Logic

199 league goals in 372 (0.53/game) compared to 283 in 559 (0.51/game) games say other wise.

Shearer was one of the best strikers of his time. No doubting that. But Zlatan has a similar to better strike rate over his whole career (Shearer 0.51 vs. Zlatan 0.53 in the league) even if he often did not always play as a nr. 9. You mention the 30+ seasons Shearer had. Shearer also had 6 season after he's 20 years old that he scored 10 or fewer goals. Zlatan has 1, and this season he'll most likely score 10+ as he's already on 10. Zlatan has a few years to go though so he might add a few to that tbf. Zlatan actually went to the best teams in the world and won titles + kept on being an automatic starter. Zlatan also has a similar strike-rate for Sweden as Shearer has for England (0.46 vs 0.48). And even if Sweden won on Wednesday you can't say Sweden are a better team than England. Zlatan suffers from not being from a Big™ footballing nation. If he was, he'd get a hell of a lot more respect than he currently does.

And how do you figure that out? Zlatan as been an automatic starter for Juve, Inter, Barcelona, Milan. Won the leagues he played in 2004-2011. Has a similar if not better goalscoring record both for clubs and country while often not playing as a typical nr 9 like Shearer did. So please tell me how you figure that out.

There's a difference between wanting to offer a certain amount and being able to offer a certain amount.

Why the hell would you play downing?,

Nailed on free kick.

Interesting refereeing so far in the ManCity v. Tottenham game... One could almost make the assumption the referees are following a script. If one believed calciopoli could be repeated in England.

True. And this discussion always brings up the question... Why is Stevie told to play so deep? Of our midfielders he's the one most likely to 1) score and 2) make that run into the box. So we play him as a defensive midfielder...

If our fullbacks don't provide the width then that means that it's our midfielders and/or forwards who need to go wide. And if they do that it means we'll have fewer options for getting into the box. So it's not surprising seeing so few in the box when it's the same players whom should be in the box who are providing the width.

Yup, but I think that's partly because we are still so wide open at the back when we lose the ball. They started the season much more attacking than they've shown lately. IMHO. At the beginning of the season we went to what could be called a three with one cm dropping in between the centrebacks with the fullbacks pushed far upfield. Now we seem to play the two centrebacks a bit more narrow and shifted to the left and Wisdom is the third defender instead of one of the cm's.

Yeah that'd also be a good solution.

Same players but in a 4231 is what I'd do. Reina Johnson - Skrtel - Agger - Jose Allen - Sahin Gerrard - Suso - Sterling Suarez Sterling and Stevie stay centrally and aren't hugging the touchlines with Johnson and Jose providing the width. Stronger defensively and Suarez has more support upfront.

One of the worst youtube compilations ever. Doesn't even make him look decent... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTcjhibbzgM His goalscoring record at the two clubs he's played the most with is decent though.

His work rate doesn't drop, The quality of his work does though after he makes a mistake.

His biggest problem is that he lets his head drop if he makes a mistake. Instead of moving on and trying to make up for the mistake he seems to lose all confidence. I'm hoping that can be coached from him and then we have a proper player on our hands.

Neither one of them knows how to just sit in front of our CBs. Both want to be more involved meaning there are at times acres of space in front of our defence. They showed the linesman repeating "that's a red" in one of the replays during the match. I think he made the decision and not the ref.

From our dressing room. Follow Jimmy Rice on twitter, he keeps posting these gems.

Couple of thoughts. 1. Stevie is not a holding midfielder. Stop playing him babysitting the defence. 2. Sahin is not an attacking midfielder and/or second striker. Stop playing him there. 3. Wisdom is not a fullback. Stop playing him there. 4. Downing is not a footballer. Stop playing him. 5. Assaidi offers more of a threat than Suso/Downing. Play him. (I'm a fan of Suso but he shouldn't be an automatic starter for us). 6. We don't haven't the players for a 433. Stop playing 433. 7. When we have a front line of Sterling, Suarez and Suso... don't try to send in a lot of crosses for them to try to win in the air... 8. We have a number of good centrebacks but are lacking fullbacks. Try playing with 3 at the back. 9. Gerrard is the second most likely player to score for us. Play him the way Rafa played him. That is, just behind the striker. 10. After our supposed competitors lost points this weekend you just knew we wouldn't win today. It has been happening for too long. 11. The most important thing (you'll all laugh now): The pre-match music in the dressing room desperately needs changing. Signed, Sealed, Delivered by Stevie Wonder before a match? W.T.F. The players are going into a battle. Not out for a fun time with a few friends.

There's an inverse relationship between the time he gets to think about what to do and the quality of his actions. That goals is pure instinct so it's almost perfectly executed by him. Then watch him have some time to think about what he should do and he either makes the worst decision possible or executes a pass/shot like a person who's never seen a football before.

This is too f***ing obvious. Needs to be done ASAP.

We would have won the game if it wasn't for the referees. Ridiculous trying to claim something else.

Agree with that. One of the positive steps I've seen from Rodgers is that he stopped using Downing there very quickly. There are two issues I see with the 433 as we play it at the moment. First one is that we are way too spread out (the opposite of Rafa's love of the team being "compact"). The second is bad use and control of the transitions in the game. When we lose the ball we are too spread out so need to do either of two things immediately. Either make a small tactical foul (the ones Alonso was the master of) to create time to create the defensive blocks before the other team can attack . Or we should immediately close down the opposition forcing them into back-passes. At the moment it seems the players haven't picked up on how to press effectively (though we are getting better) so we need to foul the opposition more during the transitions.

True. Downing could be useful in the role you put him in (wingback or wide midfielder). Cole on the other hand needs to find himself a new job. He isn't a footballer anymore.

He seems pretty set on a 4-3-3, but appears more willing to change things around in the games themselves. This is most likely a good thing in the medium to long run as players learn the system and we can buy exclusively for that system but in the short time I'm afraid it will cost us. Our best options for the two wide roles are tbh only kids and we should't rely on them for a whole season. IMO there are a couple of options to maximise the quality we get onto the pitch. A 3412 like was mention above, an 4231 with the three narrow close to the central striker or even an Italian style 4312. IMO these three versions would get more out of our current squad than a 433 does. The biggest problem with our 433 is that we never look as a compact unit with the ball. It's almost as if it's set up by design to isolate players on the ball and relying on individual skill to create a threat. There are two things from the Rafa era that IMO we need to learn from. 1) compactness of the team: How often did we see Rafa on the sidelines making the hand gesture for "stay compact"? 2) Mentality; We need to improve the mentality of the squad. Basically, we need more people to be like Suarez. I often say we need players who'd be willing to tackle and/or cheat their own grandma if it meant getting the three points. I worry that at the moment we have more players who'd make a lukewarm tea to make sure the old lady is comfortable. (This sounds so much better in my head )

It's a worry but I believe if he's told to play further back with less emphasis on getting up to support our striker(s) then he'll show why he was so highly sought after while at Dortmund. The bigger worry IMO is having Downing in the team. He's completely and utterly useless while at the same time being our probably best option for the wingback/wide midfielder. We could switch Johnson to the left side and play Hendo on the right but I've never been a fan of moving people out of position. But like I said, I don't think there's a chance in hell we'll deviate from the 433. IMO even a switch to a 4231 would suit us better at the moment but we don't seem willing to change things around before games.