Mole_Toonfan

Cisse needs to be dropped if this is how we are going to play. We need someone who can make the ball stick and neither Cisse or Ba can do that and i don't just mean for the derby i mean the majority of games going forward. Seems ridiculous it has got to this but Shola plays well with both Ba and Cisse but Ba and Cisse can't play well together. Rotate Ba and Cisse alongside Shola as he can actually hold the ball up and bring the midfield into play.

His grandad probably didn't witness it ffs.

I also remember Juventus winning hardly anything while he was there..... Well they won 2 leagues, but they was more dominant without him and he was poor in both CL final's for Juventus. Also another thing the France team in 98 got to the final without him, he was suspended for half the tournament ffs. He was not as important as people claim, sure he was great in the final but other than that he hardly figured in the whole tournament. in 2000 he was great but it was not like he was alone..... Djorkaeff, Henry, Trezeguet, Deschamps, Vieira etc etc and the defence was bonafied World Class he was hardly alone. Yes it's true Zidane is not the only one to blame for a team not coming together, but he's hardly blameless either...... If a team cannot come together than that's no one's fault but the players and that includes Zidane, if i remember correctly Raul was very outspoken back then against Zidane, Ronaldo, Figo and others..... It's not like Zidane was the quiet boy in the corner surrounded by bullies he was just as responsible for team spirit as anyone at Real.

I seemed to have missed this...... but when did they start rating Cabaye? Wasn't he an average player who wasn't good enough for Man Utd and Arsenal according to them a couple of months ago?

Yeah, even Ronaldo was not really the player he should have been which is ridiculous to say but partying and injuries did stop him from reaching a level that he was truly capable of. Shame really.

He would start for Arsenal.

I understand what your saying. Though if you take that MK Dons player today, who rounded the keeper... was he fouled? Was he impeded? Did that keeper actually hinder him running past at all? He might have brushed him slightley, but of course he didnt impede him. Hence the need for the player to throw himself to the ground, which he did. There wasnt even a natural stumble, if bieng brushed by the keeper did impede him, then he would have at least stumbled while trying to carry on running, in which case a penalty would have been fair do's. But he's ran past the keeper and thrown himself to the ground totally on his own accord to get the penalty. Everyone watching that knows deep down he's dived, they know it, of course he has. But theres a mental block been put on inccidents like this, a lot due to a culture of diving being promoted by ex-players & tv companies. Its created a mentality that theres is nothing wrong whatsoever for a player to cheat if he's touched in the slighest way. Thats the biggest obstacle imo, getting past this stupid mental barrier despite what the like of 'good old kammy' & sky spew out, because now people are not even believeing their own eyes anymore when watching replays. I completely agree with what you are saying, my concern is punishing the people who do this. It seems to do me the type of "no-contact" dives are easier to control and punish people for than punishing people for over exaggerating contact. In an ideal world i'd like it all completely eradicated from the game but that seems very difficult while stamping on the obvious Suarez and Bale like dives does not seem very hard at all to me. Also the point on culture is 100% correct it probably is the biggest obstacle. Indeed but it has been the same for probably nearly 5 years now, the most sad about it all is his age..... He's 32 years old and should still be playing CL football but he hasn't been playing at the top level for a very long time.

Funny also how they ignore how crap Sessegnon has been since March not to mention Mclean and Johnson have hardly set the world on fire since joining.

Iniesta's close control, dribbling, passing and link up play is better than Zidane's. He's also eclipsed him in terms of domestic and international tournaments. What I loved about Zidane though was his ability to hold off players with such ease whilst playing so gracefully, he did make football look like an art. The cliche about Zidane having an aura about him is true, but he just didn't do it consistently enough throughout a season. Although when he did show up in big games he looked a class above anyone else in the world. He only won La Liga once in his 5 years there during a galactico era. Only won the champions league once aswell. He didn't carry a great team onto greatness like Xavi, Iniesta or even Ronaldinho have. Zidane never played in a team as good as the Guardiola Barca team. Put a peak Zidane in that team and who knows. Seems like an excuse to me, Zidane played with a galaxy of great players at Madrid(arguably individually on Guardiola's Barca's level if not superior) because they couldn't come together as a team is no one's fault but their own. The one that always comes up in this debate is the Milan trio of Rijkaard, Gullit and Van Basten there's always trios of decades gone by like the 82 Brazil team of Falcao, Zico and Socrates etc etc but they didn't win anything unfortunately so in recent times the Milan trio of Rijkaard, Gullit and Van Basten are probably the closest in comparison.

The reason i'm more inclined to leave it well alone is because straight diving is easier to discipline than exaggerating contact. You go back over an incident and see someone like Suarez and Bale just falling down without even the slight touch than that is easy to discipline. But say you only get touched slightly and you make a meal out of it that's harder to eradicate and in the long run discipline players for. I understand the thought process, both quite frankly in an ideal world i would like to see stamped out but it doesn't seem very realistic. While is no contact at all and just falling to the floor to me if the governing body's concerned wanted to could easily eradicate or at least discipline plays for being guilty of it.

Iniesta's close control, dribbling, passing and link up play is better than Zidane's. He's also eclipsed him in terms of domestic and international tournaments. What I loved about Zidane though was his ability to hold off players with such ease whilst playing so gracefully, he did make football look like an art. The cliche about Zidane having an aura about him is true, but he just didn't do it consistently enough throughout a season. Although when he did show up in big games he looked a class above anyone else in the world. He only won La Liga once in his 5 years there during a galactico era. Only won the champions league once aswell. He didn't carry a great team onto greatness like Xavi, Iniesta or even Ronaldinho have. Although i think Zidane's close control was better I'll be one of the few on here that will agree with you in the main with that post

Considering we have brought in 9m more than we have spent over the last 5 years, with Arsenal the only team who have spent less i'd argue what we do is very efficient actually. When you consider our net spend over the last few years we have no right to be contending european spots tbh.

Iniesta is the closet to Zidane in terms of style from this generation.

Doubt it's even true, we don't buy english.

It's not acceptable but exaggerating contact is nowhere near the same as diving and i get the feeling that some people feel they are the same thing. For example Jonas exaggerates contact each and every week but would we call him a diver? no.

I think the main problem is distincting the difference between exaggerating contact and actual diving. As a lot of people don't seem to realise the difference between a player being caught and exaggerating the contact and a player outright falling over without being touched. Once everyone understands the difference then we can start punishing the offenders who actually dive and not those who exaggerate contact to get decisions. The thing that irked me about Bale's dive against Scotland where he clipped himself to get a pen was in the post match interview he said " he definitely fouled me" f*ck off you lying twat.

Being a bit unfair on Ballack there......

Yeah i always thought he was a bit underrated. Pagliuca and Peruzzi wasn't bad either.

I always thought both of them were only rated because of how many goals they scored. As goalkeepers i can think of plenty that were better. Buffon is the best i have seen though.

For some reason I thought Zidane was seen as a bit overrated by some, obviously not. Yep i thought that as well, personally i do but was scared of saying how overrated I personally don't consider him a GOAT and i don't consider him the best of his generation either.

Good one

Rather that than bye Cisse and Ba.

Looks like a Vietnam soldier

Sow's passing is atrocious btw.

If that headband doesn't show up for us i'm going to be very annoyed.