[Archived] And So It Begins Again!

[T4E]

He is exceptionally talented, we can all see that. Yet players in this team, and in many other teams with only a tenth of his natural ability consistently out perform him.

I'd say the same thing about Cole the last 2 seasons.

I'd probably agree with you. Not to the same extent as Emerton, but sure, you have a point.

That's enough of Emerton, what about all the other abject failures from last season? Why aren't we berating them?

Yet again, the reason I single Emerton out is because I dont think anyone underperformed as much. Other players played badly, but thats just because they arent all that good at football. Blame for that one lies with Souness, the coaches and the scouts. The Emerton thing cant be blamed on them - they infact bought a very talented player at a very cheap price. He just hasnt done the business.

Edited July 29, 2004 by Tugay4England

[joey_big_nose]

I'll state this now, He is better running onto the ball, put behind the midfield and heading towards goal. Two goals come to mind one v Scotland and the other against England. If his midfeild partners did that for him evrysecond game, then you'd be singing his praises.

A bit like Ljungberg then? Works hard etc but isn't a traditional wide midfielder.

I would say that we might have a bit of a problem here- De Pedro, Thompson and certainly Emerton (if he is in the midfield, as a full back I think he can overlap better) will all play narrow this season. Not neccesarily a bad thing, Arsenal play that way with Pires and Ljungberg.

On the other hand Arsenal make up the space on the flanks by the full backs bombing up the picth and a striker (in their case Henry) pulling wide.

Actually I do not see why we cannot adopt that ourselves. Im not saying we are can do it as well as Arsenal, but we have the personnel to make a decent crack of it:

    

              Stead    Gallagher

    De Pedro     Ferguson    Thompson

                     Matteo

Gray   Amoruso     Johansson     Emerton

                     Friedel

Gallagher has a stunning range of movement up front, if you watch him during a game he runs the channels better than any player I have seen in the Prem bar the master Henry. He gets right to the touch line on both sides.

Stead leads the line and holds the ball up for the attacking triumvate of Ferguson, De Pedro and Thompson with the option to lay it wide to Gallagher. None of three midfielders are actually expected to get to the touch line instead trying to make runs through the middle, slide passes for the strikers to chase or whip in crosses.

Additional width is provided by the fullbacks, Gray and Emerton, one of whom starts a run as the strikers are holding the ball. The full back on the opposite side of the pitch to Gallagher should make the run. Both (IMHO) have a decent cross and enough about them to seriously worry the opposing wide players about doubling up.

Matteo acts as a defensive shield to compensate for the gallavanting of a fullback and allow Ferguson to get forward. I would rather see someone like Carrick, but you cant win them all.

I would like to cliam ownership of this one but I think Wenger has it copyrighted. We do have the players to make a decent crack of it though, better than perhaps any other style of play. It would work.

The beauty of it is that if we want to close the game down it is a very tight formation if we sit back.

The fact of the matter is none of our wide midfielders actually play wide so if we want width it will have to come from the strikers and the fullbacks.

Edited July 29, 2004 by joey_big_nose

[Manchester Blue]

Can I ask you where you get the idea that De Pedro will play narrow. His asset is his crosses so I would think that whilst he is unlikely to go bombing down the wing he will put a decent supply in and that is what a wide man is for.

[joey_big_nose]

He is as narrow as a thin man on slim fast. He has a bag of tricks and a wicked cross and an excellent range of passing but he just dosnt like going to the corner flag, I guess that is just a result of a lack of pace.

If he is going to play as a winger he will need to go to the touchline before he receives the ball which causes all kinds problems in balanceing the left hand side.

He played narrow for Spain and for Sociedad. Sort of similar to a left sided Beckham in that respect.

[Manchester Blue]

Like you say though similar to Beckham so hopefully lots of quality crosses, you don't need to run to the corner flag to do those. He is nothing like Duff i'll grant you that but if anything his crossing is supposed to be better so it's swings and roundabouts.

[LeChuck]

2. Matteo in the midfeild.

Souness is obviously thinking about this for WBA, and from what the article said he looked decent. I personally am not particularly keen, I think we shoulld try and sign a young CM- Carrick would be ideal. Question marks hang over his ability to hold the midfield together but he can do that effectively as Dom. Fee would be in the 3 mill range- a lot of cash we have not got I hear you cry but he is young and even if he bombed we should be able to recoup 1.5 mill.

