The College Dropout

What are you talking about? There's rarely a pure natural goalscorer at international football level. Especially one not strong in the air. If anything, Cisse is an old fashioned type player. Good at a select few things and not much else. When you play up top by yourself, you lead the line by yourself. That's what made Drogba & Torres in their prime so great. Challenge in the air, give defenders a hard time physically, run at them etc. J ust watch Mario Mandzukic or Lewandowski lead the line. It's not all through balls with them, they actually lead the line, challenge in the air. Give defenders a physical problem. Balotelli leads the line. Benzema at his best is a great team player. Poor example re: international football. It's generally about team players.

As harsh as it may be, when I think of Cisse making runs for others I just remember the Wigan game where Marv or someone was running in on goal and Cisse basically ran in his path. He's improved a bit in that aspect obviously but still not good enough in that department. The lad doesn't work the channels. Doesn't challenge in the air. Working up top by yourself should be more of a team role than the way we have it with Cisse imo.

you sure about this one? Last time Cissé had a partner up front they were getting in each other's way a fair bit. I still think he's better in a 4-3-3 as the only proper striker. He is scoring a fair few goals as it is, the problem is that the other players aren't really doing anything. BS. Truth is, Cisse rarely does anything for anyone else. His runs are always towards goal, rarely to make space for other runners.

Mata for me, like. Will be RVP or Bale though.

I'd be happy with a Didier Drogba-lite. Someone you can knock a long ball too and he might just win it and lay it off to a teammate. As a side, we are very small and weak imo.

Over the last few days we've seen how useful it is to have a striker you can launch it up to and play it off.

Dortmund do their fair share of long punts. But they have a forward that can challenge in the air and link it up. That would be a sin of course to be able to do that and shoot.

Any team that focuses on buying *cheap* youth does so because of finances marra. Hummels has that in his locker doesn't he? hahaha.

Actually, Dortmund have rebuilt the club mantra because of needing to cut the budget and rebuild financially. They nearly went bust. Over many years, certainly. Villa/Lambert have done it this season because there's no more investment. It's not as if they've had this planned out and groomed stars for several years at Villa (even though their u18s won Next-Gen this year). It's not the same. What like the lad from Japan and the one from the Polish side? Maybe the one plucked from Bayerns reserves? German football as a whole has invested more in youth in recent years. However, BVB have supplanted that with cheap signings of young players with potential. Hummels, Kagawa for example.

OK. Not saying they're anything alike in terms of quality. Just saying both have invested in youth on low wages and look to play attractive pro-active football. I have no doubt Lambert's looked at how his old side have re-built in that image and he has attempted something similar at Villa. Same way other managers have looked to use Barca's footprints with the short technical players.

IMO Lambert has similar ideas to Klopp. Young, exciting side. Except Dortmund defend like Germany and Villa defend like Scotland obvious skill levels taken into consideration.

Truthfully, Demba Ba.

LOOOOOOOL what a blatant foul.

C'mon Papiss lad. Very brave decision.

I do feel the prestige of the CL is waning. The best clubs snooze it until the 4th or 5th game if they under perform. Often snooze until February.

For the last CL place and Europa league? Yeah. For the title? Not a chance.

Are we comparing ourselves to Manchester United?

Tbf Villa have gone there to have a go and they are getting battered.

Bobby VP with a training ground beauty.

Comfortably. Aye, time will tell how good he is but at least a top 8 player.

Okay I'll bite. Our problem with set pieces is not that Cisse flops about in the box, it's that we consistently aim our shots at a single player. Adding Carroll wouldn't help that, they'd just put 3 guys on him knowing we're aiming for his massive forehead. And Cisse is hardly the problem on our set-piece defending as well. The problem is that our players get a touch on the ball and immediately boot it back to the opposition, where they can continue to press on offense. If you don't think AC would improve our set-pieces at all I don't know what to say to you. Cisse is not THE problem but he is part of the problem. This much is clear surely?

never knew that stat. We are a defensive team who are not good at defending. That's our problem. We have over acheived at the other end imo .

It's a valid point that Carroll would boost our prowess at attacking and defending set-pieces. I know it's cool to pretend i'm talking nonsense then later repeat my point but c'mon lads.

Agree that Cisse has a poor season so far but why bring him into this particular argument. The front post is a vital position when defending a corner. We should know, we always hit the oppositions. Didier Drogba was excellent at it, a real wall. Heck, even Robin Van Persie is very good at it. It can make a big difference to the number of goals conceded from corners imo. You normally want an attacker there because they are used to attacking the ball and not good at marking. Cisse is rather crap at it. Carroll is superb at it. Why should he defend the near post in the first place? That is usually a job for one of the fullbacks. Cisse should be up front providing an outlet in the event of a counter-attack. If we have everyone staying back for corners, every ball we ping out will just come back in again inviting more pressure. Sorry if I wasn't clear enough. I don't mean the man standing on the front post e.g. Kieron Dyer. I mean the man defending the front of the 6 yard box, normally the place attackers try to win flick-ons. You don't have fullbacks there because they are too short/weak in the air. It's normally an attacking player who is good in the air but poor at marking. Drogba was the best at it that i've seen. I think AC often does man-marking jobs from corners but i've seen him beast that role before. It's the #1 position in this graphic. http://www.grassrootscoaching.com/members/page.phtml?id=242&mid=240&lng=EN

Top player imo. The most rounded and complete of our new signings. Tbf he is 27 but he's the real deal. Not potentially. He just IS a top 8 fullback imo.