*Official* English Football Season 2012-13

[Jarquis]

The problem isn't that they don't want to sign anyone world-class, it's that no one world-class will come. When it comes to it I couldn't name a single world-class striker that would come to Arsenal. It would take an outlandish move for someone like Ibrahimovic or someone plucked from obscurity that turns out to be incredible.

Spurs having discovered that their third reserve left-back is the next Ronaldo puts them at a big advantage for as long as they can hold on to him. Arsenal put together a great run and an excellent points total to stay ahead this year but Spurs only need to get the rest of the team up to a good standard to move ahead.

k then

I don't know if we really need two quality midfielders. We've got quite a few decent ones as it is.

.......Arteta---QualityDM........
Walcott--Wilshire--Cazorla

Would work IMO. Then we've still got Rosicky, Diaby, Ramesy etc. as cover.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I'd love to have a midfielder like Fabregas in there as well, but I don't know if it's really needed.

Binning Ramsey is ridiculously harsh when he's been our best player at times this year IMO. Has really begun to develop phenomenally.

Wilshere doesn't work in the hole either IMHO. Nowhere near as dynamic or fluid as Cazorla because he doesn't have the same right foot.

I think the chances of Fabregas coming back are more or less nil, but I don't think there's an obvious place for him in that side, even with what I have proposed. Arsenal's style has moved on from the days when he was there. Have no doubt he would be welcomed back, but there are several players now with his skill set..

Play him up top.

 

[Jarquis]

Marcuss why do you get so angry

(a) I don't like Pulis. Genuinely despise the guy.
(b) Usual Liverpool stuff gets boring
(c) Uppercut's posting on Arsenal has jumped the shark

EDIT: Should've read the whole thread first.

Arsenal are going to be better next year because their players are going to be a year more mature and cohered. And I don't think any of them had a standout outlier of a season they can't reproduce next season.

If they actually get that 20-25 goals a season forward then they'll challenge. They have their squad in order and an excellent starting XI. Surprisingly, they had the 2nd best defence in the league, 3 goals worse than City.

Fair play.

 

[Cevno]

Did GIMH lose a avatar bet ?

 

[sledger]

No, he's had an epiphany.

 

[Jarquis]

See I think a big part of the reason they turned things around after losing at Spurs was because they only played dud teams. They did have United at home but played very badly and were lucky to come away with a point.

It was a good run and they deserve a lot of credit for stringing together so many good results at a critical time, but I think Arsenal fans are reading too much into it. They were mostly functional performances rather than spectacular ones, your sort of 1-0 wins away to QPR, Newcastle or Fulham. Not to take anything away from the achievement but it's not as much of a reason for optimism as most of the Arsenal fans I've spoken to seem to think.

This is what I mean by Uppercut's posting on Arsenal.

United were equally as lucky to come away with a point in that game and it's all well and good saying 1-0s aren't that great but that's what this Arsenal side does.It's not the team of old with free-flowing massively high tempo end to end action. We're solid at the back and get the results which we've been guilty of not doing for so long.

United play badly and win and it's a sign of champions. We do it and it's a sign we're ****.

Can't win tho, can they?

Few years back we were beating the better sides and being kicked off the park by the likes of Stoke or Notlob or Brum and some charlie (Scaly, usually) would come in and say the players are all foreign milksops who don't like it up 'em, Mr Mainwaring.

 

[GIMH]

Did GIMH lose a avatar bet ?

****ing dont know why I even thought Liverpool would string a few wins together. I judge myself

 

[Cabinet96]

Binning Ramsey is ridiculously harsh when he's been our best player at times this year IMO. Has really begun to develop phenomenally.

Wilshere doesn't work in the hole either IMHO. Nowhere near as dynamic or fluid as Cazorla because he doesn't have the same right foot.

I agree with the bolded, but crucially, Wenger doesn't seem to. I was merely posting what I thought the midfield would look like if we bought a quality defensive midfielder, that wouldn't be my actual side. I'd probably shift Cazorla into a central attacking role and play Rosicky on the left.

Tough on Ramesy I agree, but it would be tough on any of the others to get dropped. Truth is, if we're to improve, we need to make the tough calls and leave people out, albeit ones who don't deserve to be dropped, to improve the side.

 

[sledger]

Ramsey is a good squad player at the moment. If he continues to improve as he has done over the course of the season, his time will come. No need to worry about him.

 

[Jarquis]

I agree with the bolded, but crucially, Wenger doesn't seem to. I was merely posting what I thought the midfield would look like if we bought a quality defensive midfielder, that wouldn't be my actual side. I'd probably shift Cazorla into a central attacking role and play Rosicky on the left.

Tough on Ramesy I agree, but it would be tough on any of the others to get dropped. Trough is, if we're to improve, we need to make the tough calls and leave people out, albeit ones who don't deserve to be dropped, to improve the side.

Yeah, it's a tricky situation to be in. One we're not used to either.

I mean, you've not even mentioned Podolski as an option yet. A few journos think he might make way apparently. Would be sad if so.

 

[sledger]

Would be a shame of Podolski left, but can see it happening. I think he had a pretty decent season all things considered, and he's a useful player to have in the side, adds a fair bit of depth to the team. But it seems inevitable that he won't be a regular starter if everyone else is full strength, especially when there's so much talk of a new striker being signed, and I can't see him being happy to sit on the bench for long.

 

[Pothas]

Forget all this Arsenal chat, West Ham already made the signing of the summer in Ravan Rat, best name in football.

