Or this is the deal with the devil, you can have the players you want but you must bring through the best of the Academy players to balance the books.
Im not sure isgrove has actually played well for us yet. In preseason he proved he was quick and was capable of the basic. And rowe has so far only come off the bench for a second string saints xi. I think rowe needs to have a preseason with the first team before we even consider him for league selection.
Guly will be decent back up. I think we have enough good players to be quite versatile in how we set up. Although during preseason we only played with last season's 4-2-3-1 but now that we have 2 international strikers i would expect us to favour a formation with 2 strikers:4-3-1-2. If either strikers get injured we can easily play with just the 1.
I think the problem with losing puncheon is that it massively enhances our lack of creativity. He was our one player that could come on, take on players (and beat them) and make something out of nothing. The rest of our attacking midfielders this year struggle to create anything. This was especially obvious at the weekend. Lallana had a great game, looked back to his old self and yet still couldn't find that final ball through to one of the strikers. A couple of times it opened up for him to either shoot or play someone in, and he ended up Cruyff turning back the other way and slowing the game down again. I'm not sure if this is confidence, or Lallana needing to get used to playing in a more central role, but either way unless he improves at this we will continue to struggle scoring goals. This isn't even mentioning gaston, I would genuinely rather see Guly at AMC than gaston at this point. These issues will hopefully work themselves out as the season goes on though. Our link up play will keep improving, and with shaw and clyne back to run at people we will be a completely different prospect. Tl;dr: we need puncheon when clyne and shaw aren't fit, but when fit he is unnecessary.
One game ago gaston looked more than competent as a cam. In both recent games he has beat his man won freekick in dangerous positions. Gove the lad a chance, he is clearly capable of being brilliant. He needs a run of games and confidence just like jay last year only ramirez is even better than rodriguez.
Now is either the time to build a team round Gaston Ramirez, or don't and sell him in January. He's just not a "bit part" kind of player.
It's funny, because I think MP *wants to/has been told* to do this however Ramirez was away for most of pre-season and Lallana is Captain. It may just be that Lallana playing well in the second half against Sunderland and being our best player (by all accounts - I didn't see it) against Norwich, that he has caused a little dilemma for MP in regards to Ramirez. Time will tell.
Mentioned it in the tactics thread, but if we want to get the best out of a number of players, including Gaston -- and compensate for the lack of natural wide men -- we're going to need to up the tempo significantly. We'll need to start attacking in earnest before there are ten men behind the ball to generate chances, likely with both Lallana and Ramirez on the pitch at the same time.
I've not read the whole thread but hope i am not repeating what others have said! I am a bit disappointed that Mayuka has been shipped out as I felt he offered something different. He obviously was little used last season, but in the last two games he has played in he netted with 3 excellent strikes ( one was wrongly disallowed) and won a penalty. I realise Barnsley are not the best but Besiktas are more than useful. It seems to me that he has been let go when he was just getting going!!
Fair point. Actually, the last two have proved up to it after struggling initially imo, but they got the chance through necessity. Mayuka hasn't had the chance, yet. I'm surprised he's been loaned out, his pace is a weapon lacking elsewhere in the squad.
Was just wondering how he was doing on loan. Answer is, not great. Couple of starts, no goals, two yellow cards, last two games on the bench.
Cheers CBK, because I had exactly that thought about 10 minutes ago and didn't follow it up, preferring to go and make a cup of tea.
You gotta take a punt in the transfer market... I always had a feeling that one of Rodriguez or Mayuka would make it... we shall see.
I must admit I thought we bought JRod too late. He was just what we needed the year before, but we had moved on by the time the deal went through. Changed my mind...I think he will make a contribution this season.
In fairness he might not have had many chances, Sochaux are second bottom of the league having lost four out of six games so far.
It sounds like Herve Renard who coaches the Zambian team is taking over at Sochaux. So this would appear to be Mayuka's big opportunity.
Worldie alert............ http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1716w6_marseille-1-1-sochaux-amazing-goal-emmanuel-mayuka_sport
