholes moved back to his usual posistion he scored over 20 goals, so he couldn't have been doing too poorly.
 
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JohnnyG said:
A striker stays predominately up front having the ball supplied to him.
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No i didn't say striker i said 2nd striker, someone who plays behind a out and out striker. I interpret "2nd striker" and in the "hole" to be the same thing but never mind.
 
Either way i don't see how Lampard plays in the hole because surely the term "in the hole" refers to the posistion on the pitch where the player plays, where as i see Lampard as a box to box player like Gerrard usually plays. We'll have to agree to disagree.
 
BaZ87 said:
So which role would Rooney come under because it seems to me he does both.

I was mentioning the season they signed Veron, after Scholes moved back to his usual posistion he scored over 20 goals, so he couldn't have been doing too poorly.
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Scholes has never scored more than 20 goals in a season ever. When we signed Veron, Scholes was given more freedom and didn't have any midfield duties. He hit his best form in 5 years for Man Utd last November to December.
 
Tony Soprano said:
Scholes has never scored more than 20 goals in a season ever. When we signed Veron, Scholes was given more freedom and didn't have any midfield duties. He hit his best form in 5 years for Man Utd last November to December.
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2002/03 season where he scored 14 Prem goals and over 20 for the season. Was watching it on Premiership Years a few weeks back. IIRC he started the year off RVN then it didnt work so Giggs and Veron played there or Cole went up front alongside RVN.
Edit/ He scored exactly 20 goals in 57 Apps (sorry for saying over 20, please forgive me)
JohnnyG said:
Just for a change eh?;)
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Well agreeing to disagree is a change but the disagreeing thing is fairly common.
 
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The point is that Lampard hasn't played box-to-box for most of this season. Essien has, and Makelele has held back, and Lampard has been pushed forward.


Hene the somment earlier about you not watching enough Chelsea games to comment. If thats not true then you've simply not taken note of where he was playing.
 
J.D.K said:
Lampard would be ordinary without Makalale and Gerrard would be ordinary without Sissoko / Alonso doing the dirty work behind them.
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Can't agree with that I'm afraid. Alonso and Sissoko have been at Liverpool for less than 2 years, and yet Gerrard was running the show at Anfield long before.

Likewise with Makelele, if you go back a couple of years, Lampard was carrying him so much in the Champions League; he was working harder, putting in more tackles and just better in every aspect of play. 3 years ago Makelele wasn't even at Stamford Bridge and Lampard was still a lot better than ordinary then, good enough for them to spend 11 million pounds on even.

Now, I'm not saying that either of them doesn't benefit from having a holding player alongside them, but I think they are top players and 'ordinary' certainly wouldn't be top of my list of words to describe them.

As for England, if Rooney is out I'd like to see us bring in Carrick and play a 4-5-1. However, against weaker teams like those we face in the group stage, maybe we should be looking to grab the bull by the horns and not play so defensively.
 
Gilly said:
The point is that Lampard hasn't played box-to-box for most of this season. Essien has, and Makelele has held back, and Lampard has been pushed forward.


Hene the somment earlier about you not watching enough Chelsea games to comment. If thats not true then you've simply not taken note of where he was playing.
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Well i stick by my statement about Lampard not playing in the hole and playing as a box to box player. He may have had less defensive duties with Essien and Makelele but he has not played, reguarly, behind one striker.
 
BaZ87 said:
He scored exactly 20 goals in 57 Apps (sorry for saying over 20, please forgive me)
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I forgive you. :p I wasn't trying to be pedantic, I just wish the hell he would score more than 20 a season. ;)

I was struggling to find the statistics though, because my bumper book of Manchester United stats only started in 1993 and ended in 1999 for some reason. It's as if football didn't exist before or after this period.
 
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Paul Scholes actually started off as second striker, back in the days when Man United had too many foreigners for the CL. But once he became a regular he started playing a more orthodox attacking midfield role.

Personally I'd say we've got two options. Either we play like Chelsea, with the two wingers supporting the striker. The problem with that is that Beckham doesn't really have the pace for that role, we'd need SWP instead. Owen also lacks the physical presence of Drogba. The second and more likely option is to play Lampard in the hole, maybe switching occasionally with Gerrard.

I doubt King will be properly match fit/practiced before the world cup so surely it has to Carrick making up the numbers in midfield, he's done the job well for England in the past.
 
I think Eriksson will put him in the squad anyway at the expense of a fully fit player. It's not as if he'll be in England after the World Cup to catch all the flack going his way.
 
Stretch said:
Forget the midfield, we need the option of playing 2 strikers if necessary. Which strike should we take instead of Rooney?

Owen
Crouch
Defoe
??????

The problem is none of the others have been tested at international level within the current squad.
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I think those 3 will be going regardless of Rooney.
Id take Ashton , far more effective than Crouch (who , incidently , wouldnt be anywhere near the team had he still been at Villa)
 
But Ashton is unfit/injured too,don't think there is any room in the squad for more players who may or maybe not be fully fit.Owen and Rooney will be in,and i fear Cashley and Sol will be too,so thats 4 places gone to players who might not be able to touch a football this summer .
 
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