That part is not true, he's also accurate with long balls and wins a high percentage of tackles and (believe it or not does well in the air). Link below shows stats for Allen compared to all round midfielders and deep lying midfielders he does well in both instances. http://www.eplindex.com/16614/top-target-joe-allen-statistically-compared-rivals.html
One v Bolton a couple of seasons back was a blur of passes between Rooney and Ronaldo and that was that. I think that's the goal where it took us nine seconds to score from THEIR corner. A truely awesome goal.
Was listening to the radio this morning, apparently he has WON seven whole tackles all season so someone is wrong. I'm not a STAT slave so I don't know for sure who is, I just think you get very little end product with him. Can't say I didn't forewarn you lot either. And I definitely forewarned you lot that Borini is not good enough.
The answer is obvious. We all want a win first and foremost. Nicking a victory is enjoyable in itself sometimes. Note that victory we are supposed to have nicked at the scousers: is it less enjoyable because they are supposed to have had more chances and had more possession? Of course it was not less enjoyable. For me it was even more, seeing the faces of disbelief in these scours fans. I always knew we would win. Winning is a habit. Whether you play well or not. Possession is nonsense if all you do is keep the ball and do not create good chances or have no decent strikers to put the ball into the net (aka the scousers problem). Swansea has that beautiful possession football but once the opposition rumbles it they are in trouble. For me it is always winning. Attacking football is what it should be not possession. The scousers want to convert their football from the ancient outdated football played by the buffoon Dalglish to a possession Swansea style football by tiki taka Rodgers. The main problem is that they do NOT have the players to play that football apart from a few like Allen. Winning in such a situation will always be the exception rather than the norm. I can see demolish some weak teams 4-0 but when they come up against a really decent team, they will struggle. Good times indeed !! As for united, the best and exciting football we played was when we had kanchelskis, Hughes, ince, Cantona. We attacked teams and pulverised them. 10 secs and 6 passes from back to front and we have a goal.
Ruff mentioning JA has lost the main point of the thread. (and to any Lfc supporters i personally think JA was a good buy). To go back to the op`s point Utd often knock it about in our half especially when we are winning. Pisses me off no end, as we always look more vulnerable when doing this rather than looking for a goal
Don't like seeing it knocked around at the back trying to keep it, more often than not as soon as some pressure is applied its going to end with a long ball up field (from the keeper most likely) and chances are we concede possession. We just don't look comfortable retaining possession and attacking/defending. We either seem to do one or the other. Maybe it'll come with more time, or maybe we'll end up like Arsenal.
Arsenal fans think they play good football but they really don't against big teams they struggle to create chances. They played great football last season at old trafford mind.
luv's stats are from last season. Not seen anything stat wise about Allen thus far this season, other than goals 0, assists 0. This is the key question for me. As Liverpool and Arsenal have shown at times, possession football does not necessarily equal attractive football if all you are doing is passing the ball around with almost no goal threat for large periods of time. It also depends on whether you're talking about a one off game or a long period of time. If it's just a one off game then obviously you'd much rather have the win. But over the whole season I wouldn't be happy if we 'won ugly' in 90% of our games, even if we won the league. But then I guess it depends on the situation you are in at the time - easy for us to say this when we are competing for the league every season, but I guess Arsenal fans weren't complaining when they won a poor league with pretty ugly football in 97/98.
Thats why I specifically said possession football and not attractive. plus as has been established, attractive football is down to the individual.
Also winnign football means whatever you need to do to win the game. Covers all bases. Sometimes its an ugly win, others its a glorious win, occasionally you get outplayed and john o'shea scores a last minute winner in front of the kop when you are down to ten men.
Yeah, the time period thing is something I meant to mention too. It's worth remembering also that there's no one right answer, each club is different and each fan is different in terms of what constitutes entertaining football to them. I said the same about Liverpool's squad in preseason when some were saying they're better than us. There are some managers who could come into that squad and improve them straight away but Rodgers' style requires the right players and it was always going to take at least 3 transfer windows for him to get the kind of squad that he needs.
I would take an ugly win if we just wern't firing on a particular day (happened a few times this season), but when it happens game after game I'm not happy. I want to see United playing fast and flowing football and winning at the same time. If we're playing a team who have 10 men behind the ball and we can't break them down though, then I'll take a goal from anything. I'll always be happy with the win, but not always with the manner of the win. That depends on a number of things.
And seven (seven!!!) won tackles. Yeah, he's great. Can't believe he was showing me stats from when he was at Swansea, they are irrelevant FFS. (sorry It's Not Just A Game, I know I'm off topic and that is frowned upon but, **** it, it had to be said)
I'm pretty sure this site uses OPTA and they're saying 16 tackles, 16 interceptions and 3 fouls. http://www.whoscored.com/Players/23444/
As I said earlier in the thread, it was a stat quoted on the radio and that is all. I'm not a stat slave to be honest, I just thought it a very low figure for someone who is so good (allegedly) at that facet. Even though, I looked at the website and can't see the figures you quoted? In fact I can't see the number 16 anywhere on his page. Although it does give him a defensive rating of very strong.
Click the defensive tab where his stats are and hover over the 2.3 in the Tackles(per game) column. Sorry, I'm quite used to that site it seems less obvious when I had to explain it just then
