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Sven Botman: targeting January return (Howe)


The Prophet

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12 minutes ago, Kid Icarus said:

The obsession with him is infinitely more embarrassing than him tbf 

 

I still wouldn't know who he is if people would just refrain from hate-posting him on here. :lol:

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19 minutes ago, wormy said:

 

I still wouldn't know who he is if people would just refrain from hate-posting him on here. :lol:

Just let him be he isn't harming anyone and if he makes it in the industry then good on him. He certainly puts in a lot of effort.

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1 hour ago, hakka said:

Something has been broken at Man Utd for so long that I do wonder if most of their is impacted by either a toxic environment, or such an imbalanced team that doesn't have the right spine or leadership in key midfield and defence places that leads most of their team underpeforming.

I remember that both City and United were after Alexis Sanchez, and United won the race to sign him, so it's not like Man Utd are going after bad players.

 

I think the issue is that they don't have a plan. I realize that Pogba is not very popular in England, but I think he's been misused at Utd his entire career there. He should be playing where Bruno plays, you let him roam, he will give you enough defensive cover so you don't have a passenger, but his passing, orchestrating, and goals will flow from that position. But instead of building your team around your world-record signing, they ask him to do something different to what made them pay all that money. At Juve, he had Pirlo, Vidal, and Marchisio behind him. For France in the World Cup, he had Kante and Matuidi with him.

 

United do this consistently. They play Sancho in a completely different way than he did at Dortmund, and then people are confused with what the problem is. Yes, they overpaid for Wan-Bissaka, and got a low-block CB in Maguire when they wanted to play attacking and with a high-line. Southgate is a coward, so Maguire gets to enjoy the cover of CBs with him and two defensive minded mids in Phillips and Rice in front of him. They bought van de Beek but did not want to use him in a way that made sense, and he wasn't cheap either.

 

If you're going to spend big on a player, make sure to do it so that they are doing the same thing for you that made you spend big. It's the same with Tuchel. Tuchel has not improved a single attacking player at Chelsea. I hate Lukaku, hate him, but people talking about his failure with Chelsea but they absolve Tuchel. It baffles me. Conte got the best outta Lukaku, hell, Lukaku scored more in the league for West Brom than he ever did for Inter, so it's not about "EPL tax," it's about getting players like Werner, Havertz, Pulisic, Ziyech, and not having a system or style that suits any of them. Lukaku, on the counter, is deadly. He's faster than I thought, his touch suddenly is sharp on the counter, but if you have slow, methodical, build-up play, he just doesn't do it.

 

Belgium use him on the counter! Everyone seemed to figure it out, except Tuchel. And I'd give Tuchel the benefit of the doubt if he didn't have such a terrible track record with every attacker. Havertz is doing okay, great, but you didn't pay 80m or whatever for okay.

 

Which gets me onto Howe. I think he might actually be one of the most refined English tacticians around. Graham Potter isn't bad either, but I think Howe has a pretty unique style. When I was asked about Paqueta, I talked about how I saw him--and at first, I thought: "why would they even want him?" and then when I did a little digging into Howe's style, Paqueta actually made sense, a lot of sense. I wonder if you guys are going to bet on Joelinton, instead, as it seems he has transitioned into a midfielder. The key for transfers isn't about names, it's about how you use them--and more importantly: develop them.

 

Botman needs development. I've watched a lot of him, and Milan played Lille in the EL two years ago. He's not that fast, but he's aggressive, and most importantly: he wins his duels, consistently, and he isn't a fluke about it. Where Botman needs the most work is his marking. This season, Lille were a shambles, and sometimes I wonder if Botman was covering for other's mistakes, whether it was a breakdown in his partners, and at the same time, he also was shielded heavily with Djalo (a former Milan product) who is a CB masquerading as a LB. Against Chelsea, in the first leg, in the first 20 minutes, Botman was shredded apart. So, you're going to need to be patient with him. The talent is there, he's strong, he's fast (enough)--I have recently become a huge proponent of ultra speedy CBs with our pairing so maybe I'm too obsessed with speed in my CB (I used to not care as much)--what you're buying is essentially VVD. He is the same style of defender.

 

But he's going to need time. He's really young, and when it comes to defending, physically, as in, tackles, headers (he's amazing in the air), getting stuck-in, I don't think you're going to need to teach him much. It's in his marking where he needs work, and more importantly, he needs to be more disciplined when switching from the zone to man-marking. These things can all be taught. Maldini was asked like a year-or-two ago what he looks for in a defender, he said something like (I'm paraphrasing): "I look for courage and their ability to win their duels, everything else, we can teach."

