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Football thread 2014/15 season

The Fox

By The Fox
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Rev

Rev

Posted
Posted

The problem was, he wasn't by far and away our best player. It made sense to get both him and Lampard into the same team, apart from the fact it never worked. If only one of them had existed we'd have been a much better team. Only England can manage to fail due to having two good players at the same time.

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PaB

PaB

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I think he was. I think was more influential than Lampard (who in essence was/is a David Platt type player - Gerrard always had a far wider skill set) . I think its unfair to say that "only England can fail at having two good players,," I think our problem was the opposite; other teams don't fret so much when a player is left out, they pick the best team for the system, or for the player the system is build around. Look at France this year leaving Nasri out, or Argentina having Aguero on the bench

Einstein said, the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect different results. We had some insane managers when it came to Lampard and Gerrard.

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Yobo Ahoy

Yobo Ahoy

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Rooney would either start playing amazingly or completely phone it in as he knows he's an automatic choice.

My personal choice would be Cahill or failing that, Hart. To be honest, I think we place way too much emphasis on choosing the captain. I'd mostly just be happy to give it to the most capped player, or switch it up between games.

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Gabe

Gabe

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Sad to hear the news, but not unexpected. As Pete says, he was very often played out of position. There was a stat back after Sven that he'd been played out left more than anywhere else; then out right when Beckham moved inside, then played deeper when in the middle to accommodate Lampard pushing forward.

His captaincy will never be particularly remembered, other than 2 poor WC campaigns (though he was one of the few players to emerge from WC10 with any credit) and he never as effective as he was at club level, but he's had a long career and has been able to retire in his own terms.

This allows both England to start fresh and Liverpool to benefit from the lesser demands on his body. Win-win all around?

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Naysonymous

Naysonymous

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Probably. You've always got to choose your words carefully when talking about Gerrard as people seem to deliberately misinterpret any praise or criticism of the bloke. Personally I think England would have had more success had they gone with Scholes and Lampard in the middle as Gerrard unbalanced the whole thing. He played his best football for Liverpool just behind the striker, he never really got the chance to do that for England. Maybe he and Scholes were victims of England having no left footed midfielders in the 00's because they were both shunted out there to be a square peg in a round hole as we had no real alternatives but that doesn't change the fact that Gerrard hardly ever turned it on for England. He is a massively talented player but I won't miss him too much and I don't think the England team will either.

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SaintM

SaintM

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It would have been better all round to have a system and then put the right players in the right positions even if it meant leaving some out, rather than trying to bodge things.

But hey, that's the ENGERLAND way. The merchandising potential of the individual trumps the teamwork that playing lesser rated but better suited players in the positions gives.

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The Fox

The Fox

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They just can't resist fucking around with their team can they? Modric-Di Maria midfield was absolutely key for them last season, but now they're replacing Di Maria with Kroos (who seems a worse fit for their system to me), and have spent £63m on a No10 when they already sold Ozil and barely used Isco. :lol:

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Rev

Rev

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I feel sorry for Isco, he's a great player that has been completely ignored since they bought him. He really needs to move on. Nice to get Rodriguez in a real football team though, he's fun to watch.

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aidey6

aidey6

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They also bought Asier Illarramendi from Real Sociedad for over 30 million euros as eventual replacement for Alonso, but not sure how highly thought of he is within their team.

It's going to have a very expensive bench next season unless they can recoup by offloading of the ones deemed expendable by Perez...

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Rev

Rev

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They also bought Asier Illarramendi from Real Sociedad for over 30 million euros as eventual replacement for Alonso

He played a fair bit, didn't he? He seems to be considered useful, so I should think he'll be OK. Kroos and Rodriguez arriving on the same plane is a bit awkward for everyone who plays in the middle of the pitch.

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Gotters

Gotters

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http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/jul/22/manchester-united-training-pitches-relaid-louis-van-gaal

Football genius Van Gaal's latest brainwave - make sure you train on the same kind of pitches that you play your home games on. Revolutionary.

(Seriously though, did no one think to look into this last season?)

Wenger did this years ago at London Colney, same size pitches and identical grass cut to same length

Does this mean at Utd that the training ground will start to cut up like a cow field at the first sight of rain in October ?

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Baring

Baring

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That Bojan article was a great read. Just seems like the pressure of playing for Spain got to him badly.

The honours he had by the time he was 19/20 is more than most pros could dream of.

He's only 23, he could still turn it around.

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