When talking about Keane, a lot of people focus too much on his tackling/defensive ability/hard man etc and not his other qualities. He was like Gerrard, all action going forward even though he's not the most skillful players around and not the most imaginative passer. Frankly, tackling/defensive ability is overrated for a midfielder. Look at Barca's midfield. Not one player in midfield you would consider a hard man. Yet they do more than fine in that area going both ways.

For a midfielder the most important thing is his passing ability. After that only focus on other areas of his game. Positioning, movement, mentality(passing choice). For me Hargreaves was a bit of a failure in the middle. Even Scholes struggled playing next to him. Maybe it was injuries and he didn't settle properly, but passing wise(not talking about beautiful cross field/through/lob/long pass here, but more of the simple stuff like passing short sideways/forward passes, making himself available for a pass, not panic when he got the ball etc) he was found lacking. Defensively he was probably our best in the middle although positioning Carrick is better than him a bit, but at a club like ours, you need more than tackling and running ability when you play in the middle of the park. As a winger I'd say he was a proper beast. His best games for us came from that position, and at RB. Maybe I'm just remembering the bad stuff because it was long ago since he last played and kinda harsh on him, but that's how I feel during that time as well.

We'll see how Jones plays. For some games he may cut it as a DM, but majority of the other games, we need a bit more than just his defending ability if he plays in midfield.

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Added on June 14, 2011, 9:56 pmJones was jumping at everything that came his way. In the first few mins of that clip showed a lot of his passing moves. Not bad!

This post has been edited by Wan: Jun 14 2011, 09:56 PM

Over the last 3 seasons his assists & goals record is on par with the best wingers in the league. Can play both wings comfortably, good pace, not bad at playing the ball on the ground, good delivery as well into the box.. tricky winger. As for -.. dunno what.

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Added on June 14, 2011, 10:16 pmWith a 35m price tag on his head, you can be well damn sure we're no even looking at his direction.

This post has been edited by Wan: Jun 14 2011, 10:16 PM

Sanchez = 30m won't even be enough especially when City is in the mix.

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Added on June 15, 2011, 1:37 amConquer Europe?
06/07 - Semi-final, lost to eventual winner [Milan]
07/08 - Winner, beating [Chelsea] in the final, and [Barca] in the semi's
08/09 - Final, lost out to [Barca], beat [Inter] in the first knock out round, and [Arsenal] in the semi's
09/10 - Qtr-final, knocked out on away goal rule against [Bayern](unlucky that Rafael got a soft yellow twice while Bommel is free to foul all night long), who later on would be beaten by Inter in the final.
10/11 - Final, lost out to [Barca]

That's a great record. But sadly for us we got one of the best club side ever in front of us for the past few years, although last season we blew that chance by shooting ourselves in the foot against Bayern.

As for better wingers, perhaps SAF is already happy with the options that we have? In Nani and Valencia, we have two of the best wingers around and in Park we have a very dependable big game player. Who else could we buy that would improve that? Don't tell me Ronaldo and Messi. We are fine on the wings, at the back and upfront. We could do with a slight upgrade in the middle, but even then it will still be very hard to beat that Barca side unless they have a bad game.

Shows just how strong our squad is that not even our and the EPL's top scorer could make the bench in the final because the other guys form towards the end of the season pushed him out, although in the case of Owen vs Berba, it was felt that Owen would make more of an impact coming from the bench in the dying minutes should we need him.

This post has been edited by Wan: Jun 15 2011, 01:43 AM

Unless we're selling Nani, can't see why we're interested now that we've got Young.


Scholes=CM.
So any AM to replace him can put inside dust bin unless they're comfortable enough to play as a CM in a 442.

Played AM/Wing(Real used him there I think). Not sure how good he is as a CM.

Sunderland have a shitty place.. not many players would go there. huhu.

I think it's just a matter of time before he leave. If it's up to me, I'd keep him, but seeing as there a 5 options in front of him at CB, and 3 options(including O'Shea) ahead of him his time with us is up. Number wise we don't need him, and for his sake it's better to get regular game elsewhere. He's a very good player on his day and still have a lot to offer to any team that would get him.

Hernandez, Rooney, Welbeck, Berbatov, Owen.
Bench Hernandez/Rooney or push Rooney out wide, but what about the 10 wingers that we have?

