There were reports that we were looking at him at some point this summer, but were put off by his injury record I think. Or something like that.
Take it from an Arsenal fan. Alex Song is most definitely not a 'defensive' midfielder. He marauds forward and has no positional discipline at all. Erratic passer of the ball and clumsy tackler. Why Barcelona even wanted him in the first place was beyond me. It was clear as day that he wasn't anywhere close to the level of the players there.
You guys don't understand what diving is. Young had to throw himself out of the way, otherwise he would've made contact with Dier. Contact. On a football pitch. Legs could've been bruised, people! Fergie made it clear how delicate United players are, anything other than landing on soft grass could've resulted in amputated limbs or death. He had no choice. Same with Rooney against Preston last season, if it weren't for his quick thinking he'd be in a wheelchair.
I think he's a great passer of the ball but as you say, he's totally lacking discipline. His sending off at the World Cup was an insult to his team and all the Cameroonian fans, he wasn't even angry, he just did it for the Hell of it.
His passing isn't actually that great. That season where he got like 15 assists from defensive-midfield for us, his lofted balls over the top only had a 11% success rate because that was his first instinct when getting the ball. He also dawdles on the ball for too long and has a tendency to lose the ball in promising positions because of his selfishness. As you can tell, I wasn't a fan of him at Arsenal He could end up being a success at West Ham and he does have the qualities to be a good Prem player, but I'm yet to be convinced.
Fair enough! Although I did see him put in some impressive performances with the spammers when acting as a defensive midfielder, unless he suffers from the same condition as Adebayor, in that you can never really be confident with what you're getting from him as a footballer.
I know in the past we've got abuse for being a selling club, and rightly so at times, but getting the money we did for Adebayor, Clichy, Nasri (even though I was disappointed at the time) and Song was good business, in my opinion.
More I see that the more I get wound up at how shocking a diver Young is. Did he dive much at Villa? I only remember him tearing most defences a new one when he played for them which is why he was so sought after, yet since his time at Utd the only thing he's been known for is imitating Tom Daley. What happened to just being a man and taking the odd knock every now and then? When I played Sunday league, it was an embarrassment to show weakness when you got clattered in the leg or head, going down was something we just didn't do regardless of how hurt we were (probably why my knees are so ****ed these days ), yet some of these primadonnas feel it necessary to look like they've been shot. If a guy comes in two footed then absolutely jump out the way but Dier would've just tripped him, diving like he did - in the opposite direction! - was absolutely pathetic.
Most footballers will look to gain any advantage they can on the pitch and I remember our fans defending Bale (who I guess was a saint and never dived) Young does look dramatic, but then he will say hes protecting himself, much like our fans used to say for Bale. If you want an example of a player that tried stamping diving out of his game, Klinsmann, he was a player I absolutely hated prior to signing for us, moves to the premier league (quickly becoming my favourite player) and I went to most home games that season, and while he had that ttheatrical element ,he would often get clattered and the ref wouldn't give a penalty. Although to be fair, some instances he would dive, he could never fully stamp that side out as he played on the continent and in the 90's diving was viewed as a foreign trait, diving looked to be natural to players when watching European/international football.
Bale dived. Bale still dives. Bale got a serious of ridiculous decisions, both for and against, that were clearly, obviously wrong. Young seems to get the benefit of the doubt, despite being a well-known, constant diver, playing in a team of similar divers. Rooney gets similar treatment for his various indiscretions, just as Scholes did for his horrendous tackles. There's some kind of theme there, but I can't put my finger on it...
The difference with Bale is that the media started one of their occasional crusades against diving and picked Bale as the focal point even though he has never been by far the worst culprit, and indeed was getting some ludicrous decisions given against him. I remember during a radio commentary the Radio 5 commentator took time out of the commentary to talk about how Bale should change his ways and Spurs weren't even playing in that match! Yet whenever the media types do get back to this subject - cheating - not that they ever call it for what it is - they completely fail to ridicule the most serious and serial offenders. Has this latest Young dive been mentioned anywhere? Let's not forget it got them a free kick in a very dangerous position.
I think thats more to do with who he plays for, if Bale was offering the same antics in a Utd shirt, fans would be calling him out for getting decisions his way, but really not much difference between the mentality of both players in that they both believe they have a right to go down, either to "protect themselves" or they felt a touch and its their so called right to dive.
The difference is a club level. Utd, for example, continue to play their divers (Young, Rooney, etc) as did Liverpool with Slippy. Spurs took the moral high ground and shipped Bale out.
I believe it was for this reason we decided to pull out of the Neymar deal at the 11th hour, allowing Barca to come in with a bid.
Just looked up Charlie Austin's goal last night and it was a fairly typical old-school centre-forward's header from a good cross. We don't have many players that deliver them in open play. Trippier, perhaps. Benik Ofobe scored again for Wolves. He scored about 32 last season at League One and Championship level, IIRC. Wonder why Arsenal sold him, rather than loaned him out?
This is what makes no sense to me: there's been numerous players in Premier League history with very public reputations for diving (i.e. Rooney, Gerrard, Suarez, Drogba, Torres, Owen, Young...I'm going to be here all day aren't I?) yet officials seem to be unaware of this - yet when Rodgers makes some comment about Bale diving, even though he was clearly fouled in the incident Rodgers was blathering on about, he gained a "reputation" as was penalised whether he was fouled or whether he dived.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/33977457 Refreshingly honest, open and interesting article about EPL riches and the financial rise of clubs like Stoke. Hearing Coates describe his club as 'operating on a bigger budget than most teams in Europe' really is an eye-opener to the sheer magnitude of PL finances.
