The College Dropout

I'd still sign Gilberto.

Bought Pascal Cygan and put him ahead of Upson..smh I'll shut up now.

Aye Sam does has already signed a few players pushing 30... but still...

Thing is, if Sam sells Martins & Owen and replaces them with players to play 433 he'll need instant success. Selling these popular players would require him to get it right within the next season.

Yes

Looking at his hair colour will make you feel better... Yeah he'd swap places with you in an instant if he could have brown hair.

Good point.

I don't think any of them were good enough for Arsenal or right for his system. No point flogging a dead horse, he moved them on and they haven't suffered for going to Arsenal. They were given a good footballing education and are playing in the Premier League now. Sidwell is another example. Can you imagine the day when our academy rejects are players like these? I assume Newcastle are the type of club Platini goes for, buying average players for top prices while being seen as a graveyard for talent (Hugo Viana, anyone?). Not true. Upson was directly replaced by Pascal Cygan, a simply terrible defender. Who has been the better player for the last 16 months, Rosicky or Bentley? Neither were given the chance or it seems shown that they were valuable players. I don't think any of them were good enough for Arsenal and I'm sure their fans would agree. I'd also say Rosicky is a better player than Bentley and certainly more suited to Arsenal's style of play. Cygan was a mistake, but that doesn't make Upson a champions league quality defender. Still never gave either of them a chance, he was prepared to give Cygan a chance even though he was some 28 year old, slow as owt ball head. From what I saw Rosicky was fabulous at Dortmund but from the 12+ months he's been at Arsenal he's nowt special. Bentley has a great first touch; good short, crisp passing and has the pace and skill to beat a man. His final ball and decision making is also better than Rosicky. I'd say he does fit in with the Arsenal style of play. I'd also assume Bentley has scored more Premiership goals than Rosicky within the same time span. Rosicky isn't clearly a level above Bentley imo, i'd probably give Bentley the edge. With Bergkamp, Pires & Ljungberg getting old and succumbing to several injuries Wenger didn't have much faith in his ability to give him a decent crack at the whip which is why he left.

I don't think any of them were good enough for Arsenal or right for his system. No point flogging a dead horse, he moved them on and they haven't suffered for going to Arsenal. They were given a good footballing education and are playing in the Premier League now. Sidwell is another example. Can you imagine the day when our academy rejects are players like these? I assume Newcastle are the type of club Platini goes for, buying average players for top prices while being seen as a graveyard for talent (Hugo Viana, anyone?). Not true. Upson was directly replaced by Pascal Cygan, a simply terrible defender. Who has been the better player for the last 16 months, Rosicky or Bentley? Neither were given the chance or it seems shown that they were valuable players.

To be fair the Bentleys and Upsons never got much of a chance however they've managed to prove themselves elsewhere.

If he was half a foot shorter he'd simply be a decent mid-level Premiership striker. His height has propelled him to L'Pool and England status.

Should this be merged with Rob W's threads? Same point being raised. We've had a fairly "easy" start, the next batch of fixtures look nails.

What is tackles won? I saw Gerrard make 2 excellent sliding tackles. This once again proves why stats are fairly useless. I'd put money on all Arsenal midfielders having a higher pass completion rate than any Arsenal midfielder, seeing as after 2 passes the tactic was too lump it towards Toure so he can skin all the midfielders for the umpteenth time.

Because Allardyce is renowned for struggling against the big 4? Hate this "big 4" phrase. Why not "big 5" or "big 2?" Anyway, it doesn't matter what we do against the "big 4" if we do s**** against all the rest. Well considering one of his points was about how Sam will cope with one of the bigger sides then I think its quite relevant. I doubt his comment needs to be taken so literally, tbh. What he's saying is something like, "how negative will Allardyce be against some of the better teams?" Fact is, if we beat the "big 4" and lose against everyone else we'd be relegated. The point you appeared to be making is that at Bolton, Allardyce had a decent record against the "big 4." Well, my take on that point is that at this stage it's irrelevant what his record was against the "big 4." BTW During his time as Bolton manager we were in the top 4 a couple of times (making us one of the "big 4" at that point in time) and I recall us thrashing them more than once. Regardless of the defeat. I think the defence is much better already than last year although there is still the odd unwanted error. The problems now for me has shifted to the midfield which normally supplies the cohesion and fluency to a side....Dare I say we are still missing a 'fulcrum'. This is also being hampered by some bizarre positioning and team selections. Without stirring a hornets nest, the defence was never the major problem despite the poor personnel. Since Souness decimated Robson's team the problem has been a combination of a lack of decent forward play and midfield play. This prevents us dictating and controlling games, resulting in the defence being put under too much pressure. I said ages ago that you could put the best 4 defenders in the country in our team and we'd still leak goals due to the pressure they'd be under. Obviously better defenders are important and we needed better players at the back, but we also need to control games and we won't do that by improving individuals at the back. Remember that we were a top 4 team under Robson with poor defenders. That's because we had the players ahead of them to threaten the opposition and to control football matches, thus proving it's possible to do well under those circumstances. If you can't dictate and control games you'll get nowhere, which is why the problem has been midfield/strikers for a while now and is why we're average/poor most of the time even with better defenders now. Would Spurs be an example of this last season?

I said that earlier, it's like the Mackems on the SMB with us. I think we are scared of them.

It took Bobby awhile to finally dump his dream of 352 and maybe Sam could do the same. I agree with HTL. Stop doing a Benitez, pick your best side and formation and give it a go for 5 or so games continuously. Drop players who aren't performing but still keep the side similar. I appreciate tactical changes, looking particularly at exploiting a weakness or trying to combat a threat but against a Reading side leaking goals for fun nothing but our strongest side should do.

It's bit early to be saying he wont change his small club mentality. And yes we HAVE to go for the win against the Mackems. Parky is right. It's the attitude that we have a problem with. We should only go to the top 4 LOOKING for a draw. Perhaps if we give it a go and still only get a draw then there wouldn't be a problem.

"Right, remember lads - keep it in single figures" Seriously though, I'm not going to slate Sam yet until he shows he's never going to learn from mistakes like yesterday. I have a lot of time for Sam though he will do well if given the chance. We sit 8th and to be honest i'd be *very* happy with that come the end of the season. As would I however I'm worried about what will happen when we face the big boys or teams around us. We've had a relatively easy start and we are only 8th. DDL against Boro, Derby & Reading (considering their position) really isn't good enough.

So did Bobby. 2 away wins when we came 5th. I'm worried about winning at home, this doesn't worry. We would've been winning 1-0 and conceded a late equalizer if it where that season. Our problem was not holding onto our leads. We drew plenty of games that season, we didn't lose too many on the road. This isn't the same situation.

Portmouth tbh

Hughes > Ramos With Ramos they could still challenge for the UEFA cup. but i doubt it.

I'd prefer Hughes over Ramos tbh. He'll sort out the defence. Deploy the wingers effectively and do something about their pansy midfield. Seville don't look the most solid team in the world and scoring hasn't really been Spurs problem this year.

Aye good point. Also Seville have won the UEFA Cup back to back and put in a strong title challenge last season. Much more than having a great second half to the season (that's what Spurs had last year). I don't rate Jol at all.

Mr. Benedict McCarthy still scoring & still getting over looked... a great signing by Mark Hughes, they sold their best player 2 years ago (Bellamy) and replaced him with a more natural goal-scorer.