AVFC-Prideofbrum

I bet our scouts do. What is the point in having a creative player like Ireland if he doesn't actually create chances?

This is hilarious.

You think? He's okay but for me that's it. Hard worker but don't think he'll ever be good enough unless we drop down a division. Happily be proved wrong.

Unless he's willing to accept to cut his wages by probably half he should be forked out. Good player but nowhere near good enough to be on the wages (not his fault) that he's on.

I have always liked him and glad he's got his proper chance and yes I write this thinking about those who wrote the guy off because of one shaky performance in the carling cup. Shame on you.

Iniesta hasn't won the Ballon D'or. He won the "UEFA Best Player in Europe" award (which is arguably the same as the old Ballon D'or. But the "FIFA Ballon D'Or" isn't awarded until January. I really, really, really, really hope he doesn't win it. I reckon even his own team mates probably have a little giggle when he 'fails'. Odds anyway, Messi is 1/2 ....Ronaldo and Iniesta are both 7/2 on Paddy power.

You can't be serious? 'Much inferior' ... They've both had mixed success internationally, both however let down by their team although Argentina do in fact have the potential to win a big tournament, Portugal will struggle. Argentina thankfully now have a coach that seems to know what he's doing and Messi has flourished. 2010 World cup was the only tournament they've both played in since they became 'superhuman' and neither did great although Messi overall play did get him shortlisted in top 10 players of WC and if you watch his highlights, he was pretty much part of every goal for Argies. 2014 will be a great occasion and I think Argentina will do very well. 'best ever' argument will never come to an agreed answer, although it does seem he has pretty much cemented his place at least in the 'top 3' as long as his form doesn't alarmingly dip.

Basically it. (referring to an earlier post) £10 million for me is not enough, I think we could still grab £14-15 million ish, maybe someone like QPR come January or next year (as clearly not going to sell him this window) If Lerner won't put in £15-20 million his own money then I believe we have to sell him really. For the money we receive from Bent, we're talking another 3 players who could improve our first team. We may not find someone better than Bent but you find a Tiote, Michu and Ba for about 10 million outlay and you're laughing. Clearly that's a difficult task but really I don't see any other way we can be competitive? Apart from trying to simply just get the best out of a lot who are really struggling and have done for some time. I get the feeling Agbonlahor would thrive a lot more as well (fitness/injuries permitting) Ideally Lerner invests on 3/4 players and we can HELP Bent and create chances for him while getting the best out likes of Ireland, N'Zogbia. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like that's going to be the case. A lot of players at the club need to go in all honestly and we need to keep re-building. So much money is going to waste on wages it's frightening.

1. 'Tackles' ..quite obviously accidental. 2. It was offside, you get some decisions and you don't get others. Just like the 3 individual cases of Tello, Sanchez, Messi who were all released through on goal against Osasuna's high back line and were wrongly flagged. Then at the end, Messi was about 4 yards onside for a ball down the line and was flagged offside so I think it's fair to say that the linesman was simply just inept, either side.

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Nah, they didn't deserve it. 3-1. The magicians link up. Iniesta to Xavi, poor from Arbeloa to play him on though. Waaa? They battered Chelsea both games. Lost obviously which is most important but had Barcelona gone through about 8-2 on aggregate, you couldn't exactly have said that it would have been undeserved! Missed chance after chance in both games, Chelsea had 4/5 and finished 3!

Damn it POB, that gave me a hard-on. I have that effect on the male species. :shock:

Players still playing? A team like this wouldn't be bad ... Given Walker Vlaar Cahill Bouma Downing Milner Barry Young Keane Bent

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Wigan use it well, I think the key being that the wing backs are very much full backs in wing back positions or else defensively you'll get exposed from natural poor defensive work by a winger and lack of concentration, especially when sides would try and take advantage down the sides so wing backs and side CB's have to be very switched on. When fully fit, something like; Given ----Dunne----Vlaar----Clark Lowton-------------------------LB/Warnock ----------KEA--Delph/BB/SI --------BH/CNZ------------------------------- ------------------------------GABBY--------- ----------------BENT------------------------- Which is basically how Wigan use it. (Holman/Zog being Maloney and Gabby being Moses in such a formation)

I'm not a scout and don't watch games all across the world but you only have to look at say Michu for £2 million to Swansea (obviously only first game) but there are going to players out there who can do what he is doing for a lot less money. He is our 'attacking' support from midfield and you could count both his assists and goals for this club on one hand in the 2 years he's been here. Not just a replacement because do we even need a replacement, what does he actually do? Money could be better spend on a wide player, a clever striker, an attacking left back, a strong holding midfielder. We have so many areas where we can improve. Pretty much all of our midfielders like to get on the ball and pass the ball but the biggest moan I heard about Saturday was isolation of Bent, so what exactly is Ireland meant to be doing? If he was doing what he asked, well to be honest, I'd rather stick Barry Bannan there and spend the money in other areas as already pointed out.

