Why we might win the league next season

[Knoxy]

- The spine of our side is fantastic. We should give up on wingers as there are no good ones available, just play everything through the middle

 

- We've got Torres. He's the best striker in the league

 

- We've got Gerrard. He's the best midfielder in the league

 

- We've got Masch. He's the best destructive midfielder in the league

 

- The rest of our spine is also dead good, as mentioned in the first point. Just not as good as the 3 individuals above

 

- Agger might be fit, he's great at bringing the ball out of defence.

 

- We might sign someone else amazing, like Masch or Torres. Imagine having 2 Torres's. That would be amazing.

 

- Ronaldo might sod off to Spain. Chelsea and Arsenal sound like they might lose key players as well.

 

- DIC might take control and buy us Messi. Almost certainly won't happen.

 

We've got a chance. Probably won't happen though

[Woodsyla]

Nowhere near positive enough, a poor 6/10.

[Mike]

allow me to be the first to say f*** OFF

[sutty]

You need to mention the crowd and how great we are, except for s*** games at home and s*** games away.

[dorgie]

Overuse of the word "might"

[Hassony]

I think we have a good chance of retaining the reserve title next season

[Bo Benn]

I think performing better against the 'lesser' sides will improve our chances for next season. We dropped too many points against s*** teams. End of. I think getting another good striker in the side will improve our chances of killing of opposition*, a quality we lacked sometimes during last season, but which did improve slightly from the season before. The numbers of high scoring wins this season in an indication of that.

 

Some people pointed towards our poor results against the top three for our season's league failure. However I think you need to take into account that those three side are excellent football teams and the games against will always be very uncertain. Think it much more down to day-to-day form and coincidences who win those games. But the other ones are more down to attitude and preparation.

 

* edit: a couple of good wingers will also help

Edited May 20, 2008 by obey Hysén

[Rory Fitzgerald]

Rafa knows what works and what does not work i.e. Voronin and Kuyt as a partnership doesnt work but Gerrard and Torres does

[psl]

Rafa knows what works and what does not work i.e. Voronin and Kuyt as a partnership doesnt work but Gerrard and Torres does

 

Who'd have thought it?

[Guest Snorky]

We've got no chance unless we get some new world class players and Rafa stops rotating so much at the start of the season.

[Bo Benn]

We've got no chance unless we get some new world class players and Rafa stops rotating so much at the start of the season.

 

Not saying you're completely wrong - we need to get more quality in; but you shouldn't underestimate the power of having a largely unchanged squad from one season to the next either. For instance I can see players like Babel, Skrtel, Benayoun and even Torres and Alonso improving so much it actually makes a big difference in our chances to challenge for the league title properly.

[Tyler]

if agger stays fit, then an agger-skrtel partnership looks to have great potential

 

good defenders, can bring ball out of defence and pacey enough to allow us defend a higher line

 

i'd like to see us with pacey full backs who can overlap and deliver a cross - alves would be great.

 

i can see babel having a big season next year as well

 

if torres stays fit and we keep same spine we are not that far away

 

i'd prefer to see no squad players brought in but bring in the youngsters as cover and add two first team players of proven quality.

[Guest Snorky]

Not saying you're completely wrong - we need to get more quality in; but you shouldn't underestimate the power of having a largely unchanged squad from one season to the next either. For instance I can see players like Babel, Skrtel, Benayoun and even Torres and Alonso improving so much it actually makes a big difference in our chances to challenge for the league title properly.

 

We need quality signings on both flanks and another striker at the bare minimum.

[Bo Benn]

We need quality signings on both flanks and another striker at the bare minimum.

 

Probably true. For some strange reason I think a new striker would give us more than one new winger. Probably comes from the impact Torres made. Could we for instance get Dave Villa it could be a big step forward even though we probably wouldn't afford top class wingers then.

[Gunga Din]

There are 3 very obvious reasons why we wont win the league next season.

[Gunga Din]

We need quality signings on both flanks and another striker at the bare minimum.

 

 

where do you see Babels role? after all, apparantly he was bought to play in 4 positions. two of those positions seem to have been in the hut and in the stand though. Do you seem him as a solution to any of our problem areas?

[Rory Fitzgerald]

There are 3 very obvious reasons why we wont win the league next season.

 

I wouldnt call Arsenal an obvious reason

[Bailo]

where do you see Babels role? after all, apparantly he was bought to play in 4 positions. two of those positions seem to have been in the hut and in the stand though. Do you seem him as a solution to any of our problem areas?

You cannot moan about Babel in one breath and then moan we didn't sign Ronaldo in another!

[psl]

There are 3 very obvious reasons why we wont win the league next season.

 

That's the spirit.

[Gunga Din]

You cannot moan about Babel in one breath and then moan we didn't sign Ronaldo in another!

 

 

i didnt moan about us not signing Ronaldo. I moaned about people saying we couldnt afford him, when the reality was we could, but chose to spend the money on other targets

[Bailo]

i didnt moan about us not signing Ronaldo. I moaned about people saying we couldnt afford him, when the reality was we could, but chose to spend the money on other targets

But that's just not true. GH and Thompson really wanted to sign him, but couldn't compete with the £12m odd Utd threw at Lisbon, when we'd agreed £6m. It's simplistic Football Manager-thinking to say we could have bought Ronaldo by putting together Diouf, Diao and Cheyrou's transfer fees.

[Cobs]

i didnt moan about us not signing Ronaldo. I moaned about people saying we couldnt afford him, when the reality was we could, but chose to spend the money on other targets

eggsfeckinxactly

[Cobs]

But that's just not true. GH and Thompson really wanted to sign him, but couldn't compete with the £12m odd Utd threw at Lisbon, when we'd agreed £6m

lent Tommo's book to someone else so i can't quote it verbatim but that's not true either

[Bailo]

lent Tommo's book to someone else so i can't quote it verbatim but that's not true either

I can't quite remember verbatim, but I'm sure Thommo remarks that they thought they had to deal sewn up and then heard (in the pub?!) that Utd had doubled (or thereabouts) our offer.

 

“I was invited to watch Sporting play Porto in the last game of their season. Tony Henry, the former Manchester City player and an agent with Paul Stretford’s ProActive agency, was on the phone on a regular basis to see if we would take Ronaldo and asking if he could take us to watch him. I met Tony at the airport and travelled to Oporto. I met the player’s Portuguese agent before watching the game.

 

“Ronaldo was quite good, but not as impressive as the first time I saw him. Tony was pushing the boy and saying he was a talent. He was saying, ‘He’ll only cost £4 million. It can be paid over the course of his contract at £1 million a year.’ He also said the player wanted £1 million [a year] tax free. I said, ‘The boy is only 18. That is a massive problem.’ We would have had anarchy if the other players had found out how much we were considering paying for an 18-year-old kid in Ronaldo.”

 

It was only months later that Ronaldo was on his way to Old Trafford for £12.24 million, a fee that Thommo described as “astonishing”.

Edited May 20, 2008 by DarkBailo

[Guest Snorky]

where do you see Babels role? after all, apparantly he was bought to play in 4 positions. two of those positions seem to have been in the hut and in the stand though. Do you seem him as a solution to any of our problem areas?

 

Don't know to be honest, but I wish he will be able to concentrate on one.