alpal78

Titles are won by team. How many world player of the year has Xavi won? That surely is the epitome of individual achievement in football.

Saying Xavi is a different league to Zidane is a complete joke. Perhaps Xavi can pick out a pass marginally better than Zidane, but Zidane's ball control is beyond what Xavi is able to do. His execution of the roulette was the best I've seen. I also fail to see why excelling in the big games is somehow taken against Zidane. That's one of the characteristic of a world class midfielder. To be able to lead your team to victory when the pressure is highest and when the quality of the opponent is theoretically supposed to be the best. I'd also argue that the teams Zidane led to victories were not as good collectively as the current Barcelona/Spanish teams that Xavi is playing in. Overall they are probably very similar in terms of standard (although my vote goes to Zidane) but as always in thread comparing players, it boils down to personal preference and this is another one of those that will likely be divided along the Barcelona vs Madrid lines. There is no real objective way to compare players.

I second that. I'm not sure how to compare Zidane and Messi, they are very different type of players. But I prefer watching Zidane play. His moves are like in slow mo and very majestic. To me his ball control was second to none, when he plays, it's almost like there's orchestra music playing in the background

Fair enough, I agree with you this time. I'm by no means precluding the possibility of Messi being the best ever. You're right, he has time on his side. His performances in the next 2 World Cup will be crucial

Thanks for missing the point completely. The whole do well in another club or lead the international team to success is being taken too literally by Messi's fan brigade. The point is that to be considered the world's best, you need to be able to prove that you can excel under different sets of circumstances so that the individuality of the achievement can be separated from the group/team. In the case of Messi, the question that remains unanswered is whether he can excel when he does not have Barcelona's midfield (particularly the likes of Xavi and Iniesta who are rightly considered amongst the best of their generation) behind him. Players like Pele, Maradona, Zidane...etc have proven that they can excel under different circumstances, team mates, league style, football philosophy...etc. Whether this is proven through replicating their club form at the international level or through excellence at different clubs in different leagues is secondary and immaterial. The point remains that Messi has neither excelled for Argentina nor shown that he can replicate his Barcelona form with a different club. It's simple really, Messi is already amongst the best, but to be the best ever, he has to prove one of the above.

Funny how no one uses this s**** for other greats like Maldini and Xavi. It's just a pathetic argument made up by Ronaldo fan boys who are trying to use Messi's loyalty as a negative thing because they just can't enjoy watching both players and admit who is better. It's really quite sad. He loves the club and he wouldn't be where he is today only for Barcelona and has spearheaded them into arguably the best club team of all time. But aye, he should walk away from all this and take about an 80% pay cut and go to Mallorca just to prove something to a bunch of huffy kids. What absolute garbage. Nobody is contending players like Maldini and Xavi are the best football player ever spanning more than 50 years of football. If Messi wants to be known as the Maldini of his generation, that he has already done that. But for him to be the best player ever and eclipse the likes of Pele, Maradona and Zidane, he does have to prove that he can be great even without his Barcelona mates who are amongst the best in the world either with Argetina or another club team. His loyalty to Barcelona is absolutely fine and to a certain extent to be admired, no he doesn't have to leave Barca to join Mallorca just to prove a point but until he can show that he can excel without Barcelona, surely some of us who don't worship his farts are entitled to say that great as he may be, it's not conclusive that he is the best ever, at least not yet.

Well they were 5th favorites at best and would probably have gone out in the quarters without him which is pretty average, as England have shown recently. Maradona was their only foreigner in 87, so at best he was the catalyst for some second rate Italians to join. De Napoli and Bagni were the only ones with a good amount of caps for Italy. Roma by contrast had Boniek, Ancelotti, Conti, Giannini, Berggreen and finished 7th. I can't see how Napoli would get higher than 8th, which was exactly the middle of the table. Top post coz you have specific details. Others just make claims that they can't back up

The fact that they will be without Ramos and Ozil for a few games surely wakens their team.

