fredbob

Are people actually considering the "R" word? And we complain when the media say we're unrealistic?

You love him. +1 Exactly the sort of thing we'd need. Well, Robert in his prime anyway.

right now very happy with n'zogbia centre attacking midfield Against Stoke maybe. He was dominated pretty easily today. you mean today he didn't dominate the game ? that type of thing happens with half a team out. No, he was easily dominated. They coped with him very easily today i thought. He only had any real effect when he pushed out to the left occassionally for the last 20 minutes or so. Such a massive waste if we keep him there long-term. yup he was easy dominated....why ?2 men on him and limited options perhaps ? could a decent central midfield solve this ie no bolton player marked rozenhal meaning they could double man elsewhere. Zog might turn into a quality central midfielder but right now he has too many limitations to his game. His ball retention, passing and strength are exposed in the middle. Maybe with 3 central midfielders he can get away with it but not in a 2. Stick him out wide where he gets a bit more space and he can use his attributes like his pace, his ability to run with the ball and his crossing. I like the kid but until he develops a bit, you are just exposing his weaknesses and stifling his strengths in the middle. his crossing has never been consistent and he is only just getting experience in centre mid. as for running at players most of his best stuff has been done in the middle even when played in other positions (this season at left back and as at the SOL when out wide). his best attribute is taking the ball in close and in one movement taking it away...ideal for attacking centre mid. distribution needs wot=rked on but it would to play wide anyway Have to agree, think he could be very effective in the centre. He's equally good onthe right, but ithink that his direct running will open up alot of space for the strikers when he forces defender to commit to tackles on him. Needs to work on his passing and distibution but could be effective. Hopefull this game wont be judged against him because he had absolutley no space to operate, had 2/3 people on him at all times. would be excellent onthe counter attack throught the cnetre.

We had possession by the bucket load today and we were crying out for creativity. The possession Bolton had was mainly down to our s*** passing and inability to break them down. Aye, against Bolton we had good possession, thats the first bit. Against the bigger teams and better teams will we have the saem amount? No, hence the need for an accomplished DM who will give us possession. We need a RW, Milner had bucket loads of possession but wasted it with poor crossing or negative passing. I dint see him go past a full back once. You give a quicker, more skillful RW that much posession he WILL give better oppurunities. As for an AM, i didnt see toomuch possesion "in the hole" where an attacking midfilder operates, it was predominantly on the wings. If we had an AM he would be useless without posession and useless without having 2 winger at his disposal who make andvaced runs. I think its wrong to think that having a creative midfelider will automatically make us creative. I dont think Elano would of been as effective as he has been without Ireland and especially Petrov by his side. You couldnt stick Ronaldinho into Derby team and expect them to be any more creative, it doesnt work as siply as that.

That's the way I see it. We played much better, we tried to get it down and pass it, we had a lot of posession but lacked penetration. In 3 f****** days, that's quite an improvement, tbh.

I think we need those in completely the different order. Nah, creative midfielder is useless if we dont have posession, need a DM to brek down opposition play and give possession to AM and wingers, need decent protection of the defense as well, Butt and Geremi dont offer the whole package. Build from the back etc. Also a AM will need good outlets, i dont think we have them, Milner wont get beyond the full backs into the dangerous spaces that the AM thrive on. Hence the need for a winger who will balance out the team. gives the team an extra dimension. AM midfilder will be the hardest one to get right, he'll be like the final piece in the puzzle. Inmy opinion we'd be more dangerous with possession with 2 competent wingers than we would with possession and only one competent winger and an AM.

Precisely. I don't think i've seen us retain possession as well as we did today for a long time, and that's got nothing to do with their tactics. We've played against negative teams before and had little possession. The fact that we had 70% of the possession, or whatever, for me, is good 'defending'. They can't score if you've got the ball. yeh, we kept possession thought Roz was really good inthe centre, kept play flowing and regained posessionquite well. Was a major plus seeing us regaining possession trying to work an opening rather than hope for one froma long ball, can really see the difference inthe team, if we boxed them in like we did today with Allardyce at the helm the ball would of been punted into the box on the hope that a ball would fall loose for one of our players, we'd end up losing possession very easily with Allardyces style which meant we were constantly trying to reagain possession again putting ourselves under unessary pressure. Id like to see the ball worked from one flank to the other more often, play didnt get swtiched tht often from what i remember.

Need a DM first and foremost. The a right winger, then a creative midfielder.

We kept a clean sheet because they didnt attack, simple. There was hardly any pressure on our defenders.

i think Lennons really good to be honest, id have him at nufc in a flash, his main weakness though is his final ball, which seems to be a problem with a lot of our players. He gets himself into some fantastic positions thouhg and i dont think there are many full backs inthe premiership who arent wary of him he canskin them all. Would have him or Quaresma here in a flash, would prefer them to SWP. Milner has often torn apart the best full backs in the league whilst not being able to deliver the final ball. As said Lennon is very average, he is just very quick at being average. milner is actually a reasonably dangerous player when he's close to the box, he's quite tricky and does get the better of some full backs, however his pace lets him down severly when he's further out as he doesnt have the pace to get past the full back, which means he's forced to cross alot of the time from deep, whihc leads onto his next problem which is his deleivery isnt good. Slow wingers have good technique, Solano, Beckham etc, Milber unfortunately doesnt have either. Someone like lennon will have very few issues with getting past the full backs, once he gets into the box or to the byline he'll draw out defenders leaving space for players like Owen to exploit. Owens movement in the box would be more suited to someone crossing fromthe byline or in the box than someone crossing from deep.