I'm not sure if it's been pointed out but Norwich didn't play passing football last year? Doesn't seem right to me? Maybe not every game of the season did they pass the ball very well as theyd vary the way the played throughout the season with either 5 in midfield, a normal flat 4 or a diamond so different players, different formations are going to change the way and help/or not help the way the ball is kept. They may have been more direct in the way they attacked than what we saw vs West Ham which also is probably down to the personal but on plenty occasions last year they had the better of the ball, even against Man United they registered 52% possession and probably more impressively they amassed 53% away at Swansea which was more than what Man City, Man United and Arsenal achieved so I imagine they'd have had to move the ball around very well in that game in order to have such a high possession stat given the opposition. For a team like us, there isn't really a right and wrong way of playing. Everton mix it up all the time, some games they move the ball around very well and play really nice football and other games, they are horrible, nasty, aggressive and in your face. You could argue we were the same in later years under O'Neill, although maybe more counter attacking than 'aggressive'. Newcastle passed the ball well but were very direct in getting the ball into their forwards feet and playing off them, they didn't waste their time moving the ball regularly around the back. I do think Lambert's approach will be highly beneficial to us and also successful in the future. Pressing high was always my biggest gripe last year, we didn't do it anywhere near enough and allowed ourselves to be dominated and penned back in games. Thankfully that does seem to be changing and keeping the ball will be important, right now we are lacking a cutting edge and end product to our game but the basic principle of keeping the ball, moving and making angles will stand us in a good position in the future and hopefully add more dimension to our play. I think doing what we are doing right now is the hardest part of the game, getting players to press high up the pitch and work as a team within that as well then being able to keep hold of the ball, certainly far more difficult than organizing a side to sit back and hit on the break or even move the ball wide quickly and delivering cross after cross. Maybe at this moment in time we could play in a way that suits our players more although given our lack of success recently and players at our disposal, we're not exactly blessed with many options. I'm really confident though that we'll be successful under Lambert, the players are still developing as a team and ideas that may take longer than others given the level of intelligence required as a Unit and the amount of changes we've seen to the squad over recent times but everything we do will be for a purpose and 9 months down the line, I think we'll all appreciate the ideas and what we've been working on in the early parts of this season. Keep positive.

Everton is always a really tough game, although we haven't lost to them in the league since O'Leary in 2006 so amazingly we're their bogey side I guess! If we are going to be positive and get our full backs going forward, we need natural full backs either side and despite Warnock's well recent seasons, he's a decent enough footballer and happy to get forward and can be half decent so I'd risk him at left back. Given Lowton Vlaar Clark Warnock -----------Kea----------------- ---Bannan-------Delph------- ----------N'Zogbia------------ --------Bent----Weimann---- 3 quite central players so I'd persevere with N'Zogbia who would have the license to link with either full back in attacking positions and a chance to move into wider areas and make things happen. Naturally you'd go with Ireland in that position but then I think we have to many tippy tappy players and maybe not enough players who can do something different (although N'Zogbia clearly struggling with that part but this is a good chance..) while Holman just seems to strike me as a safe hard working player. Think Bent needs support right now simply to occupy other defenders and create space for him. While we struggle to really create opening for him, another striker to hound and hold the ball up will just help ease the pressure off him slightly and hopefully also reserve his energy to make sure when we do get the ball in good areas, he is making the right runs every single time.

I have said for so long that we should sell. He improved last season and isn't a bad player at all but I think we need a slight reality check of where we are as a club now, we are working within a tight budget, we simply can't afford for our highest paid players(or player, depending on how much he's on?) to simply do what Ireland is doing now which in essence is passing a ball neatly, especially in the position he is which means he should be scoring and creating goals. Of course he's going to create more chances if we find better players to play with but we currently don't and also won't find those players unless we shift a lot of players on and quickly. Obviously easier said than done but sell Ireland and re-invest in the squad. He's simply not worth what we are paying him for and he has to go. (The only way he should be able to stay is either a big wage reduction which isn't going to happen) or he magically becomes our best player and when I say that, I mean best player within a very competitive squad who have a good season and he ends up with 10 goals, 10 assists etc...and clearly that will not happen.

I can't quite believe how poor he has turned out to be. I'd give him until January, everyone had a really poor season last and it's only been one game of this so if Lambert can get us playing maybe he'll start having more effects on games but I'd say he's pretty close to end of time here unless he finds form and fast.

I don't think it matters a great deal but someone who can clearly link the play whether that be through holding the ball up or my own preference of a clever number 10 like how Robbie Keane played and hopefully given the way Lambert wants to play, that'd be a better option for us? Unfortunately I think we firstly have more pressing matters to attend to in the market and I'm not sure financially we're exactly ready for a partner to Bent. Biggest hope is that Agbonlahor can re-capture his form, holds the ball up fairly well, occupies defenders and ON his game, links the play fairly well with the ability to make things happen. Unfortunately for the last two years, like plenty of our players he looks good at the very start of the season before dying a painful death after November...

I don't play by the rules. 8)

Cups; Pointless guessing, complete lottery mainly based on the draw (which apart from the 2nd round, we don't know) League; Somewhere between 9th and 12th I think.

Point wouldn't be a bad result. I'd play; Guzan Lichaj Vlaar Clark Warnock Herd El Ahmadi Holman Ireland N'Zogbia Bent. Herd there because he's very strong in the air and we are a small team and we're likely to be peppered with set-pieces and long balls so an extra piece of protection can't hurt, while he's hardly a bad footballer. 1-1.

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