Granted only ever seen footage of Maradona and Pele, as I'm not old enough to have seen them live. But going on raw ability, Messi is out of this world. Still stand by what I said ages ago in this thread though, comparing players over generations is difficult and I'm not that keen on doing it. Still, Messi probably is the best ever. Pele pffft The need to win the world cup might be a bit exaggerated but for me the requirement to prove yourself in another league is fundamental to how I view Messi's achievements. You make a fair point about the likes of Maldini, Eusebio not leaving their respective clubs, but nobody is saying that they are the greatest player ever which is the contention for Messi. If it's all about being a great player, then clearly Messi has achieved that long ago and for that he does not need to prove himself outside Barcelona. But to be deemed better than the likes of Pele, Maradonna and even the likes of Zidane to a lesser extent, he needs to prove that he can still excel even without the best midfielders in the world playing behind him (at least Iniesta and Xavi)

My view of Messi remains unchanged. I'd like to see him perform in another team (preferably in another country) besides the mighty Barcelona. To be considered as the best of the best, a player has to lead an otherwise average/good team to excellence. Messi does not get to do that in Barcelona because although he is their main weapon, they are excellent even without him (i.e. their results would not have changed much if they replaced Messi say with another top striker). Anyway this thread is rather pointless. Those who believe that Messi is the best that ever was and will be will continue to believe so ad likewise those who thinks that he still has a bit more to prove. Don't see either side changing their mind myself included.

Let me just put this up here instead of the usual battle for 7th thread. This uses the formula that Pip provided in the OP of that read where the suggestion is that to get top 7 (58 points), we need to i) beat all teams at home except for the top 6, ii) draw with those 6 teams at home and iii) draw with all teams away except the top 6. The last time we got less points then 'we should' was December. At other times, we have either got the points we should or exceeded it. Our cumulative difference (i.e. between what is expected and what is obtained throughout the season is also at an all time low). Anyone who can't see that our form in Feb & March has taken a dive is rather blind. URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/809/footballmarch.jpg/]http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/6654/footballmarch.jpg[/url] Uploaded with ImageShack.us

We have a seasons worth of performances that show little correlation between possession/domination & results in comparison to the importance of simply having a very strong defensive system and attackers that will do enough to get the points. If teams have a very hard time scoring against you & you are good at putting the ball in the net, you will win games against most sides. Pardew has put in place the defensive system that achieves that & bought the attackers that do the business the other side. In what way is it likely that this will suddenly stop working? In contrast to our 'achievements' this season of playing the brand of football you just described, we have many seasons worth of performance (courtesy of the likes of Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs and even Liverpool to some extent) that shows that if you do want to aim for Europe and higher, then possession football and dominating games (especially against weaker teams) is an absolute must. No team (to my memory at least) has played the type of football that we are playing and yet has proven to be consistently successful in qualifying for Europe which begs the question can we repeat this next season or is this a one season wonder? Nobody is disputing that this model is currently working for us (at least to get 6th so far), but what many are saying is that if we continue using the same model and based on the experience of the other successful teams, then we will either screw up at the finishing line or find it difficult to repeat the same form next year. If you think this season's form can be repeated every season without changing our style of play, then we just fundamentally disagree and I dare say that your view would be contrary to the evidence displayed by all the top teams (defined as qualifying for Europe through league standings) over the last few seasons. awaiting response: but look at the results, we're 6th man! The teams you have mentioned there have been in the top 6 now for the best part of a decade, they've had the budget to buy players who can allow you to play attractive football. In case we've forgotten, we've been out of the top 6 for 8 seasons now, been relegated, and yesterday had half a team of players who are arguably just better than Championship standard (Williamson, Simpson, Guthrie, Perch). This season I wanted us to show signs of changing our style of football, which in drips and drabs we have done, and with the type of players we've signed, suggest we will evolve even further in the summer. I saw HTT yesterday highlight the fact Pardew had a go at HBA for not booting the ball away. I think that had more to do with who he gave the ball to (Williamson) in that position rather than the action itself. After the results we were getting early in the season, you can't really blame Pardew for keeping that sort of system. There's no guarantee whatsoever that we would be 6th if we had done. I'm more than happy with the job he's done, and think when the likes of Simpson, Williamson, etc are fazed out of the starting XI next season with better, technical players, the style of football will improve even further. Until then though, it's about getting the points and wins on the board that will get us into Europe, which he's doing, and has done brilliantly for the most part all season. I do agree that we do have some really inferior players and from our first team, I would include the likes of Williamson, Simpson in that category with Perch and Guthrie as inferior backup players who also played yesterday. But the top teams aforementioned all have their weak links too and contrary to your point their teams don't consist of expensive superstars throughout, yet are able to play much better possession based football. It's a myth that you need 11 good technical players to play good football. I can excuse the likes of Willamson and Simpson hoofing the ball due to their limitations but I find it difficult to accept when the rest do that because that's a reflection of the manager's game plan as opposed to their ability. When you consider that we have the likes of Colo, Cabaye, Tiote, HBA, Ba, Cisse and to a lesser extent Jonas and Santon (that's 8 out of 10 outfield players), I find it difficult to believe that we are unable to play possession short passing football or at least better than the turgid hoofball that we are playing now

