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Sadio Mane

King of Otters

King of Otters

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Jun 11, 2012
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Jamturk said:
But our attacking problems aren't with teams that push up and leave space behind

Its with defences that drop deep and we have to play through

So signing a player with all the pace in the world isn't going to do shit for us.
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Our sqaud is a complete mess tbh. Sigining Welbeck, this guy, J-Rod and MS wont put us on Liverpool's level on today's evidence, but it should represent a couple of steps in the right direction.
 
DaSpurs

DaSpurs

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Jan 20, 2013
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SFCS said:
Towsend, Pritchard, Falque, Coulthirst and Ceballos could all have similar highlights videos from their under 21s games. I'm not convinced what we're seeing in the Mane videos is something he could reproduce at the higher level of the Premier League. It's one thing to turn a few players inside out in the development leagues, or one as poor as the Austrian league, but they won't replicate it so easily in the Premier League. I didn't see much craft in tight areas either, the vast majority seemed to be him not being marked properly or being in a straight foot race with a slower defender.

I don't actually want Welbeck by the way, he might be experienced but he's not shown anything to make me think he's an improvement on what we have. It's funny, I watched the under 17s European Championships many years ago and Welbeck and Rose looked our best talents but many years on and Welbeck's still not any better than he looked then, it was all pace and strength with him then and it still is now, except he's up against more experienced players so he's less effective.
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Yeah, I completely agree with your concerns. My hope though, is that with Broomfield on board, we've taken the time to assess and consider many options for this rather obvious need we have, and here at this point of the end of the summer, we've made a decision. Given Broomfield's track record of not only identifying successful Prem players, but more importantly immediately impactful ones, I have high hopes he was involved in the selection of this player if any of this about our interest is true.
 
S

SFCS

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May 17, 2013
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DaSpurs said:
Yeah, I completely agree with your concerns. My hope though, is that with Broomfield on board, we've taken the time to assess and consider many options for this rather obvious need we have, and here at this point of the end of the summer, we've made a decision. Given Broomfield's track record of not only identifying successful Prem players, but more importantly immediately impactful ones, I have high hopes he was involved in the selection of this player if any of this about our interest is true.
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Fair enough. I'm still holding out for the hope that Levy might pull off a really special signing on deadline day. It's probably quite a remote chance though, Isco played the full 90 tonight and Kagawa's gone to Dortmund, they were the two I thought we could've got that would be great last minute signings :(
 
DaSpurs

DaSpurs

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Jan 20, 2013
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SFCS said:
Fair enough. I'm still holding out for the hope that Levy might pull off a really special signing on deadline day. It's probably quite a remote chance though, Isco played the full 90 tonight and Kagawa's gone to Dortmund, they were the two I thought we could've got that would be great last minute signings :(
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Would have loved either. And maybe Levy will. But I don't share your faith, as we've seen far too many times of seeing blatant needs disregarded on final days. I just want to see a stepwise process. If the players brought in are at least for areas of need, even if they aren't those of upmost quality, I will be happy. If our business tomorrow goes down as Stambouli, Sane, and Welbeck in I will be beyond delighted. Beyond that, I'm in the ER for erection lasting more than four hours.
 
S

SFCS

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May 17, 2013
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DaSpurs said:
Would have loved either. And maybe Levy will. But I don't share your faith, as we've seen far too many times of seeing blatant needs disregarded on final days. I just want to see a stepwise process. If the players brought in are at least for areas of need, even if they aren't those of upmost quality, I will be happy. If our business tomorrow goes down as Stambouli, Sane, and Welbeck in I will be beyond delighted. Beyond that, I'm in the ER for erection lasting more than four hours.
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I'm not sure we have any dire need for anyone this time around. Not like last summer when we clearly needed a left back but didn't get one. Infact most transfer windows are like that with us.

