barry'sboots

How could you know. Its been so long since he was in management it would be hard to know?? Lets really go for it and get George Graham. He would have loved Sunday's 1-0 with a strong defensive performance. Sod it. George Graham with Martin Laursen as his no. 2!

I think you are spot on Pilchard. It seems a lot of people do not recognise that we need someone to do this role and would prefer to play two "footballers" in a CM pairing??

Surely you mean 12 players???? ...... Heskey off the bench for the last 15 minutes when we are desperate for a goal?

Don't really understand why we have this wage bill issue. As I understand it our wages are supposed to be higher than Spuds (by £10m) and Everton (by £20m) although I can't find figures to support this. Even if, I think, you adjust for the fact we have more permanent staff due to less outsourcing then we would still be higher as the bulk of the wage bill is players and manager. But if you look at the relative squads we must be paying stupid money to a number of players because Spurs seem to have 25+ recognised first team options (even before the acquisition of VdV) and Everton appear to have a similar sized squad to us i.e. circa 18 main stream players and a lot of younger/unknown. The last available figures I have at hand are for our year ending May 2008 and our wage bill was £50.4m but these figures exclude the arrival of the 8 or so players in that summer. If we assume that the turnover has satyed roughly similar (£75.6m) and our wages are 85% of this then they are circa £65m. Knock off, say, a max of £10m (on the high side I would have thought?), for non-playing staff and reserves and that gives you £55m. I would break our squad down as: - manager - 17 recognised established first team regulars - 5 squad players (Guzan, Lichaj, Hogg, Osbourne, Salifou) - plus the 6 kids that will participate (Albie, Bannan, the Fonz, Delph, Wiemann and Clark) I would be surprised if the latter 11 are on a wage much over £20k pw so if I use that then that accounts for £11m, leaving £44m for the other 17, giving you an average wage per recognised first teamer and manager of circa £50k pw. This seems really high to me given the quality of what we have and maybe explains why MON was moved on??

Well we are screwed then because the only additions to our bench are SI and Delph later in the season and that is without any more injuries? Bannan has looked useful in the cameos that I have seen and if he couldn't have done a better job than Downing - given the way he was playing on Sunday - then he should have gone back to Blackpool.

You don't need a backroom staff to tell you that SI is not a defensive CM'er or that a CM pairing of Stan and SI would get overrun by the much more physical three men CM's of Newcastle and Everton or that Habib Beye is not a left back??

Nail, head, future, uncertain. I see a lot of MON in K-Mac. If you listen to Kevin he says that he has learnt from MON and they seem to be quite close. This, for me, was illustrated by his unwillingness to make subs on Sunday despite some poor performances and us being under the cosh. I know many will respond that he was proven right by the win but I would disagree. I don't see Kevin changing that much from MON. He has appeared to have changed things a bit but this is potentially due to injuries. A completely new manager - Jol or Moyes - may follow a very different path. I would hope that NRC would be a much more significant component of our team.

I think the opposite to this 'barry'sboots. Against the crap teams who park the bus in front of their goal we need craft, ability, invention. NRC is a warrior and i like him but he can not trap a bag of cement. However against the top 4 teams who are going to run us ragged we need battlers to get at them, press them and make it difficult for them. We need to play 4-5-1 i think as stan & ireland are not strong enough and Stan & NRC are not good enough as a 2 man midfield. Hopefully Delph will come good when fit as seems to fit the battler and gd footballer mould, fingers crossed. But if you look at the last 12 to 18 months, I don't think this has been what the games have highlighted? We have done well against the other top 8 teams playing 4-4-2, until Stan starts to tire or, in the case of Arsenal away, we just got overrun. I think this is because, with the possible exception of Everton, they don't tend to play a pressing game. You get time on the ball and therefore, the "footballers" get a chance to play. Having said that, I would prefer, certainly away from home, to play 4-5-1 against these sides. We have had a lot of disappointing results against poorer teams where we get bullied out of possession and Stan's retention/slowing the game down gives them the chance to re-group and get 10 men behind the ball. The Bolton home game last season was the ideal illustration for me, where we bossed the game for the full 90 minutes - the only time last season. This was the only game in two years where NRC has played in a central midfield pair with an attack minded partner. Compare this to Wigan, Wolves, Wet Spam, Blues etc. at home and Burnley, Wet Spam and Wolves etc. away last season. Coker + an attacking CM'er, IMO, is better at setting the high tempo that we need in these games.