 

[sledger]

Pretty sure he's always good on Football Manager too.

 

[Ikki]

I wanna hear some of these things that worked against you.

Liverpool's most common XI last season had an average age of 27(Doesn't include Coutinho or Sterling). You've literally got a handful of young players and that's giving you a guy like Jordan Henderson.

The equivalent XI for Arsenal is a full year younger on average and that's without Wilshere and the OX.

The idea that you're going to make up the ground on Arsenal just because your players have a year's extra experience is complete and utter horse****.

Since Sterling started half the games this season and appeared in over half the games, I'd say he was common. Carra really only began to play during the latter half of the season as well. Gerrard at 32 has been our oldest player to regularly be in the XI. I've read in many pieces that we had the 2nd youngest or youngest squad in the league; so I am not entirely sure which players you're looking at. Indeed, you said XI but that would hide how threadbare we were when you looked at the bench. According to this, we had the youngest team in the league at 23.12 (Arsenal was second lowest at 23.4).

At the start of the season we basically got rid of Carroll and replaced him with... nobody - Rodgers only loaned him out as he was promised he was going to get a replacement. But it didn't happen, we lost a forward. One of his buys earlier in pre-season - Borini - got injured right in the beginning, came back and got injured again until a couple weeks ago. Leaving us with Suarez as a forward and no one else until we bought Sturridge in January.

Lucas Leiva, arguably our most important player (in terms of how his absence can affect us and a lack of alternative) got injured in the beginning of the season also - after a long injury layoff the previous year - and only got back/playing till his level till about after Christmas. Jose Enrique got injured forcing Glen Johnson at left back while Martin Kelly went on the right. Kelly got injured and then we used Andre Wisdom a lot. Hell, even Downing played left-back.

Nuri Sahin who had come in for a loan deal was unfit, got injured and never settled. Basically, Suso, Sterling, Shelvey and Wisdom were pretty common sights at the start of the season - teens or barely in their 20s.

The fixtures in the beginning were back-breaking: City, Arsenal and United in the first 5 games, add Everton and Chelsea in the first 11. All this with a new manager who was bringing different tactics which took time for the players to get used to and injuries forcing us to use youth.

Also, while I am sure every fan feels hard done by...in the first half of the season we weren't getting cert penalties because of Suarez's rep. And I am not talking about 1-2 but like 7-8. I remember we even had discussions about it here.

Once Liverpool got Lucas back, Gerrard had become the holding midfielder Rodgers needed, bought Coutinho and Sturridge, etc, basically from the new year onwards, we've been very good on the whole. In fact, I read we're the #3 team in the league since then. So you can disagree if you like, but that encapsulates my thinking.

 

[Nate]

I thought 6th would be a good finish for us this season, and we were only 2 points off that.

Reckon we're looking at 5th for next season, but obviously a lot has to do with the off-season. Having a year to get used to Rodgers' system can only have helped.

I love Andy, but we have to take the 15m if he agrees to leave.

 

[Uppercut]

This is what I mean by Uppercut's posting on Arsenal.

United were equally as lucky to come away with a point in that game and it's all well and good saying 1-0s aren't that great but that's what this Arsenal side does.It's not the team of old with free-flowing massively high tempo end to end action. We're solid at the back and get the results which we've been guilty of not doing for so long.

United play badly and win and it's a sign of champions. We do it and it's a sign we're ****.

United were really poor against Arsenal, but that only reinforces my point about how unimpressive a performance it was. And I've never said United winning 1-0 is the hallmark of champions, or that Arsenal don't like it up 'em so I don't know why you're bringing that up.

Yeah, I don't think Arsenal are as good as you do at the minute, there's no need to get worked up about it. It's just an opinion, it's not like it stems from a deep dislike of the club. You're more than happy to go along with it when I think one of the teams you support is going through a patch of being underrated.

 

[Uppercut]

That one takes the biscuit for me. Rodgers, B. The Philosopher King.

Just read a few more great ones.

"I've always said you can live without water for many days, but you can't live for a second without hope."

"My biggest mentor is myself because I've had to study, so that's been my biggest influence."

"You train dogs, I like to educate players."

 

[vic_orthdox]

Football quiz: Brendan Rodgers or David Brent? | Football | guardian.co.uk

 

[Ikki]

LOL, didn't realise he was that bad.

 

[Jarquis]

United were really poor against Arsenal, but that only reinforces my point about how unimpressive a performance it was. And I've never said United winning 1-0 is the hallmark of champions, or that Arsenal don't like it up 'em so I don't know why you're bringing that up.

Yeah, I don't think Arsenal are as good as you do at the minute, there's no need to get worked up about it. It's just an opinion, it's not like it stems from a deep dislike of the club. You're more than happy to go along with it when I think one of the teams you support is going through a patch of being underrated.

Yeah, but my point is that saying we didn't deserve the points is a bit of a stretch. We outplayed you for 45, then you were the better side for 45.

It's not that you don't rate or us or don't think we're as good as I do. It's the whole manner in which you go about saying so. You talk about us as though we're Liverpool/Everton/Newcastle or something. Or that we're not the biggest side in North London. Which is just not the case.

In terms of top players, we're only not in contention for those that somebody is willing to pay 200k a week. If you don't think Higuain is a top player, for example, then we might as well give up on the matter.

 

[Jono]

How often does a manager quit/get sacked and then return to the same club in the major leagues?