I say we don't need anyone because I think the squad is fairly balanced this time around, even if we have a couple more midfielders than we need, but there's always room for more quality. If we could sell Kaboul or Soldado/Ade I'd happily have them replaced with someone new but as it stands I think it's proven quality or nothing. If it's nothing then it means more games for youngsters like Dier, Veljkovic, Bentaleb and Kane, which I'm fine with as I don't think we'll disgrace ourselves in the league with the current squad so better to keep the funds for when we have a signing that can really improve us.
 
DaSpurs

DaSpurs

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Jan 20, 2013
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SFCS said:
I'm not sure we have any dire need for anyone this time around. Not like last summer when we clearly needed a left back but didn't get one. Infact most transfer windows are like that with us.

I say we don't need anyone because I think the squad is fairly balanced this time around, even if we have a couple more midfielders than we need, but there's always room for more quality. If we could sell Kaboul or Soldado/Ade I'd happily have them replaced with someone new but as it stands I think it's proven quality or nothing. If it's nothing then it means more games for youngsters like Dier, Veljkovic, Bentaleb and Kane, which I'm fine with as I don't think we'll disgrace ourselves in the league with the current squad so better to keep the funds for when we have a signing that can really improve us.
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I think we're considerably closer, but still not entirely balanced. We may have numbers now, but far too many similar players in areas of the pitch. Our attacking mids are either creative technical types, or blitzkrieging traditional wingers. Not much in between. Our center mids are all passive, relatively slow, horizontally-thinkers. Just far too much symmetry, and not enough balance.

Erego, why I think we're still set to do a bit of business tomorrow. We cannot lose that badly to Liverpool yet again, and believe it's just a matter of individual improvement. The problems were glaring, and I must admit I'm relieved to see some ITK of Poch apparently identifying the problems, even if it's entirely fabricated.
 
S

SFCS

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May 17, 2013
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DaSpurs said:
I think we're considerably closer, but still not entirely balanced. We may have numbers now, but far too many similar players in areas of the pitch. Our attacking mids are either creative technical types, or blitzkrieging traditional wingers. Not much in between. Our center mids are all passive, relatively slow, horizontally-thinkers. Just far too much symmetry, and not enough balance.

Erego, why I think we're still set to do a bit of business tomorrow. We cannot lose that badly to Liverpool yet again, and believe it's just a matter of individual improvement. The problems were glaring, and I must admit I'm relieved to see some ITK of Poch apparently identifying the problems, even if it's entirely fabricated.
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I think Paulinho is different enough to what we already have in midfield. I wanted Dembele gone all window but having seen him play I think we might see him become much better in attack if we stick with him. As for the attacking midfielders, I'd say Lamela and Chadli are both in the middle ground in terms of being able to be creative and direct, I'm not sure they need to be wingers with the way our full backs will play.

I thought our 2 biggest problems against Liverpool were Kaboul(and the defence in general tbh) and Ade spending the whole game wondering out of position, I know he's supposed to wonder a bit but in tight games we need a striker in the box as much as possible as chances will be difficult to create and we need someone to convert them. With the defence we've got Fazio, so that's a potential fix if we can get combinations of him, Vlad and Jan performing. Upfront, I'd love a striker but I think they'd have to be a real special one if we can't sell Soldado or Ade first.
 
DaSpurs

DaSpurs

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SFCS said:
I think Paulinho is different enough to what we already have in midfield. I wanted Dembele gone all window but having seen him play I think we might see him become much better in attack if we stick with him. As for the attacking midfielders, I'd say Lamela and Chadli are both in the middle ground in terms of being able to be creative and direct, I'm not sure they need to be wingers with the way our full backs will play.

