Think the Del Piero to Sydney deal fell through...

Kalou is with Lille.

Any free signings we make now is not gonna do us much good anyway. We are playing so badly at the moment from back to front anyone expecting signing a backup striker is gonna change our fortunes must be dreaming. Yes an injury to either Suarez or Borini is gonna severely damage our strikeforce but I don't see it scoring goals now with 2 so having 1 striker wouldn't make much difference would it? Our forwards are so impotent you wouldn't notice a difference even if you put defenders or midfielders in their place.

Also let's not forget we now play a 4-3-3. 3 central midfielders and 3 forwards. That forward line however doesn't necessarily have to all be of traditional forwards. Sterling a winger plays as part of the front 3. Gerrard and Downing also had game time playing there. Assaidi a winger for sure isn't gonna slot into the central midfield role so he has a spot too. So what if we have Suarez and Borini? They stray wide and away anyway, they are pretty much playing as wingers no? Would it make much difference if we put actual wingers in their place?

So yeah giving the youngsters a chance is best for long term. They are always talking about long term anyway so now is the time.

This post has been edited by Cloud0890: Sep 4 2012, 02:45 PM

If you think that finishing 8th after spending 100+ million is turning around then yeah, pretty sure that's an improvement over a 6th place finish. And that was a time when we arguably still have some pulling power on some of the bigger name players so big money moves for Henderson, Downing and Carroll are pretty shrewd moves I guess.

---

Added on September 5, 2012, 3:53 am
Suarez and Gerrard should take note. Stop dribbling and passing it out of possession at every opportunity.

---

Added on September 5, 2012, 4:04 amOf all the free agents available I'm especially keen on the legendary Del Piero. Not an out and out striker but a supporting trequartista. Slotting him into the team will allow Borini to move into a more central position because he seem to be our only natural goalscorer. He is also a set piece specialist and have been known to score goals from outside the box. Its no secret we have problems not just scoring but also creating goals. As the City game has proved, set pieces are good alternative to go to when you can't score from open play.

This post has been edited by Cloud0890: Sep 5 2012, 04:04 AM

If memory serves me right this problem goes way back to Rafa's last season after the sale of Xabi Alonso. Deprived of his creativity and passing range we were struggling to score goals but still able to do decent because we still have the Torres-Gerrard partnership although declining in form but still effective. Then injury problems to Torres severely affected his form especially after returning from WC '10. The situation worsen when Hodgson encourages long ball defensive tactics that drained every last bit of creativity we had in our team. Torres never recovered from his dip in form, was sold. Gerrard too was having injury problems of his own. So there we have it, Xabi our best playmaker sold, we are a one-two man team in Gerrard and Torres, injured and sold. Who do we have left to lead the team???

This is where Kenny and Comolli failed badly. They weren't sacked because we weren't playing good football, they were sacked because of their shambolic transfer dealings which directly affected our on-field performance. They were given a huge amount of transfer funds that was meant to strengthen our weakening squad, a squad deprived of star players which every club needs to lead the team. They brought in Henderson, Downing and Carroll as if these big money buys are as good as Xabi, Stevie and Fernando. Had they made better purchases I'm sure the team would've gotten much better results as evident of our improving passing play under KK. Saying that we can't make big name buys for the likes of Hazard, Mata etc. is nonsense, if you have 100+ million to spend on superstar players they will come even if we are lingering in midtable because we are spending on quality players and they know its gonna propel us upwards and on a personal level they wanna play with big name players too. Ask any of our signings now they will say they are looking forward to playing alongside Gerrard and Suarez, does Carroll, Downing and Henderson give us that same appeal? Man City did just that! Signing superstar players sends a signal and one will lead to another like a snowball effect.

Now BR is suffering from the failings of previous regimes. If you were to ask KK today, given the chance to turn back time would he have made those signings? I'm pretty sure deep down he knows he could've done better. So in a way he led himself to his own demise. It doesn't matter if Comolli was the one who negotiated those deals because we know KK has the final say, no one dares challenge the legend himself. And we have heard of all those stories saying KK pushed for local British lads when there are better deals out there for foreign players.

This post has been edited by Cloud0890: Sep 5 2012, 10:54 AM

Yup I agree. Maybe that's what we need right now for a team full of low confidence senior players, some injection of energetic fearless young players might just be what we need.

Or is he trying to emulate C.Ronaldo?

HolySheeeet

Seems like we are stuck in some kind of curse, a limbo. History keeps repeating itself. Some young exciting player emerges from our academy but we always end up shooting ourselves in the foot. Offloaded some flops, Sterling up and coming, so who's gonna be the blunder signing this time? Borini?

