yellow jumper

also think the fact that clichy is one of their major outlets is a strong argument for gerrard right. plus his crossing threat, although to be fair pennant has a shout on that count too.

the fact they named a street after him in valencia and were ready to lynch the board suggests that he hadn't quite isolated everyone involved within the club. how did mourinho leave porto? slagging off the board, slagged off by players. can see that he might be difficult from a players point of view, and even that he might need to address the possibility that certain members of staff feel isolated, but on the otherside of the coin the players have a responsibility too.

didn't see their performance yesterday, which was obviously very good, but they huffed and puffed to victory over bolton at the weekend and after an excellent first 15 minutes were given a real scare by a limited sunderland side, particularly kenwyne-jones. we'll need to play well and with confidence to get anything against them, especially in midfield, but we've definitely got the players to do it.

you're right gallas is back. they may deal better with torres, but they're an accident waiting to happen against a team that can provide a decent aerial service to their front men.

torres (if fit) on senderos, crouch on toure, mascherano on fabregas.

i don't think we played well in many of those games, but we drew with spurs because of players' errors, we conceded against villa because of a player's error, and similar things could be said about the games against everton and wigan. i don't think benitez's decisions - whether you agree with them or not - were what made or broke any of those results. in each case we created enough to win the games. i thought the birmingham game was also just a rank performance from a side well capable of beating what was in front of them. we were lucky against portsmouth, i'd say. and unlucky against chelsea. none of that excludes the manager from criticism, but the argument should be wider and greyer than just condeming him for every debatable decisions made before or during games.

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is that to assume wenger, mourinho or ferguson (two of whom have come via foreign leagues) would walk valencia to the title simply because they know how to win 30 games a season? you don't think benitez realises what point totals have won the league in england over recent seasons? or that he isn't trying to win most of the games he plays?

fact is that those agitating now, over this, are generally those who have been unhappy for a while. "mistakes" in european cup final, no £20 million pound winger in the summer, no torres against birmingham, no title challenge unless we win the next game. think it's folly to talk in near absolutes about what is and what isn't right after ten games. it's also self-destructive. i don't think benitez gets everything right, but i do think he's capable of winning a title. don't see any point in the constant hand-wringing, particularly when we're yet to lose a game domestically.

all the big managers have had conflcits with some of their best players for whatever reasons. can understand gerrard's personal frustrations, anger, sense that he was being made an example of even, in the short term. and think he's dealt well with it publically, at least. don't agree that it neccessarily makes benitez a bad man manager or that it was the wrong decision. he's still the captain of the club, and a player that the manager has talked about glowingly on plenty of occasions. the best way for him to respond is to concentrate on getting back to his level, and bringing back the big prizes. that, after all, is surely what everyone at the club is working towards.

any mention of ronaldo on the bench away to villa at the weekend? if you can't rest or sub your best players at times during the season you don't have a squad good enough to win the league. for me it's less about rotation and more about too many players. has to be demoralising for a full international, approaching his prime, to only be getting only one game in five, and invariably in the lesser tournaments. none of the other big clubs have four, top international strikers competing for the two places. none of them have five out and out central midfielders (if that's how we are to regard gerrard). although i don't think the decision needs explanation since the ends patently justified the means, i also don't see any point in benitez isolating one of his best players, unless he genuinely believes that's the way to get the best out of him. thought it was gerrard's best club performance since the first set of england games, and no coincidence that it coincided with a slight change in role, where he was allowed to run freer than he has in recent weeks.

yep. constructive criticism is fine, but much of the sniping at the manager and certain players this season has been uncalled for.

