The College Dropout

They've never even sniffed a CL race in 4-5 years. Let alone challenge for the title. They'll have a season battling for 4th. Probably 2. Then a title challenge if it gets that far. Was the case for City. The case for Chelsea. Even Wenger finished a distant 3rd before a title challenge (which they won).

Good summary on Anelka HTT. He's had a good career, won lots of trophies, been influential in a number of the trophies won, earned tons of money. But he could have been Thierry Henry - with all the individual accolades and records. Even someone like Didier Drogba didn't turn it on all the time. But he clearly worked supremely hard at his game. Will go down as a legend at Chelsea and Ivory Coast.

Who have they signed that has turned them into title contenders? Sakho? They will do well to finish above Arsenal and Spurs. Agreed. They have improved but so has everyone else except Man Utd. who were miles ahead anyway. They are a good shout for the CL but any more? Nah. Mentality steps in and there's at least 3 clubs with better mental fortitude than them. I've said it before - the top clubs who have made the most changes probably won't win the league.

Just hoy in your best players is what Sven did to no avail. Seeing as how i've never seen half the side have a prolonged run of good form, I don't even know who our best players are.

I was happy we where knocking it about but it was largely ineffective tbh. It's a start.

Do you not remember Sam Allardyce? They have a shit away record in general. I'm not totally disagreeing with what you're saying Mole. As of now I would go with that line-up maybe Gouff for Cisse. But you can't use these last games as a great example of our passing midfield dominating. Fulham sat back and let us play, rarely pressing our CM's and we struggled to create chances for the vast majority of the game. Then there's the Spurs/Arsenal fallacy. Their most creative player was virtually a free AM with space and time to pik through balls. Arsenal overloaded Spurs in central midfield and coped with the wide threat. That's it. It wasn't a case of Arsenal's 3 ball players dominating the 3 big Spurs lads. It was 4v3 most of the time with the best of the lot the extra/free man.

WRONG. WRONG. WRONG. WRONG. Mole. West Ham/Fulham gladly sat back and both came for the draw. There's not much difference between the last minute goal against Fulham last season, compared to this seasons. Neither West Ham/Fulham came to win the match. I'm not crediting our midfield, they haven't put in great performances. Fulham especially largely let Anita and co. play. Arsenal played 4 players in central areas against Spurs to outnumber them in midfield. It's not a case of Arsenal out-playing Spurs man for man. And even then possession was even. 2 of Spurs 3 midfielders are new to the division too. Can't draw anything conclusive in that match about the central midfield except that Cazorla provides overloads in the middle of the pitch. If you're going to say it was 3v3 and Arsenal's 3 outplayed the Spurs 3 that would be a lie. 4-3-1-2 would work a treat for us I reckon. I think those 3 in midfield could work fine. But i'm not sold on Anita being able to compete with physical sides that want to get it cracking. Not 1 point away from home Sam Ham or the powder puffs at Fulham.

I tried to avoid the new managers... just look at what Mou has done to that points hound Mata

HBA is tremendous value.. don't think i'm going to bring him in yet though.

Yeah this is a true

where do you play ben arfa ? surely he's better pushed further up but not as a tsriker ? In the Cazorla/Walcott role coming from the right because arsenal have that lack of mobility in the middle (which we have when tiote plays). There's many problems with Tiote. A lack of mobility is not one of them. it's not ? he's mobile when they have, he's statuesque when we have it. it also drags cabaye further back to get the ball off the defenders as the oppo want us to give it tiote. Nah not really. He's meant to be a DM, where do you want him to run? He often makes the most passes for us when he plays and he always shows for the ball. His issue is not moving the ball quickly enough. Pressuring Tiote into mistakes like Stottie said - is very effective for opponent. There's nothing wrong with having 2 CM's sitting pretty deep. The problem is that we don't have another midfielder or forward that wants to come deep and get the ball to link it up. When you have 2 strikers that want to run away from the ball

where do you play ben arfa ? surely he's better pushed further up but not as a tsriker ? In the Cazorla/Walcott role coming from the right because arsenal have that lack of mobility in the middle (which we have when tiote plays). There's many problems with Tiote. A lack of mobility is not one of them.

Bloody Jose has meant that Mata is no longer an insta-pick.

Think i'll squeeze RVP in for this week and take out Silva for someone like Nolan/Lallana

where do you play ben arfa ? surely he's better pushed further up but not as a tsriker ? In the Cazorla/Walcott role coming from the right

Cabaye-Tiote is a solid ass foundation in CM. We'll not lose games because of weakness in that area. It's probably not the best route we can go mind but it's the only combo proven to bring results over the course of a season.

There's a bigger picture to be looked at when you're done with that small one. The bigger picture is Cabaye's one of our very best players. While he's not phenomenal physically, he has a great mix of bite, work rate, passing ability and he gets on the scoresheet. We just need to focus on getting the best out of him and the team - that's the bigger picture. Of all our central midfielders, i'm least concerned with Cabaye on the pitch.

Need a rethink. I like my team but I may use the wildcard. Did I mention I was 9th?

It shows the bias on here that a striker that scores 8 goals in 36 did more to keep a team from relegation than a midfielder getting 6 in 26.

Cisse's goals v Stoke & Fulham were crucial to staying up. That's the very least he could do. Like i said, a striker that scores every 4.5 games in 36 matches doesn't keep you up. Cabaye's 6 in 26 from midfield probably mean a bit more.

It's cool to dislike Cabaye but he's still one of our very best players. He's a better footballer than Sissoko comfortably. He has more to his game than Anita. A good season for us depends on Krul-Colo-Cabaye-HBA-Remy-Cisse imo.

It didn't last year. He pretty much kept us in the league last year man Disagree massively. He scored a few important goals, but for the most part he went missing as much as the rest of them. Technically, Cisse and a combination of the other s*** teams below us kept us in the league. Nah.. a striker that starts 36 games and scores 8 league goals hasn't kept you up. Cabaye actually had a better goals to games ratio than Cisse in the league. Cabaye's initial renaissance after injury along, that 6 points we got when the new lads came in (coincides with Cabaye's return) & Ba's goals kept us up.

basically the 4-4-3 many advocate. cisse predominantly through the middle with ben arfa and cisse having the freedom to move round him and drift. Not really.

The year at Real Madrid was puzzling, comes with the hype of the next young superstar, spends the season sulking, missing training and being completely useless the few times VDB decides to put him in the pitch... and then he single-handedly destroys Bayern in the CL semis. Think he's a good example of too much too soon. The Madrid thing he was behaving like a right twat by all accounts. Even the way he left Arsenal. I would say he had more natural talent than Henry. But Henry worked at his game and had the attitude to be one of the best in the world and a better player as a result. I remember Henry would miss a ton of chances when he first joined Arsenal but he had the attitude and work rate. A younger Anelka a season or two earlier seemed to score whenever he felt like it

L'pool look great