Euphrates

Watching the Bayern Barcelona match, the commentator mentioned that Ballack wasn't playing and in the previous game had been made to warm up for 70 minutes of the 90 minutes the previous game. Imagine, even a d****ead like Ballack will warm up if he's told, but Tevez can't do more than 10 minutes?

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See, I love Rafa. Thought he was hard done by, and previous to that always thought that his Valencia side was just fantastic. But what he was trying to do here, and what he had done with Valencia, it really isn't the kind of thing you could do with an international side. Rafa would need a lot of time with a side, drilling them, or at the very least a free hand to select the team in order to pick players best suited for the old steamroller. It may just be spin put out by Capello or his fans in the media, but it seems like his squad selections were being influenced from above. Greece and recently Ireland have managed to play as an exceedingly well drilled team, but both of those outfits were only focused on defending. Spain were also exceedingly well drilled, but part of that has to be written off because the entire starting 11 only ever encompasses 3 sides, Barca, Real and a left back. I suppose Bielsa manage to reshape Chile in his image, but he had more time than whoever takes over the England job will before the Euros. Can you think of many other *recent* international managers who have been able to change an entire way of playing and instill a tactical philosophy? All this is why, speaking as an Irishman it is obvious that Roy '35 years' Hodgson is the only man for the job. His experience with Halmstad, Orebro, Grasshoppers, the UAE and Finland will serve him well in getting the best out of players such as: Foster, Mills, Knight, Wheater, Konchesky, Wright-Phillips, Lampard, Murphy, Reo-Coker, Barry, Zamora, and Davies.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush kind of thing?

I don't think we even need to keep it well anymore, if we just get the final ball down (and the goals). In the home leg of the CC against City we looked the much better side, and apart from a defensive mistake deserved to win that match. We had less of the ball, but that's because we let them keep it where it couldn't hurt us, and when we won it back we broke with pace and played direct passes. Part of that was Savic being utter crap, but we've got full-backs who can get forward, we've got Adam, Gerrard and maybe even Henderson who can play those important through balls and we've got Suarez and Bellamy who give defenders skidmarks when they run at them. Carroll doesn't quite fit in to this idea of a side, but his passing has been getting better, and his aerial presence should mean that defenses won't be comfortable sitting deep against us. We can't pass like Barcelona, but we can try pressing like them. Even without Lucas. Against the weaker sides, we should be able to just dominate possession and eke out victories, but I want to see break teams on the counter.

Our corners don't beat the first man often enough either.

I'm not far from agreeing with you, but doesn't say that remind you of the Houllier years? Tottenham are a good side nowadays, but I feel like we just drew with Boro...

It worked well last season. And it would mean having Gerrard (or Adam) closer to Suarez (or Carroll).

I guess they think we can make 4th with this squad. I would have thought that the Lucas injury would change their plans a bit. Maybe they tried to get someone on loan and couldn't, but still, even if the Illuminati hadn't taken out Suarez I thought we would need to sign another forward.

This isn't Gaelic football?

Even with that said, we were still too cautious in the way we lined up. And all season we've had the same problem of no one getting into the box. What's the point of signing players who cross the ball if we only get more than 3 players into the opponents box on corners?

KBB Things are looking up.

Yeah, all the space and time Dempsey, Dembele and Ruiz got was in the areas Lucas would've normally patrolled.

Signori too good for this? He could play on left wing or up front with Suarez.

I think we agree. I'm annoyed not just by his crosses to no one but by the fact that there's no one in the box even though all the signings in the last calendar year apart from Suarez were about getting balls into the box and players on the end of them.

By cutting inside with the ball, or laying it off to Enrique or Adam and making a run for him. By not crossing it to the goalkeeper or the defenders and our shadows.

It was Ryan Taylor, and he's scored ones like it before.

Lovely attempt

I thought he thought went studs up and cheered the ref, until I saw the replay. Then for a second I had some regret, and then I realised that we'd win the game and so I didn't anymore, and watching the replay it was pretty clear that Suarez didn't make a meal of it, he just jumped to avoid contact. Rodwell was hard done by, if it had happened to one of our players that referees thread would be 50 pages longer.

I'm watching the hightlights of the Barcelona match now http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Il6X-YeJ9M Do you think Messi experiences time slow than the rest of us? His awareness is just incredible. When Guardiola leaves we should make a sneaky bid for Pedro, his runs off the ball are fantastic and he's got such an appreciation of possession. It's strange to think that Guardiola sort of plucked him from obscurity and that there ever was doubt about his ability.

I think the combination did work, and it provides a base for the forward players, and protects the back four. Kelly and Enrique get forward a good bit, Johnson will when he's in there. There's enough skill and incisiveness in Bellamy, Downing, Gerrard, Suarez, Maxi, Carroll, and Adam to compensate for Lucas and Spearing lack of creativity. It's not the perfect solution, but it looks better than what we've tried so far this season.

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So play Spearing, Lucas in centre-mid.

It's from soccernet.com's gamecast feature. Here's the link for the Wolves game http://soccernet.espn.go.com/gamecast?id=318147&cc=5901 They don't have the average position for the Brighton match, but against Bolton it shows Carragher being slightly ahead of Agger, and against Stoke, on average they were level: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/gamecast?id=318272&cc=5901 http://soccernet.espn.go.com/gamecast?id=318098&cc=5901 Against Arsenal, Downing actually was forward of Carroll. For individual players, it might be more interesting to play around with the Heat Map function. Edit: I'd thought I'd mention that as far as I know the heat map works like this: yellow means the player took touches on the ball there, orange means more touches, red means even more

Carroll deserves a goal today, but Suarez has been incredible.