tmonkey

Shearer is being a tad overrated on here imo. For example, whilst Shearer had a very solid/consistent first touch, Kluivert in the little time he had here showed a much better one. It was silky smooth and could even create chances for teammates or turn players with it, he had that much control. Shame he was such a lazy fat sod when we had him. Big Al's crossing ability was excellent, but more so for a striker (it's not like he had Beckham-esque crossing ability, capable of hitting it from near the half way line for example). What's more relevant though is that he showed it very rarely imo. There's a handful over the SAS years, a handful in Euro '96, a handful in his first season with us, then nothing after that injury. The dribbling was also a tad comincal imo, most of the time he'd use his experience/intelligence to win a throw in but the few times he did get away it was like watching a penguin making a mad dash for the sea before the stunned lion wakes up and catches him (yeah, my natural world knowledge sucks). He was no Batistuta either. By that I mean that although he had the ability to score thunderous goals/volleys, they were usually out of the blue and only a handful a season. A compilation video won't show that. The point I'm trying to make here is that Shearer wasn't a genuine threat from outside the box game-in game-out. I realise this sounds daft looking back now, especially with some of the goals he did score, but at the time he wasn't trying them constantly or threatening to (usually because he was too closely marked), so in any one game for Blackburn or us I never really thought "go on, give it to Shearer" or "oh s***, Shearer has it" when he was in the positions. So the second point I'm trying to make here is that Shearer was more reliant on service than some of the other strikers mentioned here (including Rooney). A good arguement (to me anyway) I'd put forward is this: after he slowed down for us due to that horrific knee injury and turned into a good target man flicking balls on for Bellamy and scoring here and there (with a handful of amazing volleys), I'd argue that he showed next to nothing on the ball other than an ability to hold it up well. If he genuinely had top class ability on the ball outside of his predatory instincts, he'd have shown alot more in that role during those years for us. So for me, he was an exceptionally lethal poacher, one of the most lethal of his generation, with solid, consistent, no-nonsense target-man play topped up with the ability to score the occassional thumper or put in the odd sweet cross. He lacked flair, dribbling, creativity, the ability to turn players, could definitely be marked out of a game, and ovreall was very reliant on good service. In the context of the thread, as most posters have stated, Rooney is the much better all-round footballer whilst Shearer was a better out-and-out striker. Flame away.

Holy moly. would be proud of that.

Dortmund Arsenal. Arteta has looked pretty shit so far.

Gervinho constantly running into brick walls.

When he plays like he did today, which is pretty often, we're basically playing with 10 men given his shitness whilst the opposition are playing with 12 because he's on their side. Except that their 12th man isn't your ordinary player, but a world class ball-winning midfield destroyer in the Makelele mould, breaking up and grinding to a halt every one of our attacking moves without breaking a sweat. That's how much of a godsend he is for the opposition. Even when he's supposedly playing "good", the guy still ruins numerous good passes and through balls with his unbelievably slow anticipation and reaction times. When's the last time he was actually through on goal? Two, three, four years ago?

Huh? Think you were looking at the wrong full back. SWP's header in the first 5 or so minutes that should have been a goal is a prime example of Simpson's shitness. Rushes 10 yards out of position to try a cheap interception, gets nowhere near, QPR have acres of space to exploit down their left which they do, nearly results in a goal. He's done this in every game this season.

It could be a poor pre-season. It could also be a touch of arrogance on Tiote's part, where he thinks he's too good to be playing a water-carrier role like last season. Or it could be something to do with Pardew's coaching. He's been saying all along that he wants Tiote to do more with the ball, and if we wind the clock back a bit, Glenn Roeder did the same thing to Scott Parker after he initially had an excellent debut season for us...

Made a number of mistakes/bad decisions but as per usual got away with them.

Pardew needs to right click on Shola Ameobi, Disciple Player > Reason: Poor performance > Fine 2 weeks' wages.

Why does he feel the need to tear out of the backline in an attempt to intercept/close someone down so often, especially when there's very little threat at the time he's doing it? I'm asking this from the impression that he barely wins anything when he does this and more often than not leaves a big gap for the opposition to exploit (which they often do).

Today's equivalent of the early to mid 90's Premiership would be about 12-13 teams from the current Championship, 6-7 teams from the current lower-mid table, and 1-3 sides from the top six/seven. That Blackburn title winning side for example would have to fight hard to finish in the top 8 imo, let alone the top 4. Shearer therefore was at his peak in a much easier era than Rooney...

As daft as this sounds/at the risk of getting an eggy face, I reckon Leon Best, who imo is s***, would score more goals than Carroll in the same team over the course of an entire season - be that for us or Liverpool. It basically boils down to the difference between a crap "footballer" who knows how to get into goalscoring positions (and tuck them away), and a mobile battering ram with a wild-shooting left foot who seemingly doesn't. Carroll has to fight tooth and nail to get a decent half-chance inside the box, whereas Best seems to sleepwalk into 1-2 clear cut chances practically every game.

