morgs

if owen was half decent, we wouldnt even have this thread

Duff

f*** off. JUST THOUGHT I'D WAKE A FEW

I did not eat any Shreddies for breakfast.

some assists for owen and 1 freekick goal but bar that was crap from most freekicks and corners. good influence on the team though, especially with foreigners and youngsters.

dailymail as your source. lets not get our hopes too high

where did you get that from

They're key to our pitifully-short-in-numbers-and-quality squad though.

kinnear ssn 'we are missing players, key players, i will se who we can put out a team but we are missing 11 players, 11 key players' . christ man, already making excuses. i' dont think we're missing 11 key. i would say beye, viduka, martins, barton, enrique are key players missing from our point of view. i would suggest that it would have benefitted hull to have had smith or ameobi playing and i wouldnt call the rest key.

looking forward to this game for different reasons tonite. i am excited to see some of our youngsters given a go. ie lualua, kadar, xisco... the first 2 keegan was going to give chances to at the start of the season, pity they were injured.

for me i would be pleased to see him given at least 60-75 minutes as he is short on match fitness. i mean we paid 6m for him and while he wasnt impressive when he has played so far, there are so many reasons for that which have been whats annoying me. i mean he pretty much got off the plane and had to go to the changing room. he didnt have a clue how the team played, had barely trained with them and couldn't communicate with 3/4's of them. he didnt lack effort though. it is a real disappointment he has had to wait this long. Asl long as he shows potential tonight i would give him another chance, by that i mean, some good positional play, good touch, good involvment. i'm not expecting him to have a blinder but he has just come to the league and has barely any minutes under his belt so i'm not expecting a fantastic performance as i suspect he will still be on a slightly different wavelength and not fully used to the pace. i mean you cant judge a young player coming in from a different league into a team with no manager, and therefore structure, because everyone for those 5 games was pretty crap tbh. nobody looked like they had a clue how to play.

i think there should be a 90k salary cap. this will happen once city's owner leaves and no one can pay the wages. this is the only reason i'm pleased we have the sort of owner we have.

contrasting emotions for me. i do feel a bit soory for him because he has been mucked around, ie being the best LW but constantly playing LB so i wouldnt blame him for leaving in that sense

no mention of italian or argentinian, sounds promising though, in the way that the fees HAVE been agreed

he was referring to those playing internationally on his pes game. I'm not sure when his discs date back to so could be any number of players

doubt he'd beat up his father tbh.

We are going to be sick when we go down tbh. Harper Edgar Taylor Cacapa enrique Duff Quashie Butt Lovenkrands Ameobi Smith

tbh he doesnt put in the effort on the pitch. i would have gone 1. milner 2. smith 3. messi

Guthrie is showing signs of being a quality midfielder, but as yet doesnt have the influence needed. a big reason for this is that is he has a ghost next to him, and while that ghost may be experienced, its not much good being experienced at being 5 yards oof the play and therefore ineffective.

cant believe we havent scouted rodallega, i reckon he looks in the mould of gomis k jones but better

why not, man city are trying to get bellamy in, jo has hardly played, could easily get him on loan

I rate a couple of them but i didnt enter them because their system means that it is more important to have players who work hard, ie milners', for the strikers, their midfield bar valencia relys on winning back ball to pump into heskey and zaki. often the midfield is bypassed, as they work hard, particularly defensively and are often back defending, credit to steve bruce.

I am starting this topic because i put it the reason for a lack of points down to our midfield and so i thought it could be wise to compare this with other clubs. I believe in this transfer window at least 1 good central midfielder is required because it is the central midfield which links everything going forward, and makes it easier for the central defence by hopefully stopping the ball reaching them. 1st to 20th excluding those whose midfield dont play a major part, ie wigan whose work ethic is the predominant factor in their victories Liverpool: Gerrard Riera Lucas Kuyt Mascherano Chelsea: Cole Lampard Kalou Mikel Ballack Man U: Ronaldo Carrick Anderson Park Villa: Young Barry Sidwell Milner Petrov Arsenal: Nasri Fabregas Denilson Walcott Everton: Osman Arteta Neville Pienaar Fulham: Davies Bullard Murphy Dempsey West ham: Behrami Parker Noble Faubert Newcastle: Gutierrez Guthrie Butt Duff Mckems: Steed Whitehead Richardson Diouf Portsmouth: Traore Diop Hughes Krancjar Man City Robinho Ireland Fernandes SWP Kompany Boro: Downing Digard Arca Johnson Stoke: Delap Olofinjana Faye Whelan Spurs : Modric Bale Huddlestone Bentley Zokora Looking at these i think it is clear that even with barton back, we are lacking enough go forward in the midddle of the park. We are stuck though becuase guthrie and butt are not defensive players (butt should be but he doesn't do a lot) and yet neither have the passing or creativity to really link in with the strikers. I think colo could be excellent as a DM but at the same time with someone like him you would want a dyer or someone else ahead of him who wanted to run. Butt and Guthrie play very much along the same line of the pitch and as a result there never tends to be anybody sitting between the oppo dfence and midfield, a great place to play the strikers in from. Neither are runners either and this makes it easy for opposition dences as they never have anyone running at them through the centre unless on a counter attack. Since without martins our strike force is immobile we really need some running midfielders to create 1 1 1 1 1 1 in front of the opposition area, since another problem at the moment is that we are inviting attacks through not picking up 2nd balls. This role is once again down to the CM's. Currently We have wings who go forward but the only option is to go wide as we dont have a midfielder or striker in the hole. I beleive that is this lack of balance and movement up the pitch that is costing us since it is very easy to know what we will do as our options are limited. This lack of strength also makes us very easy to hit as our midfield are too weak and arent imposing themselves defensively enough. Not enough balls are being picked up from goal kicks or headers and butt and guthrie aren't mobile or strong enough to cut out the balls into those on the edge of the box. But the thing is our team isnt built to nick a 1-0 and sit back and yet the balance of those 2 doesnt suggest we will be hammering forward and constantly knocking on the door in the way we should do against lesser teams. If you look at the everton and man u central midfields it is clear that both players can pass, but you also see creativity in 1 player while the other has many other attributes, such as winning the ball back, pace. For me Kinnear needs to rethink his tactics. He is playing a target man and small man, neither with a great deal of pace, and therefoe both need balls predominantly into feet, as a ball of the head 95% of the time has no one on the end of it, yet the CM isnt that sort of midfield. If he wants to play this style for me he needs to go 4-3-3 but that would mean playing owen OR a big man as owen couldn't play wing, but this style would need to be played on a role for the front 3, which you cant train them on, in other words using their heads to pick good positions and runs which with owen, martins and ? (hopefully Jo), could work.

i was just watching jo videos on youtube. i reckon him and martins upfront would be one hell of a partnership. hope we get him.

chelsea are too static, when they have the chance to break they play the slowest ball straight to the man on the wing which stops everything. its never played in front, always to feet