They've got Nani, Valencia, Young, Giggs and possibly Welbeck who can play wide. We've got Bale in the same class, Lennon who I wouldn't pick ahead of any of them and who else? I don't think any of our forwards except possibly VdV would get in their squad either.
Giggs doesn't have the pace or the legs to play as an outright winger any more and Welbeck's as much as a winger as Defoe, frankly. Rose still looks like a winger to me, Townsend's definitely one and so is Pienaar, though we've loaned the latter two out. Kranjcar is frequently played out wide, as is van der Vaart. What are you classing as a forward? Adebayor's clearly better than the likes of Welbeck and Owen, for example.
I was thinking that Berbatov is still better than Adebayor and he doesn't often get on the pitch so why would Ade. Rose and Townsend are not good enough yet and Pienaar never will be. 442 only works if the wide players are good enough to need careful watching which stops the midfield pair being over-run. Utd have three of those, we have one and a half.
same class? wellbeck isnt the same as bale Giggs hasnt got the dynamic ability Bale has got..yes he did have but hes 38 now. Nani,Valencia and Young yeh they are affective. i reall believe we can look at it in many ways but the one sole influence is Fergie..he is immense..he brings out the best and he doesnt keep idiots like Tevez or balotelli in his squad.....i bet if he had the city squad they would have faired much better than they did under Balottellis daddy(mancini) p.s the owners looked pissed off lol
Adebayor's clearly better than Welbeck and he starts. Pienaar's very good at Everton. Lennon's obviously a good winger.
Valencia only seems to cut inside from the wing when he's in the final quarter of the pitch whereas Bale will tend to be found in the middle from the halfway line with or without the ball.
Perhaps we should try Friedal out on the wing, and Bale in goal? I'm not saying we should use this tactic against every side, of course.
Well said PS. None of the top 3 teams in this league regularly play 4-4-2 with two wingers. Nor does the best club side in the world or the best country in the world. In fact as we hardly do it either none of the top 5 sides in this country regularly play 4-4-2 with two wingers.
Bales most natural and effective position is on the left and that is a fact. This doesn't mean he can't perform in the centre and arry picks what he feels is the best team and at times we can't have every player in there best position, good example of this is VDV, who really gets abused (in the positional sense). However, I personally believe when you have players of the quality like Bale and VDV, you play them in their most natural and effective position and work around there qualities as if we play them out of position to try and get a balanced team, what tends to happen is we lack that extra quality and the balance isn't enough.
That's not a fact at all, Bale doesn't think it's a fact, nor does Harry. And I believe the stats aren't favourable to what is actually an opinion of yours, which in my view is wrong, though I concede my opinion might be wrong instead. However, my opinion is shared by the people who matter most, Bale and Redknapp.
My opinion is fact, ok mate? (wink) All jokes aside, I do believe Bales best position is on the left and stats on this can be misleading as when a player is effective on the left, it doesn't mean we only look at his final pass or goal scored as you have to look at the space it creates for other players which in turn leads to chances, Just for this discussion, if anyone has or can post the stats of bale for this season and last then we could look at them.
There isn't one set reason why we have dropped points, however lack of width is one of them as the more narrow we play, the less effective we are.
We have tactically been awful over the last six weeks. Constantly bottling it with our selections. Defensive central midfield's , screwing the creative flowing football and paying the price . If Redknapp doesn't go back to basics it will be to late. Bale is brilliant on the left hugging the line scaring the pants off the opposition. Some times he may be marked out of a game but as many have said this free's space for others. We have a player that arguably is the most wanted player in the premier league and play him out of position, it is just madness.
Well, clearly most on here think that Bale should stick to the left. I don't and look forward to him continuing to play a roving role. I can't convince anyone it seems that Bale and Harry are correct on this, so we'll just have to see how things go in the future.