My view is that we already have a great set of wingers and any 2 of those can rival anyone out there aside from Ronaldo/Messi and it looks like we're going to add Young for the coming season with everybody saying it's done. If we're going to spend big, I prefer to see a CM.

Come back to the real world.

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Added on June 17, 2011, 1:43 pmSAF is already preparing for life without them by accepting the bids for them. Now it's up to them to decide if they wanna stay and fight for a place or get regular football elsewhere. Brown is way down the pecking order, and I would imagine that he would go, unless he truly loves the club and don't care that much about his career as long as he plays a small part with us.

O'Shea should stay. He will still get plenty of games at FB, especially since we only have 3 natural FBs left.

This post has been edited by Wan: Jun 17 2011, 01:43 PM

We didn't confirm anything about our bid for Jones until that announcement about our agreement days after it was originally out in the wild. The medical took place days before that as well. But there was no confirmation from any party at all until that announcement.

With the emergence of Fabio as another option at RB, Wes was always going to be shown the door considering he's not getting much games and he's not getting any younger. SAF was annoyed with his agent(and him as well I guess)every time he renewed his contract with us. Plus we have plenty of options in his positions as well. Phil, Butt.. at that stage SAF is thinking more about for their careers. Same thing is happening with O'Shea although if we didn't bought Jones, he would have likely not be sold considering he would still get plenty of games. To me it looks like we got Jones unplanned and now we think we can let O'Shea go to create space/balance the books a bit.

RB: Fabio, Rafael (Smalling, Evans can cover there I guess)
CB: Rio, Vida, Evans, Smalling, Jones

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Added on June 18, 2011, 2:26 am

This post has been edited by Wan: Jun 18 2011, 02:26 AM

NO!!!


We haven't made any 'known' moves yet for a CM. I wonder who SAF have up his sleeves. Probably someone we all don't know about.

They all would commit suicide. The internet would have abnormal highs and lows. They would all scream in forums, and then decided it's not worth it anymore..

Sneijder is their next hope.. and Nasri. It won't end well I tell you.

They can have him now we have..

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Added on June 18, 2011, 2:38 pmRobson, Keane, Ince.. since then we got Hargreaves. Butt and Fletcher from our own academy. Anderson can be combative as well, although he doesn't really go at it all the time.

This post has been edited by Wan: Jun 18 2011, 02:38 PM

We were never in the running for him once the big money boys decided to show their teeth.
Valencia, Nani, Park, Giggs, Cleverley
Close: Young.

It seems we're interested in every position except for FB, CM/AM area.

The interest in Varane was made before we got involve in that bidding war for Jones. We might still show interest in him, although maybe we're out of the running already now that we have Jones already and Real Madrid is getting involved.

Giggs moving into a fulltime CM and likely won't play that much anymore.
Cleverley not proven yet at the big stage.
Park into his 30's.
Valencia and Nani are all more comfortable on the right, while Ashley Young seems pretty good operating from the left.

It's a squad game these days. There will be plenty enough games for everyone. He's at a good age and is already experienced enough to replace some of the experience the likes of Hargreaves, Gary, VDS, Scholes etc brought to the team. Him being English is a bonus. Sanchez is a better player and probably would reach greater heights, but we're not looking to improve on our wing area. We have one of the best set of wingers around and he's not as good/that much better than the other options we have. But he'll add to the squad. Looking at his stats, only Fabregas have a better assists rate in the last 4-5 years I think.

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Added on June 24, 2011, 2:46 amIt doesn't make sense at first to me as well, but clearly we're stocking up a few of the good English players around. Smalling, Jones, and now Young. Let's hope the likes of Cleverley, Welbeck and Morrison can add to that in the future as well.

This post has been edited by Wan: Jun 24 2011, 02:46 AM

Ando is that man, eventually. But we might need to add a bit of competition in that area.

A bit of both. We need someone like Hargreaves/Fletcher fit for us to try a different approach and see how it goes.


Btw, players should report back to training soon right?

Rooney, Chicha, Berba and Welbeck in that order.
The rest, on loan again probably.

Forgot about him. Him and Welbeck same level with Owen to get the nod as supersub mostly.