yellow jumper

who's going to be our hatchet man now?

have chelsea ever "outmuscled" us in a transfer deal? the only players i can think of whom both clubs seemed to be in for were simao and scott carson. weren't they sniffing around bellamy and kuyt, too?

as a squad player to cover three positions he's ideal, i agree. as a starting left back, week in week out, he's not. there's a difference. what do we want?

gray's out of favour, neill's been a RB for most of his career. think he'd be coming as cover for finnan primarily. if we're looking for a better left back option, think there would be smarter ways to spend the money.

neill hardly ever plays leftback

has a preference for centre back, doesn't he?

we've conceded too many goals to the likes of arsenal, chelsea and united over recent seasons. even carragher, the best equipped of the three to deal with the physical threat of the likes of henry or drogba, say, has had his fair share of struggles. not wanting to talk anyone down here, as i think the three centre-backs are all good players. and agger has certainly got the potential to be real class.

agree that our imeadiate problems probably lie in wide areas, but i still think we're also a top class centre-back and centre forward short of our rivals. sami's been superb, but for me he's now no more than a good third choice option and probably on his last legs, while agger will be superb (and has been in patches) but still needs two or three seasons to become an indisputably dominant premiership defender.

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think you're right. but if you look at the way robben and ronaldo play for chelsea and united they are more than wingers, you could also probably add van persie/henry to the list. they all start wide, but like to come in-field at pace looking to shoot or play quick one-twos with their front men, as much, if not more often than they opt to go outside the full back and cross from the byline. it's what benitez looks for from gerrard when he puts him right, and while he's very good i don't think he's quite the same attacking threat with ball at feet as the above names. ideally he'd be the wide midfielder, given license to attack from an inside right position, but also with some defensive responsibility alongside alonso and sissoko. that would leave one berth for a 'fantasy' player, either on the left or in behind the strikers. personally i'd like to see a dribbling winger, one who could operate on both wings, with a genuine goal threat as well as crossing ability. easier said than found, i know, and perhaps gonzalez in time can be the man (but he definitely needs time), or kewell if he ever gets better (in the short term). beyond that vicente looks an obvious candidate, but i'm not sure if he's ever recovered his form after injury problems. i like kuyt and think he can be a very useful and hard working no.7, as long as he has a truly clinical goalscorer (bellamy, perhaps) ahead of him.

fabio pepe xabi honourable mentions for kuyt, bellamy and finnan.

always thought hiddink was considered a hugely charasmatic manager (by players at least), whether he's a better team-builder than mourinho is debatable. they'll be a less detestable club for having hiddink in charge that's for sure.

he was talking up the squad at the beginning of the season as of enough depth and quality to compete on four fronts. it was 5 and 6 players in, rather than 2 or 3 for this precise reason. or was someone elses decision? was he not aware of the relative financial restraints when he signed a new contract? how many young players have we brought in over the last couple of seasons? anderson, antwi, hobbs, paletta, roque, barragan, el-zahr.... his point about arsenal's ten years of development under wenger is well made. and he may have a point about the speed with which the club is currently closing deals, i don't know, but i'm not sure he should be making it in a press conference. think some of the thinly veiled criticism of the board is a bit rich.

wenger got to the point where he felt he could afford to spend his 20 or 30 million on two or three players a year, only. who he chose to buy is up for debate, since arsenal still look 2 or 3 years off really challenging for the league, and are yet to bag any silverware since viera left the club. everyone's trying to find different ways to compete with the chelsea behemoth, wenger chose to invest heavily in youth, not sure benitez had that luxury or license this soon into his project. who'd argue that our squad needed a massive overhaul, from top to bottom, when he arrived two years ago. hopefully with the addition of neill and mascherano and a boost in funds we've now reached the point where he can get on with adding top quality rather than middling quantity.

he played intensively at the back end of last season and looked sharper and sharper. it's apparent though that as a fourth choice, playing perhaps once a month, he isn't a great option because he can't sustain his physical condition during the fallow periods.

our problem isn't protecting leads, it's overturning deficits.

think the real judgements on a night like that can only really be made at the end of the season. in the isolation of the last week it looks horrendous, much as the defeat at burnley did in 2005. benitez will be looking at pushing for second place in the league, and if we get anywhere close to that and have a good run in europe he'll have been vindicated. we need to look at developing sides to win these two trophies first and foremost. how many points and trophies seperated us and arsenal last season? even in the course of the next weekend, when we go to watford and arsenal go to ewood park things could look considerably different for both sets of supporters.

along similar lines, i thought this and subsequent thread were quite interesting.

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luis fabiano's a loose cannon of the edmundo variety. used to get up to this sort of thing every weekend in brazil.

great footballer, but he's a knob.

he dived horrendously and hypocritcally during the world cup after his post-champions' league final strop, acted like a child over the bust-up with wenger and his 'look at me' pre-match interviews and celebrations with adebayor during the north london derby. he's also slagged off his own fans this season, and the whole praise of the kop thing smacks of a man who believes he deserves a better crowd. he can f*** off the big game bottling no mark. what the feck is this all about too? c***.

doesn't really matter what his intent was does it. he won his header, put it into a dangerous area, and a goal resulted. good play.

wouldn't want henry for that reason. not interested in swansongs. think it's possible to buy 'names' that are also young and hungry enough too, though. think the point is that the best way to strengthen this squad over the next year is to add from top and not bottom, if that makes any sense.

ashton villa.