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think we probably need a left back too. aurelio, insua, and arbeloa might give options, but none of them entirely convincing. aurelio only manages about 10% of games through injury, insua is young and unproven, and even as a second choice would be a gamble at this stage of his career. while arbeloa has had an impressive start at left back particularly, he isn't yet in the finnan envelope in terms of reliability and consistency. the question is which of all our left-sided players do you keep, and which do you lose? as a reliable and versatile squad player riise seems as good an option as any of them, with the exception of perhaps arbeloa.

the point being they're approaching an age where you'd want to see evidence that they're ready to become first team squad players. particularly when you consider the fees paid and so on. and also that they might be replacing an experienced pro like riise who - whatever some think of him - has proven himself to be a premiership quality player. i was at fulham last season and to be honest insua looked nowhere near ready defensively, or physically. he has looked a decent ball playing full back when i've seen him at other times on tv. he played four or five games last season and i'd hope to see him build on that this year, or even go on loan. leto looks closer in terms of physical attributes, and has also shown some ability in flashes. he looks head and shoulders above most at reserve level to be fair, so perhaps it's just an issue of confidence for him.

he compares favourably with any of their squad players, at least.

which is as good an argument as any for considering keeping him. he's been at his worse for much of the last year, and i don't mind if he leaves if we're going to bring in someone with the quality, the temperament and the physicality to score and create goals in the premiership, but we've spent almost £20 million on babel, benayoun, and leto and not one of them looks a standout candidate for that left wing berth at this stage. how do you rebuild the left side? does it really make sense to keep aurelio or kewell, who struggle to string five games together ahead of riise? or even leto or insua, who while both promising are approaching twenty-one and could just as easily end up like paletta as make it?

arsenal haven't necessarily had wingers, but they've always had ball carriers, men who can skip pass challenges, thread balls, do something out of the ordinary, and usually at pace. alonso-mascherano-gerrard's begging for a top class and reliable dribbling threat to be added to it.

wouldn't say it's a physical problem with him, if anything it's the head. the other concern for me is that he doesn't seem to have an orthodox position, in a 4-4-2 at least. that means to some extent he needs to be accommodated, which brings it's own problems when he gets tagged as argentina have found out on numerous occasions. fantastic talent, however.

gerrard offers more of running threat from the centre than any of the other options, but he is not a lampard, or even a scholes in terms of goalscoring. if he's to play there i think he needs to play with alonso more often than not. but alonso-mascherano probably gets a few more goals out of xabi, and then you still have the benefit of gerrard scoring his 5-10 goals from the inside right position, plus the extra threat of his crossing.

that is one interpretation. another is that he has proved himself to be one of the most ambitious and perceptive young coaches in europe, and while it has taken some time to familiarise himself with the realities of english football and the differences with the spanish league he is determined to improve on a so-so record in the premiership, making any changes to training, transfer policy or management technique to achieve his long-term targets. he is also aware that 90 odd points is what it might take to win the league and that rather than using rotation to diminish his chances of reaching that mark he believes it might be one way he can gain an advantage over more established teams over the long haul.

quality player. he can play widish, but he's been up front this season. ben afra's good too.

seen two of bolton's last games and guthrie's looked decent. played centrally in europe and was distributing it really well, simple one touch stuff but always finding a white shirt in space. took most of the free kicks as well. and a couple of shots on goal. saw second half of the chelsea game and he played wider, alternating left and right, was getting stuck in and going forward pretty well.

really think our squad is too big as it is. i've no problem with rotation or having quality players on the bench, but when you have five or six 25-year-old internationals regularily missing out on the matchday squad i think it becomes a problem. i'd like to see benitez add more quality to the squad, but i think we should be looking to off load at least three players during the next window. don't think putting away chances has been as much as a problem this year as in recent seasons. think we've simply failed to create enough of them in the last few weeks. benitez needs to make the difficult decisions in central midfield. either gerrard goes right long term and we lose one of the other options there (possibly pennant), or he should let one of sissoko or mascherano go and look to give lucas more opportunites. the left side's still a mess too. i'd keep one of the left-back options and one of the left-midfielders and perhaps a utility man on top of that. let the rest go with the idea of buying two first choices in those positions.