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*Official* English Football Season 2011-12

roseboy64

roseboy64

Cricket Web Content Updater
Kagawa's not a CM though. He'll likely play from the wings and most as an AM.

Chelsea can easily play,

Torres
Hazard Mata Hulk

Not bad.
 
TT Boy

TT Boy

Hall of Fame Member
Signing Hulk doesn’t make much sense considering Ramires has been a fantastic signing for Chelsea and offers more out right than Hulk. Hulk is a top, top player but he isn’t a direct replacement for Drogba and Chelsea don’t really need a four stone heavy less mobile version of Robben that likes to play out wide and cut in and shoot. As Roseboy said, Hazard, Mata, Hulk and Torres can work and looks great but Mata does absolutely nothing defensively, not seen much of Hazard but Torres and Hulk won’t and don’t do much either, so that’s a concern. Cavani would be a better signing for Chelsea, is a complete striker or Falcao, who won't offer much but scores for fun.

Hulk would be a better signing for Arsenal or Liverpool but they probably can’t afford the transfer fee. Be a great signing for Barcelona as well (who also can’t afford the fee), especially as it negates the issue of having Cesc play out wide in a front three.
 
T

Tom Halsey

International Coach
Unsure what to think of the Kagawa signing, though as noted it is an interesting/exciting one whichever way you look at it.

He's a very good player, which isn't in question. However as Roseboy says he is an AM not a CM, and AMs don't fit into the system we have played of late. Basically necessitates us switching to something like 4-2-3-1 if he is to be played in his natural position, which IMO wouldn't be a bad thing but is something I'm not sure we will do.
 
The Sean

The Sean

Cricketer Of The Year
duffer said:
Kagawa's very good but he's no Gotze. Interesting signing nonetheless.
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Possibly not, but in Goetze's absence Kagawa played the same role superbly last season, and due to his contract situation has cost about a third of what we would have had to pay for the little German - if indeed he's available at all.

Excellent signing IMO, and hopefully the first of a couple. However, it will be interesting to see how/if United's formation changes to accommodate Kagawa. The thinking seems to be that he'll play either left or centre of the 3 in a 4-2-3-1, which would nominally involve either breaking up the Rooney-Welbeck partnership which developed well last season, or playing Rooney in the centre of the 3 and asking Welbeck to lead the line himself - and I'm not 100% sure about either of those options.
 
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Uppercut

Uppercut

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We play something very similar to 4-2-3-1 anyway, because one of Rooney and Welbeck always drops into AM to pick up the ball. All that's doing is making the system more rigid and replacing Young with Kagawa on the left wing.
 
The Sean

The Sean

Cricketer Of The Year
Uppercut said:
We play something very similar to 4-2-3-1 anyway, because one of Rooney and Welbeck always drops into AM to pick up the ball. All that's doing is making the system more rigid and replacing Young with Kagawa on the left wing.
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Yeah that's a fair point, and I'd imagine that if the 3 were say Rooney, Kagawa and Nani then there'd be a fair amount of dynamic interchanging of position across the line anyway.
 
Furball

Furball

Evil Scotsman
The Sean said:
Possibly not, but in Goetze's absence Kagawa played the same role superbly last season, and due to his contract situation has cost about a third of what we would have had to pay for the little German - if indeed he's available at all.

Excellent signing IMO, and hopefully the first of a couple. However, it will be interesting to see how/if United's formation changes to accommodate Kagawa. The thinking seems to be that he'll play either left or centre of the 3 in a 4-2-3-1, which would nominally involve either breaking up the Rooney-Welbeck partnership which developed well last season, or playing Rooney in the centre of the 3 and asking Welbeck to lead the line himself - and I'm not 100% sure about either of those options.
Click to expand...
Neither Rooney nor Wellbeck play as traditional 4-4-2 strikers though. United's best frontline was Ronaldo-Tevez-Rooney where all of them could play wide and all of them could play as the number 9. Kagawa, Rooney, Wellbeck and Young could be quite an interesting front 4, although IIRC Kagawa, Rooney and Young all prefer the left.
 
sledger

sledger

Spanish_Vicente
Surely the remaining SPL teams will vote in favour of re-admitting them to the top tier. Would surely be financial suicide otherwise.
 
cpr

cpr

International Coach
Does it though?

Extra CL place for someone decent may motivate the nearly rans to vote against, likewise an extra Europa spot as everyone moves up a spot. Its going to take a few years for the UEFA co-efficient to drop, so should still get their 2 places for a few years yet.

The fact that theres only one powerhouse may mean a slightly better distribution of power internally, and probably of TV coverage. I dunno the finances behind it all, and I'm sure no-ones going to make money off it, but I don't hear too much of the other teams struggling massively financially, only those who spend millions to vie for the title - ie Rangers.

It'd make the league more competitive - Celtic would probably find their better players wanting to move to a more competitive league, and maybe their board might encourage that, as they don't really need too many big stars to retain their title/CL place (not like they get a CL run anyway).

Infact, to me the people with the most to lose from Rangers expulsion is Celtic. Players may want out for a proper challenge, they'll struggle to recruit new faces for the same reason, that'll hamper any reasonable attempt at the Europa League (or getting out of the CL groups).

Excluding Rangers might be the best thing the Scottish Prem can do in the long term. It gives them the chance to drive towards a competitive league again. Sure the amount of money the league brings in from TV deals etc will drop, so long as its evenly managed it might not be a huge issue. The wages throughout the rest of the division arn't so stupid, and the idea of being able to compete for CL spots might encourage the younger developing players to stay at your Motherwells and Hibs etc.


Of course, it may well really blow open the whole Rangers (and Celtic) to England stuff. Would the football league say no if they asked for a Championship place? Possibly not....
 
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