Ireland and Stan would be powder puff. They were against Newcastle and would be against most sides. It would be like the Stan and Barry pairing at the end of 08/09 and look how well that worked. It also means that Ireland is not playing where he is at his best i.e. where K-Mac seems to want to play Ash - off the main striker. I actually think NRC is at his best against the likes of Wigan and Blackpool i.e. poorer teams where we don't really need Stan's ball retention but we need energy to combat theirs and generate a tempo and someone to get the ball forward quickly before they get 10 men behind the ball. Look at Wet Spam, Wolves, Wigan etc. at home last year compared to the performance against Bolton. I know I keep quoting Bolton but it is the only game that MON played NRC in a 4-4-2 with someone other than Stan alongside him. I think against the better teams, Stan's ball retention is probably more useful although I would still look to use NRC early on in the H2 to bring energy/close a game out or in a 4-5-1 as we don't have other options.

yes please! but it won't happen..3 hours till window closes. This would be fantastic. Would make it even better if they would take Emile in part exchange but I guess that this would be too much to ask for???

Not particularly but we won. We were poorer against Newcastle but got murdered. I know our defence wasn't as strong in that game but our midfield was powder puff without Nigel and was totally outmuscled by Barton, Smith and Nolan as it would have been on Sunday by a strong Everton CM. Not from what I saw and the commentators after were all saying that it was a deserved away win and NRC was MOTM. He was certainly as good as anyone when we played them at VP as well. That's the same team that got to the Europa final and finished top half from memory. We beat them comfortably. I forgot, when NRC plays and we win the other team are poor like Bolton were. When he doesn't and we struggle to break down Wolves, Wet Spam, Wigan and Blues etc. at home, what then?? I suppose that they all really hit top form when they played us?? They did come back into it second half but it was with Nigel off and the low energy Petrov covering that they actually scored. We got a win there. Not many did that at SHA. I also thought that this was the one game where MON made a tactical switch - from 4-5-1 to 4-4-2 - and we won the game. We look better when his energy and drive are in there. He will never be a Ronaldo, or even a Milner, but Petrov certainly won't either. You criticise him for making runs into the other half but not having end product but he only has to make those runs because his supposedly better footballing partner, Stan, hasn't got anything like the legs needed to do this.

I thought we already had our own specialist "no balls"expert in Downing??

Probably not on any more than Sidders though? I wonder if Barca are topping up?

See B-lose have just signed Hleb on loan. Wouldn't have minded that option in place of Sidders???

If NRC is that bad can some of his detractors explain why we always seem to perform better with him in the team? Last season starting: - Plop x 2 - Blues (a) - Bolton (h) - Fulham (h) - Spurs (h) This season starting - Everton (h) All wins apart from the Plop loss and Spurs draw, where we were drawing and winning I think when Nige went off? I can think of plenty of games when he wasn't in there when we played pretty poorly!

I see a lot of O'Neill in him. I know that many of the Bluescousers are unhappy with quite a few things he does: - Playing Rodwell out on the right was a really poor decision IMO. Rodwell is a cracking CM but looks wasted out right side. - Playing Beckford for as long as he did when he had Saha on the bench.

Stan???? Coker will track back and close the runners down.

This for me. I agree with most that he should be a holding/sitting/defensive midfielder BUT its bloody hard to do that when he plays alongside Stan! If Nige doesn't make the lungbursting runs Stan certainly isn't going to!! He played the DCM role really well when we beat Bolton last year. This was the only chance he got in a 4-4-2 alongside someone other than Stan and anyone that can make a CM pairing look good with Sidders in needs some praise IMO. I would have loved to have seen him given a chance alongside Jimmy - that would have been an energetic CM pairing. My CM would be: ------------ NRC ----------- ----------------- Delph ---- ---- SI --------------------- I would love to see this.

This is a really tough call. I think we have three quality CBs and this is good. Challenge is keeping them all happy! Makes you laugh when you think how much Citeh paid for Lescott and Toure?

I think you have similar problems to us: - good keeper - good defence, although Hibbert is a bit of a weak link I think and I would have liked to see Marc have more of a go at him - great CM in Felaini, Arteta and Cahill - lack of width, especially on the right. I felt sorry for Rodwell having to play out there. He is clearly a v good CM'er but not a wide player - good first choice striker in Saha (not sure why he is not starting) but poor back up This is similar to us except we have good width but a lack of a decent balance in CM. I personally feel Petrov is our weak link. Would you say this is a fair comparison?

