Friedel, Adebayor and Parker can only be good news imo, but I think we might regret not splashing the extra cash for Cahill and Leandro. Regardless, the below team looks pretty strong. ------------Friedel-------------- Walker--King---Dawson-----BAE Lennon---Parker---Modric---Bale ---------VDV------------------ --------------Adebayor-------- We have some good cover too. Replace King with Gallas/Bassong when required and BAE can be replaced with Rose in Jan/Feb. Corluka is great on the right. Gomes is good enough cover for Friedel. Parker can be replaced by Sandro, Modric can have Hudd as support and Bale can be replaced with Niko. If/when VDV is injured we can have a 442 formation with Defoe and Pav who are also good enough to cover Adebayor. Doesn't look too bad to me.
As I've put on another thread, I'm not happy with the striker situation. We are now lightweight, there. A couple of longer term injuries, and we're in trouble.
I'm reasonably happy. Although I was happy with the sale of Crouch I did wake up this morning a bit sad, afterall he did score some huge goals for us - away at City, hat-trick against Young Boys, away at the San Siro. Then however I thought about all the good chances he's missed, all the times he underperformed in the air for a man of his height, and the own goal at City that sunk our CL hopes. Not to fussed about the rest of the outgoings, I think they were necessary to cut down squad numbers and trim the wage bill
Happy with all the outgoings, needed to be done. Would have a liked a centre back, winger and striker but on a whole the squad it self is still one of the best in the league so I can't complain too much.
How this will work out remains to be seen. But this is about what I would have done. It ends up being a big gamble on Adebayor, but I don't know of another top striker we could have gotten, and just about everyone felt we needed a top striker to improve. The two games against the Mancs turned out very badly, but the two real problems were failure to score the first goal due to poor finishing, and a collapse once we went behind. You can hope that Adebayor will help to solve the first problem. I'm also pleased with the departures, except perhaps for Crouch. I'm a nearly two meter tall thin guy with a liking for Southampton, so I've been a Crouch fan. What he's shown throughout his career is that he may be the best second option at striker around: the perfect player to bring in at the 60-70 minute mark--though he's also shown he's a medicore starter. It would have been nice to keep him as a second option, particularly since he works so well with VDW. But up to 12 million seems like a lot of money for him.
Totally agree - except, as is well known by now, I'd start with a different formation, so Sandro instead of Lennon, but the cover is still pretty good. I'd want about £100m as a sweetener to swap Arsenal's squad for ours
I think we did alright in the window, but could've done more - at the very least, not bringing in Leandro and Cahill was a couple of errors that need to be rectified in January. Our inability to sell Jenas and Bentley was also an issue, although on the plus side they're not taking up squad spaces now. Crouch going could come back to haunt us, although frankly I think losing Woodgate might be more of an issue. On the other hand, Friedel was a smart signing, and Parker for £5m was a pretty good deal for all involved. Adebayor could be a smart piece of business, there were good reports about Coulibaly in pre season, some of the dead wood is gone, whilst some loaned out (so off the wage bill) In a perfect world, slimming down the forward options (Keane and Crouch out, Adebayor in) motivates Defoe and Pav, as there's a better chance of them getting games now.
Our squad looks more balanced now, but I feel we've missed a couple of opportunities. Assuming that everyone's fit, bar King, we could field two good teams and still have a few players spare. Friedel; Corluka, Gallas, Dawson, Assou-Ekotto; Lennon, Sandro, Modric, Bale; van der Vaart; Adebayor. Gomes; Walker, Kaboul, Bassong, Rose; Dos Santos, Parker, Huddlestone, Pienaar; Kranjcar; Defoe. No room for Cudicini, Livermore, Townsend or Pavlyuchenko.
I'm more concerned about the mangerial staff tham I am the players. We have the squad, whether we have the tactics remains to be seen. I can't remember a subtle tactical change with this team during a match. At least the fall back to, send on Crouchy has gone.
I still think we've left ourselves dangerously short in the striking dept, PNP. A couple of injuries, and we're up the creek.
Fair point NSIS, but maybe the coaching staff think that Kane's ready? I read an account by somebody whose judgement I trust that suggested that Coulibaly should be given a chance in the cups and he's only 16.
Good point. Rooney was given the chance at 16. I can still remember that goal he scored against The Goons
Not sure if you noticed the U19s scoreline yesterday, but Coulibaly got a couple there. He sounds like a horrible striker to play against, but we've still got plenty of options ahead of him.
All eyes will be on the Wolves game, not the best one to have following whats happened so far, but losing isn't an option, we need to get a point on the board at least. As for the squad, providing the injury list gets no worse, before it gets better, we're ok imo, bit light up front, we'll just have to see. I totally agree with the tactical nous of the management, and with hoofball now not an option, it;ll interesting to see what plan B is. I just don't understand what the 'end of the world' brigade thought would happen this window. We still won't pay top wages, so why expect top players. eg. Rossi? why would anyone think he'd come here? A simple bit of homework would tell you Juve had a bid of 35m turned down, Villarreal saying 40m or he stays. No wholesale changes means less bedding in of new players, teams around us that have done this won't all start firing straight away, if they do at all. As ever we'll just have to wait and see what occurs. As for happy, more just content really, could have been better, could've been a lot worse too.
I`ll be happy when Ledley is back in our team, we are so much better when he plays. Rolls Royce footballer.
I read that when we got Coulibaly,one of the reasons he came to us was because he would be given a starting number and from what i´ve heard he´s been great in the NextGen.So i think it would be worth giving him a chance in the cups.
I have a feeling that Defoe could work really well with Adebayor,Crouch just never had the strength to hold the ball up and VDV just doesn´t seem to work well with Defoe.So i think we really do need Adebayor to work or i think we are F*****.