It's not his fault he was overquoted for 20m and for us to actually think its a reasonable price and I personally would take him for 10m. Yes he might not be a world beater and he isn't that awful, its just his pricetag he is failing to live up to which is not his fault. Fans are just frustrated by the fact that we wasted so much on him, so the hate is directed at the person who negotiated the deal which probably is Comolli.

I've never judged him based on stats alone, he just never impressed me. Yes not all wingers need to be able to beat their man but those are traditional wingers not as favoured in today's game. We need to have at least one of those flair wingers in my opinion. I also think that stats don't show everything, you can argue that he has created the most chances without a single assist but how many of those so called "chances" are good chances? It's subjective isn't it as to what is to be considered a "chance". How many of the 55 chances were clear cut goalscoring opportunities? Is putting in some random cross with virtually no one to aim for considered a chance?

You say don't let the 0 goal 0 assist fool us. I say don't let the 55 "chances" fool you.

Haha maybe when England win WC we got chance lah. They need a miracle as much as we do.

Exactly because I think its equally difficult for us to win the league.

In the past yes but with FFP its unlikely we will see anymore of those

Which makes me wonder, will Chelsea, City and PSG abide to the FFP rules? We know that City received an abnormally high sponsor from their Sheikh owned company and despite UEFA saying they won't let clubs get through loopholes like that I just don't see how they are gonna do it. For rich owners like them its normal for them to own more than one business. So what happens if their club is struggling to balance the books and they pull out another big "sponsorship" deal out of their pocket? Or multiple smaller "sponsorship" deals out of their pocket from companies owned by their wealthy owner to make it seem like they are normal sponsorship deals. What are UEFA gonna do?

This post has been edited by Cloud0890: Sep 6 2012, 08:20 AM

So who did he discard and leave the position vacant? Andy Carroll was only discarded because he was promised a replacement would be brought in and John Henry has since admitted someone up there screwed up. I've never heard anything about selling Downing. As for Jordan Henderson, Stoke made an enquiry about him and was dismissed. He was then according to rumours used as a makeweight for Dempsey so its not exactly discarding and leaving the position vacant is it? Our midfield is packed with Gerrard, Allen, Sahin, Shelvey, and Lucas!

Agreed. Assuming FFP does work and they can no longer spend crazy amounts of money, what's gonna happen to them? Let's be honest, City obviously doesn't have the commercial pull as compared to even Spurs I guess despite winning the league. Chelsea should fare better I guess considering it has been almost 10 years since Roman's takeover winning lots of trophies along the way not to mentioned they are already quite a big club even before the takeover BUT should still be less attractive compared to Arsenal, United and Liverpool. Will these clubs wilt and go back to how it was before all these big money foreign takeovers? In that case the PL might go back to how it was before with virtually only Arsenal and United racing for the title. United for their obvious commercial power and Arsenal because Wenger is just godly when it comes to building and winning with youngsters.

---

Added on September 6, 2012, 10:09 amIf that's the case isn't it worse? Playing them just because they cost a lot in an attempt to justify their price tags regardless of performance. Hmm...wasn't that what KK did last season and got barracked by fans?

This post has been edited by Cloud0890: Sep 6 2012, 10:09 AM

Isn't that what they are doing? To limit a club's spending to what they can earn. What do you think FFP is?

or a French team? or that Russian team?

Apparently Leverkusen has stated that they have an option to resign Yesil if he impresses in the future which explains the paltry 1m fee for a player of his potential. We might end up spending big money to keep him in the future.

Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers is convinced Spanish teen Suso is first team material.

Rodgers admits he is ready to bring in 18-year-old Suso, who is yet to make his Liverpool debut after joining the club's youth set-up in 2010 from Cadiz.

"There might need to be an intermediary way of working now," Rodgers is quoted as saying by The Independent.

"Boys like Suso will get their opportunity. The percentage under 21s playing in the Premier League is statistically very, very small. We are going to be stretched the limit and [we'll be telling them] 'if you've got little niggles and injuries you've got to man up.' We've got to be together and be strong.

"This [situation] will allow guys to stand up to the plate. You get an opportunity but you have got to take it."

Apart from Lucas I feel Jonjo might be one for the future. Seeing him right now reminds me of the young Gerrard, their style of play is similar in many ways. For me its always better to have an English or British at least as captain just as how Spanish clubs have their local Spanish lads. English teams have mostly though not always been appointing British players as captains with the sole exception of Arsenal.