The idea is obviously to have both options. Passing the ball through the opposition is fine until they work out that you're going to do just that. Then, they sit narrow on the 18 yard line and wait for you to come. There's a fair chance that it'll work. It took Leicester to a league title. There was a fair bit of it at Wembley against Chelsea and Burnley. They knew we weren't going wide to cross the ball, so there's little to draw out the full backs. However, if you bring on Llorente, it's going to change that. There's no 'probably' about it. Having a beast in he air will necessitate the opposition full backs coming out to stop crosses. That opens up space inside. He won't start too many games but he'll finish plenty.
Davies and Trippier spent most of those games wide and with opposition full backs following them out there. We won't get more space having Llorente in the middle. If we play him as well as Kane then he has to replace someone who is a good passer. I'm happy with that as an emergency tactic if we are losing with 15 minutes to go, but it's not a better tactic in general.
Ravel Morrison has joined Atlas from Lazio. I had to look it up too. It's a pub in Manchester with a south-facing beer garden. Right up his street
I had the same feeling when I counted up the signings we'd made. There's a few differences though: Bale wasn't our key player, he was essentially plan A, B and C rolled into one. Walker (as our only major departure) had nowhere near the amount of influence on the side that Bale did, so we're going in in a much more consistent position compared to back then. When we sold Bale, we tried to sign 7 new stars and shoehorn them into the team. Out of those 7, Eriksen, Chadli and Lamela (eventually) came good. The rest were abject failures, but in the context of transfers, two successful signings is not an uncommon ratio. This summer we've signed Sanchez who I imagine will be first 11 in the very near future, and Aurier. Foyth should go into the u21s, Llorente onto the bench, and Gazza will go wherever 3rd choice keepers go. The biggestest difference is that back in the Baldini days, we signed seven and expected seven superstars, this year we've signed five, two of which are first team material.
Change the cast and change the performance. Aurier, Rose and Llorente is a completely different ball game to what we had with Trippier, Rose and Kane, which is what I'm saying. We have options and can change a game. If we had a flier up front on the bench, then we'd have the lot and could sit back a little bit is some games and wait to use the long ball over the top. We have the defenders to make the pass but not always the target.
Still some rumours about Valencia being in for Sissoko, but let's ignore them for a minute. Where's our squad at now? 1st choice: Lloris; Aurier, Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Rose; Wanyama, Dembele; Eriksen, Alli, Son; Kane. 2nd choice: Vorm; Trippier, Sanchez, Foyth, Davies; Dier, Winks; Lamela, Sissoko, N'Koudou; Llorente. Depth: Gazzanigga, Walker-Peters, Oakley-Boothe, Edwards, Harrison, Janssen. There are other youngsters, of course, but I've only included those that have featured. Is that enough? Still looks a bit light in our creative options behind the striker and quite lacking in pace. Both of those weaknesses are emphasised by our current injury list too, which is a problem. Given that a lot of our better prospects fit in there, perhaps it's not as big of an issue as it looks?
It's not really an issue on paper. It becomes an issue when we don't play some of the squad members often enough who have the attributes that suit issues that can arise quite often. I banged on about a pacey attacker throughout the window, but there's no reason why we can't just use GKN and Edwards. But will we? Sometimes the game just calls out for those players. Due to the lack of game time that GKN had in particular, my feeling was that Poch didn't rate him, hence me going on about getting some pace for the team, as I didn't think he would play. The only way these two players can become the type of player we need, is to play them. I really hope they get opportunities this season. And by that, I don't mean 5 or 10 minutes at the end of a game.
Edwards turned down loan moves to Holland and the Championship to fight for a place in the side, apparently. While Lamela and N'Koudou are injured, then I don't see why him or Georgiou couldn't be options there. The League Cup's also another possibility, but **** knows when that's going to take place.
I forgot about Georgiou! Another one who has really impressed recently!! Maybe we'll see him introduced as the season progresses.
The Champions League group helps us in that the team from the fourth pot should allow us to play some of the more rarely seen squad players. Chuck in a bit of a run in the League Cup and there's some games to share around performances.
This strikes me as a wildly speculative statistic. Just thinking back to last season I can recall at least 15 goals that came from crosses... 2 v chelsea 2 v city 1 v united 1 v arsenal 28,000 v Watford 3 v hull 1 v liverpool 2 v CSKA 1 v Everton 1 v burnley ..and that's just off the top of my head. There are probably at least a dozen more if you delve into it. When you have players as good at timing their runs and attacking the ball like Kane and Alli, crossing it as often as possible makes a lot of sense. And if you are blessed with the likes of Wanyama and Dembele to win the ball back if and when the cross doesn't find its target, what you end up with is relentless pressure on the opposition with the ball rarely leaving their half.
For corner kicks, the stat is probably reasonable. Which makes sense given the player has less "degrees of freedom" (height of the cross, which of their team-mates they can see etc) than when attempting a cross from a free-kick or open play.
Goals are rarely walked into the net they usually result from high speed movement of ball and players. Clever interchange movements when players exhibit almost uncanny knowledge of a team mates position are very effective because the ball and player are in an unexpected place. Balls centred from the wings is another simply because a fast moving ball can go anywhere. The key word is unexpected, the more options we have the better.
Absolutely but I'm pretty sure we would score more goals if we had fewer crosses. I think the savvy managers understand all these tactics now which is why we take so many short corners.
Llorente gets the number 18 shirt. Last couple of players to wear that number didn't turn out too bad.
I was listening to Adrian Durham on Talkshite tonight, and the amount of bile and vitriol that he was directing at Barkley was astonishing! His basic premises was that Barkley's "head had gone" by turning down the Chavs in the hope that, one day, he might play for Spurs. He simply refused to acknowledge that a young English player would prefer to wait to get the opportunity to player under Poch, than rush to sit on the Chav bench under Conte (who may not even be there next season). He was clearly rattled. I was laughing my cock off! What a prize cock that bloke is! His hatred of Spurs has never been so transparent. The man is a disgrace to broadcasting.
Well done on getting Llorente from under Chelsea's nose but I can't see him being a hit at Spurs - he doesn't dive!
