galés rojo

As far as English managers go think Roy Hodgson should get a look in. Also think Hoddle should have another shot at it, he was doing a decent job until he got hounded out by the press.

Sven has always liked pace and Bianchi is on the slow side. I was never convinced by him and apart from last season his goal record is almost non existant.

Statistically Rank League Coeff. 1 Spain 76.891 2 England 68.540 3 Italy 66.088 4 France 53.656 5 Germany 44.364 6 PORTUGAL 42.749 7 Romania 40.165 8 NETHERLANDS 39.379

Seen him a bit for England at youth level and he looked very good. Watched his debut last night, while some of his decision making was off he did show ability and a lot of confidence to try things.

Babel is best in the role he played in the under 21 championships this summer gone. He operated as second striker and showed some fantastic vision and creativiy in central areas.

He's not that great at defending though.

-------------Itandje------------- Derby---Arbeloa---Hobbs--Insua ------------Spearing--------------- ----Benayoun--Lucas--Kewell---- ---------Crouch--Babel-----------

I'd say the difference is they have a manager who plays them, we have Babel and Lucas who don't play anywhere near enough football.

I'm trying but every f***** keeps quoting him.

Benitez currently allows 1 maybe 2 players to play with freedom, asking for 4 would require a fairly big change in his philosophy. I don't really have a problem with winning effective football that maybe be deemed defensive but in order to do that we need to counter attack. We tactically played like Chelsea under Mourinho today without the Drogba plus wingers devestating counter ability.

I agree that Benayoun is hard working, but Voronin and Kuytis more willing to curb there atacking instincts. I feel the biggest problem is not our overly defensive approach but our manager being unwilling to let us counter attack.

Kuyt and Voronin were playing in defensive roles today, albeit high up the pitch. Benayoun and Babel do not defend or work has hard so they didn't start play. I would pefer to have Babel, Benayoun etc playing however that would required us to have had different tactics/mentality for today. As far as carrying out the managers tactics,roles etc the selection was the correct one as he picked the players who defend better. Whether those tactics are correct is another point entirely.

Get Onuoha instead. He's a great prospect,rapid pace and very intelligent for a footballer. He would be a fraction of the price of Richards with a fraction of the hype.

He's on fire at the moment, but he is a striker rather than a right winger. Mostly played through the middle this season, can play slightly wider forward in a front three.

Not sure Alves can be considered a goal threat.

Agreed ,although that could be leveled at all Brazilian strikers during Copa America.

True enough although Overmars is also right footed.

Luisao is quality, but I don't think he plays reguarly enough for Brazil to get a work permit. Unless he has an eu passport i'm not sure he's an option at the moment.

I actually think Kaiser has made some valid points in this thread, particulary with regards to the idea of "saving" fitness for later on. I don't mind rotation if a player is injured or severly fatigued but i don't like the idea of holding players back for later in the season particulary as league games are worth 3 points at the begining as well as at the end of the seaon. Rotating for tactical reasons as Rafa did last week is perfectly acceptable, however i personally believe that Torres is more than capable of playing in such a game and is not as one dimensional as the manager seems to suggest, and therfore got his tactics wrong last weekend. Also the idea that pace is only useful when getting behind a defence is misguided in my opnion.

Daniel Opare very impresive attacking rightback and Sadick Adams who has four goals play for our feeder club ashanti gold.

You can't pick and choose stats to make them fit your point.

I'm only counting league goals both of which were scored in the same match. I seem to recall that you often disregard goals in other competitions when it suits eg Crouch.

SWP has scored a whole two goals in his time for Chelsea, so i don't think he was picked ahead of Pennant because of his "goal threat"

Wouldn't mind if we signed Husyev, he can play both right back and right wing and I thoght he had a very good world cup last year.

Sept 20th.