That's very relevant to the topic of passing, cheers. Quite pertinent to the topic of winning football matches, which Alan Pardew (the perosn being discussed in this thread) is paid to do. Just broadening the debate is all I don't think anyone's debating that we won the game. Could've fooled me. We beat a confident Norwich side. Who don't forget, beat us 4-2 last time out. The point discussed is how we seem to win games by solitary goals usually dependent on some outstanding play by one of of Cisse, Ba or HBA instead of teamwork with a coherent formation and tactics (unless you consider the hoofing in the second half as tactics). The problem with the model that we are adopting is that we don't dominate games and can at anytime lose/draw games that in theory we should/can win. It also gives us next to zero chance (Man Utd game aside) of taking points of the top 4-6 teams even at home, which is what we should be targeting if we are serious on getting into Europe. Maybe some will have to wait till we get a tonking from Liverpool for the penny to drop. Dependant on outstanding play? Cant really say that in this example when Cisse missed more sitters than class goals he scored. We dont dominate games no, it hasnt made us less likely to lose/draw games than we should win in theory. Look back at the season, bar unusual circumstances we pretty much win every game you'd expect under Pardew. I made a thread on this yesterday. We definately do less well against the top 7 but its to be expected. Which games so far against them would you have expected more from us? Swansea at home, Wolves at home, Sunderland at home, West Brom at home. Definately more points on offer in those games. Wolves/Sunderland yeah & individual circumstances still decided those games. Swansea/Wbrom i wouldnt say we could have expected much more. We drew 0-0 with Swansea and lost 2-3 against West Brom at home. Both teams currently ranked 8th and 12th respectively. Maybe we just have different expectations, if we are targeting Europe and beyond, using Pip's formula in the OP of the "Battle for 7th" thread, these are teams that we should be beating at home. I'm curious why you think we couldn't (shouldn't?) expect more than a total 1 point out of the potential 6 on offer?? You'd expect to win looking at them yeah. Swansea achieved their lowest poss all season in our game, went all out defence & theyre hard enough to score against when they dont do that as Man city found out. If you remember there was barely any space in the box atall, Ba had to do acrobatic overheads to get a shot that wasnt blocked & it was still saved. He also hit the post. Dont think we could have done much more. West Brom was just our defense for me due to having 1 Cb. 2 goals should be enough to get points from a game. Only Spurs/Arsenal/Swansea have put 3 past wbrom all season & swansea needed a penalty. So that leaves 2 sides who managed it & theyre 2 of the best attacking sides in the league. Possible to do? Yes. But no chance can we expect it. We just conceded to many. For the Swansea game, based on soccernet's stats, possession was 51% vs 49% in their favor. Perhaps they were ultra defensive, but this is even more reason to believe that the way to break down a resolute defence is not by lumping the ball forward but by playing passing the ball around and moving up as a team. You only need to see how the top teams do this when faced with such a defensive strategy. This is what we don't do which is why end up losing points that we could have won. Crucially out of the 22 shots we had, only 3 were on target which is what you get from percentage football ala Pardew. You might have a point that against West Brom, it is our defence that screwed up. But once again out of 26 shots, only 5 were on target. This low percentage of shots of target is a clear symptom of percentage football where you just try to shoot even if in a crappy position as opposed to creating genuine chances (like one on ones) where it is harder to miss.