 

Botman has courage, because he left Ajax when he was young, and he's got the natural defensive skill, he sees what the attacker is going to do--what he needs to learn is all off-the-ball, and you're going to need to be patient with him. CB and CDM (regista) are the two positions where youth rarely thrive because of the complexity and cerebral aspects of the positions, and why older players are able to stay in those positions far longer than others.

 

Lol, I'm so sorry about all this, I don't really talk to friendly EPL fans online, so excuse my exuberant diatribes that I hope you see as just my thoughts as an addition to your point, rather than some snotty counter-point.

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"Exuberant diatribes"

 

Please don't ever introduce this fella to our 'do you appreciate a good shit' thread. We can't bring him down to our level

 

 

Edited by joeyt

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GIMME GIMME GIMME
SVEN BOTMAN TO MARK TIGHT
PLAYS OUT FROM THE BACK
AND POCKETS STRIKERS ALL DAY

 

GIMME GIMME GIMME
SVEN BOTMAN TO MARK TIGHT
BREAKS DOWN ALL THE COUNTERS
AND HEADS THE BALL AWAY

 

GIMME GIMME GIMME
SVEN BOTMAN TO MARK TIGHT
NO SENSE IN TRYING TO BEAT HIM
WEEKEND OR WEEKDAY

 

GIMME GIMME GIMME
SVEN BOTMAN TO MARK TIGHT
DIDN'T FANCY PASTA
WANTED GREGGS ANYWAY

 

 

 

 

 

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1 minute ago, Jackie Broon said:

Great post @Milanista but there's only one team that gets called United on this forum and it's not the one from Salford that changed its name from Newton Heath.

 

 

 

My apologies. I guess for us Newcastle is the part of your club's name that sticks in our minds.

 

For example, no one in Italy calls Milan, "AC Milan" or "AC." Milan is known as "Meelan" like an Italian saying the English word for the city (Italian: "Milano" - English: "Milan")--because our club was founded by an Englishman, and the name "Milan" stuck.

 

Inter Milan is known simply as "Inter" and their full name is "Internazionale Milano."

 

Interestingly our American owners are really pushing the "AC Milan" bit more, which I suspect is to ensure trademark protection, as they would have trouble getting it for the name of the city, but as "AC Milan" they can.

 

I really need to shut my mouth. Sorry for the insult, it was unintentional.

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5 minutes ago, Milanista said:

My apologies. I guess for us Newcastle is the part of your club's name that sticks in our minds.

 

For example, no one in Italy calls Milan, "AC Milan" or "AC." Milan is known as "Meelan" like an Italian saying the English word for the city (Italian: "Milano" - English: "Milan")--because our club was founded by an Englishman, and the name "Milan" stuck.

 

Inter Milan is known simply as "Inter" and their full name is "Internazionale Milano."

 

Interestingly our American owners are really pushing the "AC Milan" bit more, which I suspect is to ensure trademark protection, as they would have trouble getting it for the name of the city, but as "AC Milan" they can.

 

I really need to shut my mouth. Sorry for the insult, it was unintentional.

Divvent worry yasel kidda. Anybody who gets hurt by that bollocks isn't worthy of your apology.

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2 minutes ago, Milanista said:

My apologies. I guess for us Newcastle is the part of your club's name that sticks in our minds.

 

For example, no one in Italy calls Milan, "AC Milan" or "AC." Milan is known as "Meelan" like an Italian saying the English word for the city (Italian: "Milano" - English: "Milan")--because our club was founded by an Englishman, and the name "Milan" stuck.

 

Inter Milan is known simply as "Inter" and their full name is "Internazionale Milano."

 

Interestingly our American owners are really pushing the "AC Milan" bit more, which I suspect is to ensure trademark protection, as they would have trouble getting it for the name of the city, but as "AC Milan" they can.

 

I really need to shut my mouth. Sorry for the insult, it was unintentional.

 

No insult taken, I was only being playful. Many people refer to Man U as United in the rest of the country and media, but in Newcastle, United means NUFC.

 

Please don't shut you mouth, your insights are very much appreciated :thup:

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47 minutes ago, The College Dropout said:

I like Milanista.  
 

agree especially about Tuchel. Lukaku scored the most out of their genuine attackers (behind Mount I think) - his attacking style is so slow.  I reckon Son would struggle there. It’s all so slow. 

 

Yeah it's so weird but a player then play in a way guaranteed to to not get goals out of him madness

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