He's being marked out of games for Liverpool from what I've seen. Blaming "lack of service" would be the easy thing to do, but to me it looks like his positioning/anticipation just isn't "right". He doesn't seem to be able to get on the end of a cracking delivery that's played in between the defense and goalkeeper because he's always half a yard behind the defender and doesn't have what it takes to get ahead. Someone like Shearer or Sir Les would be on the defender's shoulder already making their diagonal movement before the winger starts the crossing motion, sometimes applying a small burst to get on the end of the ball, whereas Carroll just seems to stand there jogging in line with the defender, waiting until it's too late. Maybe he can be coached into making and timing those runs perfectly, and God help defenders when he does (hence the price tag), but that's not a guarantee by any means. We've seen with Shola for example that you can't coach "intelligence" into a player. In a team like Liverpool with players capable of providing quality service, he's a bit of a waste at present.

How many proven strikers will you get for £8m and 40k a week? None, according to the answer is on page 6 of The Michael Owen brochure.

Reckon he's dodgey as f***. Have always had a sneaky suspicion that Ashley may have been lulled into purchasing this club by the Halls/Shepherd highlighting just how much those two crooks were syphoning off to their own offshore bank accounts through dodgey deals with select agents/contracts/appointment of siblings/dividends/etc etc. It's a perfect little money maker for a closed family unit - you have an entire region piling money into a club that you own, so you take some of that money out for yourself. Five or ten million a year might not be much to a borderline billionaire like Ashley, but what's that over a decade? £50m? £100m? What's it over 3 decades? £200m? £300m? More if the Premiership money increases even further? Who knows.. Given what has happened with the club being turned into a living advertisement for Sports Direct (for free of course), the mysterious £100m loan the club needed overnight, the cutbacks during our relegation season (with very little investment since), and the vast amount of income that seems to just disappear into thin air, those suspicions only grow stronger, however unfounded or ridiculous they may be.

What a shit deadline day...so far.

Needs to be given time to adapt to Premiership football, at least a season or two. He'll see more hoofs in one game than he'll have seen in half a season with Inter.

Crap "footballer", good poacher.

Pistone, Zambrela, Guiseppe Rossi, and iirc Daniel Cordone had dual nationality in CM 01/02 or something.

But as stated we're playing this game of "one must replace another". Marveaux must be Jonas' replacement, and Jonas is Barton's replacement. Sorted.

Isn't Marveaux all left footed? Does it really matter? Messi, Zog, Robben, etc etc. As long as Marveaux can play there, he'd surely count as Barton's replacement? If not, given that we're playing this game of "one must replace another", who has Marveaux replaced? (And same for Obertan).

But using your same line of thought, couldn't one argue that that was last season, i.e. in a virtually different team with different players, and hence there are no guarantees that Barton would be as good this season and beyond?

Rolando sent off. For those who don't know, he's the Brazilian Ronaldo's half-brother.

Meh. I genuinely think this is best for all parties. I appreciate Joey has grown on alot of our fans, and imo he is a good player when on form, but I think it's perfectly acceptable for us to move him on for footballing reasons alone. Those reasons being: 1) Cabaye looks to have similar ability to Barton in terms of spreading the play, but looks infinitely more consistent. 2) Barton on the wing doens't really work without Carroll to aim for. 3) Nolan being moved on means that Barton tucking in from the wing isn't really necessary any more as Cabaye is already there to do the same job. 4) Barton isn't a natural winger, and so can't dribble with the ball. As a result he spends much of the time bringing Danny Simpson into the game. Which as we all know is akin to kicking the ball straight out for a throw in. Simpson really needs someone in front of him who'll do all the attacking for him. 5) Marveaux, Jonas, Ben Arfa, posisbly Obertan and maybe even Sammy Ameobi and Vuckic - if they're all fit and some of them turn out to be Premiership standard (very possible), Joey could well find in a few months time that not only is he on the bench, but he's actually several notches down the pecking order. Is he mature enough to accept being a squad or backup player in his final year with us? I realise "footballing reasons" aren't why we're getting rid of Barton, and that it'd be nice to keep him around as cover/competition for Cabaye and whoever ends up in the right-wing berth, but him leaving on a free in a year's time anyway coupled with the above reasons plus his personality (imo he'd lash out in one way or another at some point if dropped for a long period) and his high wages, then yeah, this is probably best for all parties, including us.

Backs off like a moron whenever someone runs at him. Awful going forward, treats the ball like it's a burning hot coal and just boots it away no matter where he is on the pitch. One of the main culprits for the hoofball we usually revert to too.