We have a seasons worth of performances that show little correlation between possession/domination & results in comparison to the importance of simply having a very strong defensive system and attackers that will do enough to get the points. If teams have a very hard time scoring against you & you are good at putting the ball in the net, you will win games against most sides. Pardew has put in place the defensive system that achieves that & bought the attackers that do the business the other side. In what way is it likely that this will suddenly stop working? In contrast to our 'achievements' this season of playing the brand of football you just described, we have many seasons worth of performance (courtesy of the likes of Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs and even Liverpool to some extent) that shows that if you do want to aim for Europe and higher, then possession football and dominating games (especially against weaker teams) is an absolute must. No team (to my memory at least) has played the type of football that we are playing and yet has proven to be consistently successful in qualifying for Europe which begs the question can we repeat this next season or is this a one season wonder? Nobody is disputing that this model is currently working for us (at least to get 6th so far), but what many are saying is that if we continue using the same model and based on the experience of the other successful teams, then we will either screw up at the finishing line or find it difficult to repeat the same form next year. If you think this season's form can be repeated every season without changing our style of play, then we just fundamentally disagree and I dare say that your view would be contrary to the evidence displayed by all the top teams (defined as qualifying for Europe through league standings) over the last few seasons.

Not a great honour tbh given that after SBR, we had jokers/fraud like Fat Sam and Souness managing the club. If we continue playing defensive hoofball against these weaker teams even at home, there is a reasonably high chance of us screwing things up(i.e. West Brom, Swanswa, Wolves and Sunderland) which would hurt our chances for Europe.

That's very relevant to the topic of passing, cheers. Quite pertinent to the topic of winning football matches, which Alan Pardew (the perosn being discussed in this thread) is paid to do. Just broadening the debate is all I don't think anyone's debating that we won the game. Could've fooled me. We beat a confident Norwich side. Who don't forget, beat us 4-2 last time out. The point discussed is how we seem to win games by solitary goals usually dependent on some outstanding play by one of of Cisse, Ba or HBA instead of teamwork with a coherent formation and tactics (unless you consider the hoofing in the second half as tactics). The problem with the model that we are adopting is that we don't dominate games and can at anytime lose/draw games that in theory we should/can win. It also gives us next to zero chance (Man Utd game aside) of taking points of the top 4-6 teams even at home, which is what we should be targeting if we are serious on getting into Europe. Maybe some will have to wait till we get a tonking from Liverpool for the penny to drop. Dependant on outstanding play? Cant really say that in this example when Cisse missed more sitters than class goals he scored. We dont dominate games no, it hasnt made us less likely to lose/draw games than we should win in theory. Look back at the season, bar unusual circumstances we pretty much win every game you'd expect under Pardew. I made a thread on this yesterday. We definately do less well against the top 7 but its to be expected. Which games so far against them would you have expected more from us? Swansea at home, Wolves at home, Sunderland at home, West Brom at home. Definately more points on offer in those games. Wolves/Sunderland yeah & individual circumstances still decided those games. Swansea/Wbrom i wouldnt say we could have expected much more. We drew 0-0 with Swansea and lost 2-3 against West Brom at home. Both teams currently ranked 8th and 12th respectively. Maybe we just have different expectations, if we are targeting Europe and beyond, using Pip's formula in the OP of the "Battle for 7th" thread, these are teams that we should be beating at home. I'm curious why you think we couldn't (shouldn't?) expect more than a total 1 point out of the potential 6 on offer??

