Captain Haribo

Ashley Cole, by a country mile. Cech played well, too, but I really don't think the other 9 were up to scratch at all.

Bit of a turgid affair last night. Good to get the result out of it as, frankly, we were rather to lucky to do so. Ivanovic was really quite poor, with Carvalho having to cover due to his poor positinal play. Some of his crosses were woeful, though he did put in that ball in the first half that Kalou squandered (I won't blame Lampard, Kalou should never have jumped as it only served to block Lampard's eyeline.) Ashley Cole was our best player by quite a margin and I couldn't really fault anything from his performance. If he still had the attacking prowess he showed in his Arsenal days he'd be far and away the best left back in the world. I still think he's the best on balance, on account of being better defensively than the likes of Evra. Essien had quite a poor game - a very poor game by his own standards. I think he's a little wasted in that holding role and doesn't play it was well as Mikel. He wasn't really getting options to pass and ended up running himself into holes due to a lack of movement, but I think the problem is that that position requires a player happy to play the simple game - passing it short and moving it on - whereas Essien is a player who likes to make things happen with his surging runs and explorative passing. I still think our best central trio is Mikel-Essien-Lampard, with either Malouda offering width or Ballack offering further strength in the middle, but hey, who am I to argue with Carlo? Kalou was particularly lacklustre last night, though I'll give him the benefit of the doubt as he hasn't really played in the set up. At first I thought Sturridge might have made a cameo appearance late on but he's probably too inexperienced for a game like that. Anyway, I think Porto are the strongest side in our group (after us, natch) so it was nice to get a tough game out of the way first. Athletico seem to be having some internal troubles at the moment, so I won't be expecting them to be quite so hopeless at the Bridge. Roll on Nicosia!

Kalou's a good player. He was probably never going to be a proper first teamer for us but he's served us well. £8mil is a good deal for both sides - if anybody can get the best out of him it's probably Wenger and £8mil for what is essentially a squad player is as good a price as we'll get. As mentioned, with Di Santo already on loan I'd presume he won't go anywhere unless we're taking somebody else in. ...or Shevchenko and Pizarro are staying.

:huh: We sacked him after he was banned. Of course he was going to look for a new club.

Last season we struggled against well-organised, hard-working teams such as Liverpool, Stoke and so on. Our patient build up play was negated by good marking and we generally failed to break them down because of this. How will Pirlo change anything? Surely what we need is a more "explosive" form of creativity. Somebody with a bit of pace and spark on the ball. Look how much better Arsenal are/were with Arshavin in the team: that's the sort of thing we need.

Pirlo, Aguero and Ribery would cost more than £100m.

Surely Mikel deserves to be given time to develop as a player? The holding midfielder role he plays is one that requires loads of experience, so obiviously an older player would make a better short-term option, but Mikel's essentially still a kid, added to the fact he's better than Pirlo or Makelele were at the same age. The defensive side of his game is very strong, albeit a little clumsy at times. Whilst players like Maka obviously had a seemingly natural intuition for positioning, experience is a major factor there. Hell, Makelele was a box-to-boxer in his early years at Nantes. Given experience at the top level, I think Mikel could be far superior to Pirlo and near Makelele's level when he's older. He's hardly a weak link as it is. EDIT: I'm not suggesting that Pirlo and Jon Obi play the same role, but I can't help thinking it's Mikel who would be dropped should we buy the Italian. He's shown his ability for long passing when playing for Nigeria, so if he's given the freedom to try riskier passes for us he could be a success.

Not a huge fan of Van der Vaart. He's yet to fulfill the potential he showed a few years back and he's never really impressed me for the Netherlands.

D2. Which was the correct answer for the last one? It's 4 different squares: wondered why it seemed so difficult to pinpoint.

He's already had Zhirkov for £18m. Would people honestly be willing to see us pay that same sum for Pirlo, just because there isn't an obvious alternative? We could get David Beckham for next to nothing if passing ability and freekicks is all you're after.

:huh: If Kaka were on the ball on the halfway line, the player ahead of him would still be the striker at a similar distance. If Gattuso had the ball, Kaka would 15-20 yards, just as would be the case if you exchange the names for Essien and Lampard. The "left side of the three man midfield" is just a simplified way of formatting his role, in my opinion. He's always been played ahead of Essien.

The sillier his hair got under Hiddink, the better he seemed to play. Maybe our "creative" signing should be Charles Worthington. ;)

Zhirkov > Malouda Hopefully.

I've never been impressed with Moutinho. Freekicks aside, I don't think he's anywhere near Mikel's level. Hasn't Costa moved to Juve?

Good pics; I'm assuming you have a fairly high end camera? Geezer: it's probably easiest to take shots of Ballack. I bet all the other shots were blurred from players moving!

I'm more confident in Ancelotti than I was in Scolari: he was a disaster waiting to happen. Ancelotti is slowly winning me over but I'm happy to give him the benefit of the doubt for a few months yet.

Fair point. The beauty of football is the ambiguity of positions. Sort of like the analogue to Gridiron or netball's digital in that respect. We;d probably be here all day if we didn't drop it! :lol:

He didn't so much let his team get old as get the best out of players who were supposedly past their peak. If anything it's a positive. For all their lack of league titles, Milan are the most succesful club in the Champions League of the previous decade. Might have been a different story were it not for Calciopoli, as well.

They're valuing him at £18m? I thought it was bad enough on the assumption he'd be a Deco like £sub-10m fee, but if that's the sort of money we'd be looking like we should stay well clear.

It's not at all. Lampard's role for us last season was much the same as how Gerrard plays for Liverpool. I've already argued too much over positions in another thread to get seriously into this again, but Lampard's role barely changes in the two systems: 4-5-1 / 4-4-2 with Anelka wide: -------------------Cech--------------- -Bosingwa----Terry---Alex------Cole- ------------------Mikel---------------- ------------Essien--------------------- -----------------Lampard----Malouda- ----Anelka-------Drogba-------------- 4-4-2 with diamond midfield: -------------------Cech--------------- -Bosingwa----Terry---Alex------Cole- ------------------Mikel---------------- ------------Essien-----Ballack-------- ----------------Lampard--------------- ----------Anelka-------Drogba-------- The roles changed most significantly by the diamond system are the two most central players: Essien and whoever partners him, Ballack for the sake of argument. Mikel and Lampard's positions are much the same.

I really don't get this attitude. As I say, I missed the game today, but he's played as the most advanced central midfielder for us for a good few seasons now and he's always been excellent there, and "most advanced central midfielder" and "tip of the diamond" are essentially the same thing.

A brilliant quote came out during all these Robson memorials. When he joined Ipswich as manager having been sacked by Fulham, a journalist asked him why: "These people are willing to give a man a chance" he replied. Look where that gamble got them: probably the most succesful spell in their history.

Just a pre-emptive strike. *pow* It's better that we see things going against us now as it gives Ancelotti time to improve our weak spots.

It's only a pre-season friendly - the main purpose of it is to get players fit and match ready and the result is irrelavant (provided it's not something silly like a 4-0 defeat). You can't even really say it's about "gelling" given we're apparently not finished in the transfer market yet.

I disagree, but I'll leave it at that as I've already bored half the forum with arguments over player's positions.