Id agree with the OWen thing i think, before he lost his pace he was definitely a top striker who was very dangerous, but now his pace has gone he offers nothing except clinical finishing in front of goal. Compare him with other strikers inthe Prem and he doesnt offer half as much.... Rooney, Tevez, Drogba, Anelka, Benjani, Adebayor, Van Persie. All top strikers who Owen was on par with a time ago are now well ahead and reflect the change in the game where strikers cant just be goalscorers but have to offer something else to the team. If we're looking to replace Owen (which will never happen) then it has to be someone who can offer more than just a goalscoring threat becasue that isnt good enough nowadays, one of the main reasons he was shipped from Real.

i think Lennons really good to be honest, id have him at nufc in a flash, his main weakness though is his final ball, which seems to be a problem with a lot of our players. He gets himself into some fantastic positions thouhg and i dont think there are many full backs inthe premiership who arent wary of him he canskin them all. Would have him or Quaresma here in a flash, would prefer them to SWP.

You must have watched a different Rozehnal to me, he was shocking, much worse than Butt. I thought he was good tonight, won alot of posession and kept the ball moving, made some good passes kept his position well as well.

Hope so, part of me really wants Lua Lua to really flourish on the wing, but part of me wants to see a big signing on the right. Think i'll opt for Kazenga though, he reminds me of Lennon, didnt really get chance to see much of him though, hope he does turn out to be lennon esque. Would be brilliant.

Exactly, he's the type of player Keegan would love.

I dont think there will be any surprises here, Bridge, SWP and Defoe sound about right. To be honest, would only want SWP, he'd play in a key position for us, not sure if his final ball is any good though. Wouldnt mind seeing a bit of a surprise though.

The fact that he's not good enough for the top 6 has absolutely no bearing at the moment because 1. He's ours right now, like it or not. 2. Nobody will have him. 3. We're not going to be sitting anywhere near the top six for a while. So as long as he's ours and non-saleable, why not use him when we have to and give him credit when he preforms to the best of his (limited) abilities. I certainly wouldn't rather stick in a 19 year old who wasn't good enough for a Championship bottom side, much less the top six. Dont get me wrong, i dont blame him for anything, i just think hes not good enough full stop, what he produces not is probably the best we'll ever see from him, he is a very limited player, i dont see the point intrying to defend or attack him to be fair because he's not a player we should be looking to take us forward and therefore hasnt let the side down. If Owen recived the same amount of possession as Shola did i would attck him because he is someone we should be looking ot, especially as captain.

You can defend Shola as much as you like for his individual performances, but the bottom line is that he doesnt have the ability to make it into any of the top 6, so shouldnt be good enough for us.

If allardyces team produced that would you be happy? Im not happy, very dissappoint to be honest, no reflection on Keegan or anything, theres nothing more frustrating than having a team come and get 10 men behind the ball. Fair play to Bolton they stuck to a game plan and were successful, they had no intention of winning the game. Second half was good to be honest, thought both roz was very good, also thought Zog had his moments, Duff was running out of ideas, didnt have the space he needed, i still believe that Zog ould make it in the centre, his direct running is very dangerous, it will open up spaces against teams who look to play football. Milner is not good enough for the first team in my opinion, wasted alot of posession which came his way, his crossing isnt good enough and and times he can slow up play by cutting inside. Owen was invisible today. Shola is another one who isnt good enough, like a poor version of crouch in my opinion, rarely see him without a marker, he doesnt seem to be capable of shaking off him man. Link up play is ok but shouldnt get in the side once Viduka is back. Defence was quite good today, Cacapa i thought was pretty good, seemed assured and surprisingly strong, didnt get dominated in the slightest today against arguable one of the most physical strikersin the league. Enrique was very good in my opinion, no one got past him, made some excellent runs as well, maybe a bit more of his attacking side that could be improved. Taylor didnt have much to do, and Carr wasnt gbad to be fair, he supported Milner well, wasted a bit of possession in key areas defensively no real trouble.

When you give the other team the time to get 9 men behind the ball then you can't complain when they do. Our passing is so pedestrian and our running so uninspired and slow that I imagine Megson can't believe his luck. The poor lads are still traumatised by seeing so many long bombs fly over their heads over the past 8 months. They havent given us any space to exploit in the first place though, agree with the lackof imaginative and placid runninh and movement, we dont have any guile.

It doesnt help that Bolton literally have 9/10 man behind the ball at all time. We arent really putting any pressureon them though, Roz looks quitegood in midfiled, ,Zog doesnt have the space he needs in the centre, maybe more effective out wide after all.

Such as? A defensive midfielder, a ball playing centre back, and a younger, faster Viduka. Our midfield defintitely needs addressing, i agree with you about the need of a DM, without a shadow of a doubt, a creative midfilder is useless without possession and i dont thin k our DM are good enough to provide adequate protection of our defense or good enough and mobile enough to regain possesion. To be honest, my priority would actually be DM, RW then AM. Dont think we need a striker yet, we have a very good blend and a lot of variety, we have plenty of ball playing defenders as well.

Not tryin to put a dampner on things, but physically that isnt a great side, Zog and Roz in the centre could quite easily get over run.

is Roz the only "CM" we have? Looks like it'll be Roz and Zog in the centre, i cant see any other combination. This might not be as straight forward as it looks. Roz isnt the most disciplined positional wise.

So do i, it would be horrible if we were to lose, that would put such a massive downer on us. I dont wanna go back to reality, i dont wanna wake up and realise that we still have big sam in charge.