If we really have to I suppose Matteo could play there but he is a CD primarily and I cannot see him being an improvement on what we have- which begs the question:

I posted this in another topic but it's worth posting again;

SSN interviewed Kevin Blackwell (Leeds manager) a couple of weeks ago asking about new signings, he said he needs lots of midfielders because the reason they went down last year is because Matteo and Radebe were playing in central midfield. I really hope we don't make the same mistake, Matteo is a Division One standard player in that position, it's not the right move to make at all.

I know a few people have mentioned this already, but why on earth has Souey only just started playing Gray and Gresko together when it was painfully obvious to everyone that we needed to do this last season? The man is just baffling sometimes, truly baffling.

Edited July 29, 2004 by LeChuck

[rover6]

Another thing that baffles me about Souness' team selection is his use of Barry Ferguson.

Correct me if I'm wrong, didn't Ferguson play the best seasons of his career at Rangers as the deepest lying central midfielder, shielding the back four and spraying the passes on receiving from the defence?

It seems that Souness has designs on Ferguson to be a more forward moving, offensive type when he has proven that his best position is as a playmaker like Tugay.

If Thommo is back on form, I reckon he will be the perfect compliment to a more conservative and defensively-minded Ferguson in midfield.

Edited July 29, 2004 by rover6

[greggyk]

I dont think a defensive holding midfielder could score 18 goals even in scotland!!

no, he played as an attacking midfielder for rangers. However, for scotland, he does play the way rovers6 descibed

[joey_big_nose]

Another thing that baffles me about Souness' team selection is his use of Barry Ferguson.

Correct me if I'm wrong, didn't Ferguson play the best seasons of his career at Rangers as the deepest lying central midfielder, shielding the back four and spraying the passes on receiving from the defence?

It seems that Souness has designs on Ferguson to be a more forward moving, offensive type when he has proven that his best position is as a playmaker like Tugay.

If Thommo is back on form, I reckon he will be the perfect compliment to a more conservative and defensively-minded Ferguson in midfield.

Well the big problem is more that Thompson will drift too far forward and Barry will be left isolated. He also isnt a flitcroft or a Nicky Butt type of tackler either (although I suppose he is better than Tugay in a challenge) so he needs to be helped out like Tugay would of been.

Sure Barry, is good at long passes and neat on the ball but he is not in Tugay's class (when the turk was in his pomp) in that respect.

The fact of the matter is that a Thompson Ferguson combination denies both of them some of their best attributes. Thommo oppertunities at running at the defence are limited (plus I have major questions about how well he could distribute the ball from the middle, he seems more 'head down' than 'head up') and Ferguson has to shoulder huge responsibilities as a work horse.

Ferguson has the potential to be nearly as good as Gerrard in the box to box stakes, why limit him?

[rover6]

Ferguson has the potential to be nearly as good as Gerrard in the box to box stakes, why limit him?

Souness prefers two holding central midfielders - like Arsenal play (Edu and Vieira), so as that the team is less susceptible to counter-attacks. It's worked quite well if you think how Arsenal have struggled against us and they are one of the best counter-attacking teams in Europe.

So I doubt that Ferguson will be playing a box-to-box, all action role. But I agree that the Thommo-Fergie midfield partnership does appear defensively weak and certainly struggles in the height department.

[joey_big_nose]

Ferguson has the potential to be nearly as good as Gerrard in the box to box stakes, why limit him?

Souness prefers two holding central midfielders - like Arsenal play (Edu and Vieira), so as that the team is less susceptible to counter-attacks. It's worked quite well if you think how Arsenal have struggled against us and they are one of the best counter-attacking teams in Europe.

So I doubt that Ferguson will be playing a box-to-box, all action role. But I agree that the Thommo-Fergie midfield partnership does appear defensively weak and certainly struggles in the height department.

Well, as I said in my post above, I do see the similarities between the style of players we have and Arsenal's and I dont deny we like to play with two players who can tackle in the middle (Tugay is an exception).

However, Viera is a box to box midfielder in that he gets to the edge of the area and scores goals. Gilberto Silver does that too, they share the responsibility. The two seperate threads are getting a bit confused, but if we did have Carrick and Ferguson then they would operate in a similar manner. One dropping back and one moving toward the box.

If you watch Arsenal Gilberto and VIera do not BOTH sit on the halfway line, one always goes forward when they have the ball..

[1864roverite]

how many Rovers fans turned out last night ?

for PNE we will have at least 1500 fans via ticket sales and I would imagine that a lot will turn up on the day.