That's very relevant to the topic of passing, cheers. Quite pertinent to the topic of winning football matches, which Alan Pardew (the perosn being discussed in this thread) is paid to do. Just broadening the debate is all I don't think anyone's debating that we won the game. Could've fooled me. We beat a confident Norwich side. Who don't forget, beat us 4-2 last time out. The point discussed is how we seem to win games by solitary goals usually dependent on some outstanding play by one of of Cisse, Ba or HBA instead of teamwork with a coherent formation and tactics (unless you consider the hoofing in the second half as tactics). The problem with the model that we are adopting is that we don't dominate games and can at anytime lose/draw games that in theory we should/can win. It also gives us next to zero chance (Man Utd game aside) of taking points of the top 4-6 teams even at home, which is what we should be targeting if we are serious on getting into Europe. Maybe some will have to wait till we get a tonking from Liverpool for the penny to drop.

Did he drop him for it? putting everything together i'm not sure ben arfa has been dropped for not tracking back. So why was he dropped then in favor of the likes of Obertan and Raylor?

Not in England he shouldn't. And certainly not in our side. He's a wide player. Fortunately Pardew now agrees with me. You realize that given how shit some of Pardew's decision making has been, referencing him as agreeing to your views does nothing for the credibility of that view, quite the opposite actually

Agree with the assessment except for the last paragraph. Whilst Steven Taylor is important, even without him we do have players who can play passing football. In our team, only Williamson and Simpson are the sort that would resort to long balls. I would argue that all other 8 outfield players are the type who would be more comfortable passing the ball around. So the fact we're not is not down to the players but the manager's instructions.

Best part was him claiming that the person who criticized him for wearing the t-shirt was racist, you could not make it up. These Liverpool players must have gone through how to make idiotic comments class!

It wasn't his explicit aim, but it was clearly where he was going. A side that has European aspirations simply has to play possession football (it took Ferguson a very long time to realise that), whereas Hodgson was taking us away from that. He took a tactically sophisticated and fairly skillful side and set about turning it into a bunch of typically English clodhoppers. Intentional or not, the obvious place for such a side is not in the CL spots, and even if they did manage it, they'd never get anywhere. Hodgson is all about (and very good at) building a side that's hard to beat. This is a very different thing to building a side to win. It's negative, destructive. To win, a side has to be positive, constructive. We had enough of negative football under Houllier. It just doesn't work for clubs that aspire to the top because your opponents intend to play the same, negative football against you. To be a top side, you have to be able to go out there to win games, not just to not lose them. If you settle for the latter, mediocrity shall be your fate. That wasn't acceptable to us. Wacko I don't quite agree wit the distinction betwee KD and Hodgson. To me KD is pretty defensive too as reflected in his purchase of players like Carroll, Henderson and to a lesser extent Adams who would fit more into the mould of clodhoppers thank skilfull. Even Downing is more of an English type winger who primarily tries to get crosses in as opposed to more skilful wingers like Nani, Adam Johnson and Walcott. I do agree with ur view though that setting up not to lose only gets you mediocrity and to qualify for CL and challenge at the top end you need to be set up to win. This has been mine (and a few others) observation/criticism of Pardew as well. He is clearly a manager who sets up his team not to lose, hence playing a defender on the wing and limiting the movement of Cabaye from venturing too much forward either to have a pop or even arrive late in the box. Aside from the second half against Sunderland, we've not played to win for quite some time and unless this changes, results will show as we drop off from the business end of the table.

You mean just like after he dribbled past 5 players to score the FA Cup goal of the round against Blackburn?

Where is Reefatoon or whatever his name is when you need him?

in 5 minutes time?