First off, i just wanna say this isn't a bitch and anyone/thing, been in a couple of minor disagreements over the last few days and i wanna keep my nose clean So, the 2 defensive mids debacle. I don't like it as much as the next guy, but unless i'm missing something i don't think AVB really had a choice did he? The options as far as i can see, unless i've missed someone, in central midfield were (available for at least 1 of the first 3 games): Siggy VDV Livermore Sandro Huddlestone Carroll Dembele Modric Modric wasn't really available, little ****. Carroll is a youngster with no prem experience, so for me it was right he didn't come in Huddlestone is clearly not fit, so again right to be left out Dembele signed the day before a game and came on at half time. You could argue that he should have started. Marginal. Siggy and VDV were both available for the 1st 2 games. I'm unsure on the fitness of VDV though. Also, i feel that playing both of those along with 1 DM would just see the DM swamped and overrun. Ok, it might have been more attacking but i think we may have lost more than the 1 we have. We could have played someone out of position in CM, but then we all moaned when that happened last year. Sandro+Siggy+VDV is the only alternative i can see and that wasn't even possible for Norwich and for me, it would have been risky.
Aha... sensible analysis. What is the world coming to! I recommend listening to TalkCrap for a while, particularly "Drivetime" - that will knock this reasonable approach out of you!
Personally, I would have chosen to put Sigurdsson alongside Sandro/ Livermore and started Rafa in the Newcastle game. At home to West Brom, I'd have done the same. At home to Norwich, I'd have started Dembele from the outset and would have chosen between Sig and Rafa for the CAM position. I just prefer seeing a more attack minded set up and whether Sig can play a CM position well or not, I'd have rather taken the risk than seeing Jake and Sandro paired in which thus far has looked awful. As I said though in a previous post, I'm now going to forget the first 3 games, we've got a squad that won't change until Jan and so it's time to see what AVB can really do with the players at his disposal.
Sh*t course he wasn't! Would have definitely started Sig then in the CAM role then EDIT OR given Ade about 60 minutes alongside Defoe.
Essentially you're talking about playing cobbled together, more attacking line ups. I don't think you'd be giving him any credit if he did that and we lost our first 3 games. I agree with Spurm on this one. I think we as fans get carried away sometimes thinking we know best. I thought Huddlestone should be starting against Newcastle but looking at him coming on against Norwich he looked well off the pace and would've struggled to make it to half time against Newcastle.
Now we have more personnel (well, Dembele) one thing i would quite like to see is: Walker CB CB Bale Sandro Debele Lennon Dempsey Siggy Ade (at home against a supposedly weaker team) That way we could still get Bale into the wider positions. Harsh on Benny, but hey-ho
i don't know why we discuss who we think should be playing,and what position,because we don't pick the actual team,And AVB would completly ignore it
What should we discuss then? I don't think anyone actually expects AVB to read this site or pay attention to us.
but if that is the criteria for what we can discuss then i would have to bore you all with my work and DIY. No-one wants to hear about that and i don't particularly want to write about it. Or we could just repeatedly talk about what we are gonna have for lunch? I will be eating pub lunch.
but we're football fans all supporting the same cause! one of the major talking points about our club is the players and tactics! in that case we might as well not have had a summer transfer window thread (as we have no control over transfers), a rival watch thread (as we cannot control what other clubs get up to), a financial fair play thread (as we have no control over that one either).... infact, we'd lose about 99% of the threads on this forum!
prehaps it's because we have about 2or3 threads talking about the same thing,and most of the others morth into them as well.
Makes sense. Complete sense. I agree. The thing I question is... why didn't we replace Modric earlier? If not with Moutinho, Dembele. Seeing as we apparently hit the release clause to get him here, so it wasn't a major negotiation problem, we could have just done it earlier, no? Last minute Levy does it again. Er...... I feel your frustration, but isn't that what we always do on this and any forum?? Unless, of course, one of us is AVB in disguise.