[roversWASmylife]

how many Rovers fans turned out last night ?

for PNE we will have at least 1500 fans via ticket sales and I would imagine that a lot will turn up on the day.

I would say that there were about 400 Rovers fans in the ground last night. Not a lot but that’s down to Stockport for over-pricing the tickets.

Unlike PNE, where the figure you said 1864roverite, sounds about right at the moment.

A local derby, under half n hour away I can see just around and over possibly three thousand. Which wouldn’t be a bad turn out, considering it’s only a pre-season friendly, but for a game against local rivals a tenner for the game is well worth it in my opinion.

Hopefully the atmosphere will be a lot better than it was last night.

Edited July 29, 2004 by roversismylife

[Flopsy]

I'm fed up of people saying that. I'm not going to sit in the Blackburn End and just curse the lad for 90 minutes, i'll want him to be on sodding fire and rip the opposition apart.

Me on the other hand just want him on fire - or at least the effigy I have of him.

[tcj_jones]

Another thing that baffles me about Souness' team selection is his use of Barry Ferguson.

Correct me if I'm wrong, didn't Ferguson play the best seasons of his career at Rangers as the deepest lying central midfielder, shielding the back four and spraying the passes on receiving from the defence?

It seems that Souness has designs on Ferguson to be a more forward moving, offensive type when he has proven that his best position is as a playmaker like Tugay.

If Thommo is back on form, I reckon he will be the perfect compliment to a more conservative and defensively-minded Ferguson in midfield.

Likewise Rover6, i believe Ferguson is a better holding midfielder and think he played his best football for us in that position. I sincerly hope Souness plays him in that position next season.

However, I wouldn't agree that Souness has plans for him playing as an offensive midfielder. Tugay showed he played far better further up the pitch last season and Flitcroft is far from a holding midfielder. With Thompson returning I think we would have exactly the right balance in midfield and the obvious position for Ferguson would be infront of the back four.

A large part of my optimism for next season is based on the return of a fully fit Ferguson. I rate him amongst the very best midfielders in the premiership and in a captains role know he will have a massive influence on the teams performance.

For those that have watched out pre-season matches, can anybody share any light on Fergusons performances and fitness?

[T4E]

Correct me if I'm wrong, didn't Ferguson play the best seasons of his career at Rangers as the deepest lying central midfielder, shielding the back four and spraying the passes on receiving from the defence?

I'm happy to do the honours on this one.

Ferguson in Scotland was more of a box to box midfielder in the Sherwood mould. Late runs into the box etc. He's way too energetic and full of running to be the player you describe.

[FourLaneBlue]

Like you say though similar to Beckham so hopefully lots of quality crosses, you don't need to run to the corner flag to do those.  He is nothing like Duff i'll grant you that but if anything his crossing is supposed to be better so it's swings and roundabouts.

If De Pedro is the kind of winger that likes to whip crosses in behind the defence for oncoming strikers it will be like manna from heaven for the strikers. Stead has height but I'd have to say that the player at the club with the best heading skills is...

Dwight Yorke.

Even in his uninspiring spell at Ewood he has contributed his fair share of headed goals. Before that he has consistently scored headed goals throughout his career, both at Villa and Man U. Not just any headed goals either, he made it somewhat of a trademark scene for him to run on to balls curled in the region between the central defenders and the goalkeeper before finishing clinically.

Bringing him back may be a good idea after all...and not just to put him in the shop window!

Yes, I know he has only been back for one pre-season game and this is being overly optimistic but I'm allowed to be at this time of the year. With Cole gone we could really do with a rejuvenated Yorke to bring quality, skill AND experience to the squad, something no other striker we have provides. Something as well which Yorke didn't provide last year but here's hoping anyway.

Edited July 30, 2004 by FourLaneBlue

[Dr Rich]

I'd have to say that the player at the club with the best heading skills is...

Dwight Yorke.

Surely not FLB. Amoruso?

[Lathund]

Probably meant best attacking player. I'll grant you that Amo is better, but i'll only be on set pieces for him. I don't expect him to run the full length of the pitch to get behind the defenders when Javi gets the ball

[chris]

Probably meant best attacking player. I'll grant you that Amo is better, but i'll only be on set pieces for him. I don't expect him to run the full length of the pitch to get behind the defenders when Javi gets the ball

that's one of the reason I would still consider Yorke ahead of Dickov, similar age, but Dickov's not going to win anything in the air, and why do we need the "work horse" approach when we already have Stead that works very hard and offers better quality in all departments.