He fell over fairly near to the big fella and the ref made one of his many very poor decisions on the day - never a foul yet alone a booking. I thought you deserved more out of the game, but the refereeing made it difficult to have any sympathy - what did you make of him? Dude, the one Dunne got booked on was a terrible challenge, Beckford went past him and Dunne knew it so just stuck his leg about 4 foot in the air and bought him down. Have you not seen the replay!? haha yeah im glad you pointed that out prideofbrum - that was a really cynical challenge from dunney. probably the right thing to do and prevent beckford going through on goal. not that he'd have scored mind... no idea how the bloke is in the premierleague, let alone starting ahead of Saha for a team like Everton. Thought it was a yellow but didn't think he needed to do it as Collins had got back and covered for him and would have beat Beckford to the ball.

I don't think Everton are as good as many think. A solid defensive unit they offer little in attack without Saha, other than from set pieces where Cahill and Felaini are a threat. They seem to have the opposite problem to us. They have a strong CM with Felaini sitting, Arteta in front of him and Cahill off the striker but they lack width. Rodwell, who I think is a fantastic player (from what I have seen) was wasted out on the wing and Pienaar is not a natural wide player IMO. Not sure why he didn't bring Saha on earlier and Billyletdinov who would give them more natural width. The defence was fantastic. Our middle three just isn't balanced for me. I would like to see NRC sitting BUT he can't do this when played with Stan or else no-one would be making any runs forward! We desperately need another deeper CM'er - Flamini pleese. Ashley Young worked his socks but, for me, is much more effective as a wide player. I hope that this is the position that Ireland ultimately takes, and would rather see Bannan deputise in there for him, allowing us to rotate the wingers. Downing had a poor game. I, unlike some, don't expect him to put in a mammoth defensive shift BUT he didn't really contribute offensively yesterday. I would have bought him off for Bannan and pushed Ash out on to the left wing. Carew was generally poor and we would look much livelier with Gabby. I think age and injuries have got to JC and he is now an impact player off the bench at best when we need to switch a 4-5-1 to a 4-4-2 to chase a result as we did against Blues (a) last season. We need another sole striker to rotate with Gabby and Kevin Doyle would be my ideal pick.

He should be playing in the hole, with Young on the wing. Don't see any sense in doing what we did at Newcastle. Spot on. Think he has looked useful. Unusually for a Villa midfielder he passes and moves and looks for the ball again!! He will be top class in the "hole"! but we will need to be very solid in behind.

Friedel ........ 9 Young ......... 9 Collins ........ 9 Dunne ......... 9 Warnock ...... 8 Albrighton ... 7 (Going forward 8, defending 5) Stan ............. 6 NRC ............. 8 Downing ...... 6 Ash ............. 9 Carew .......... 6 K Mac .......... 5 Defence was ace. Midfield looks unbalanced - how K Mac thought we were going to challenge Everton with a CM pair of Petrov and Ireland is beyond me. NRC played really well today - his drive and energy and tracking back is vital, especially when we play physical teams live Everton & Newcastle. Carew should have come of 10-15 mins earlier and Downing should have come off on 60 with Bannan coming in and Ash moved out left so we could match up to them - they always had a spare man in CM - and get some ball. I would also have probably taken off Stan and pushed Collins forward into DCM with Cuellar coming on at CB for the last 15.

Saw a good piece earlier that said that Citeh would not be able to play European football in a couple of years time (2012/13 I think) when the Uefa rules - that state that you cannot have lost more than an aggregated 45m euros over the previous years to qualify - will kick in. Citeh's finances are a time bomb in this respect with the amortisation of their transfer fees and large wages really crippling them. I am sure that this will bring a bit of re-balance and that we might see Citeh & Chelski slip back, with Arsenal coming through (large revenues and ungeared) and we will be in a decent position with a, hopefully, reasonable P&L and strong youth set up. Barca and Madrid will also have to curb their spending to a certain extent. Bayern should become much more of a force. It is going to be very interesting. "TV has killed football for the real fan." TV has contributed but it is the mega rich owners of Citeh and Chelski that have distorted things even further.