I thought our 2 biggest problems against Liverpool were Kaboul(and the defence in general tbh) and Ade spending the whole game wondering out of position, I know he's supposed to wonder a bit but in tight games we need a striker in the box as much as possible as chances will be difficult to create and we need someone to convert them. With the defence we've got Fazio, so that's a potential fix if we can get combinations of him, Vlad and Jan performing. Upfront, I'd love a striker but I think they'd have to be a real special one if we can't sell Soldado or Ade first.
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No one needs to be wingers, it's true, but I can't agree that Lamela and Chadli are both in the middle ground. Chadli's weaknesses are dribbling in tight spaces, while Lamela's seem to be that he still struggles to find the incisive pass in this league. Neither compensates with the pace to overcome these fallbacks, despite being rather quick.

I would agree Kaboul was a massive problem, and also Ade's issues. I don't think he was wandering any unusual amount, or beyond what was being asked of him since Schneiderlin said in an interview that the striker is supposed to "trigger" the press. But his dribbling and decision-making were just so poor today. We also didn't have one attacking player who pinned the opposition back, made them rethink how to defend, and therefore allow us time to implement our gameplan. We couldn't do anything up top, therefore allowing them to come at us, thereby allowing them to implement their own gameplan. All the while, our central midfield contributing nothing to opening up space for these attacking players to do so, and controlled nothing in possession. Exact same pattern as last year against the top sides. Just absolutely zero bite, therefore allowing sides that combine speed, technicality, and a plan to pin us down and rip us apart.
 
S

SFCS

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May 17, 2013
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DaSpurs said:
No one needs to be wingers, it's true, but I can't agree that Lamela and Chadli are both in the middle ground. Chadli's weaknesses are dribbling in tight spaces, while Lamela's seem to be that he still struggles to find the incisive pass in this league. Neither compensates with the pace to overcome these fallbacks, despite being rather quick.

I would agree Kaboul was a massive problem, and also Ade's issues. I don't think he was wandering any unusual amount, or beyond what was being asked of him since Schneiderlin said in an interview that the striker is supposed to "trigger" the press. But his dribbling and decision-making were just so poor today. We also didn't have one attacking player who pinned the opposition back, made them rethink how to defend, and therefore allow us time to implement our gameplan. We couldn't do anything up top, therefore allowing them to come at us, thereby allowing them to implement their own gameplan. All the while, our central midfield contributing nothing to opening up space for these attacking players to do so, and controlled nothing in possession. Exact same pattern as last year against the top sides. Just absolutely zero bite, therefore allowing sides that combine speed, technicality, and a plan to pin us down and rip us apart.
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I don't think Chadli and Lamela necessarily need to take on the fullbacks, particularly Lamela, as we saw against QPR if they can hold up the ball for a couple of seconds then our own fullback will be charging either on the outside or cutting inside, exploiting this. Maybe I'm expecting too much but I expect the whole team's passing to improve as the season goes on so I think Lamela will start finding passes more and more as they all start to build an understanding.

I've no problem with Adebayor leading the closing down, it was his constantly drifting out of position when we had the ball that I had a problem with. One moment typified it in the second half for me, Chadli was chasing a pass down the flank and would've got there but instead of getting in the box, Ade decided to go for it too and ended up immediately getting closed down out wide as he had none of the momentum Chadli had from his run. I'm all for players rotating and getting involved with different elements of the play but Adebayor was all too often in no position to score and with no good reason to be out of position either.
 
DaSpurs

DaSpurs

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Jan 20, 2013
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SFCS said:
I don't think Chadli and Lamela necessarily need to take on the fullbacks, particularly Lamela, as we saw against QPR if they can hold up the ball for a couple of seconds then our own fullback will be charging either on the outside or cutting inside, exploiting this. Maybe I'm expecting too much but I expect the whole team's passing to improve as the season goes on so I think Lamela will start finding passes more and more as they all start to build an understanding.

I've no problem with Adebayor leading the closing down, it was his constantly drifting out of position when we had the ball that I had a problem with. One moment typified it in the second half for me, Chadli was chasing a pass down the flank and would've got there but instead of getting in the box, Ade decided to go for it too and ended up immediately getting closed down out wide as he had none of the momentum Chadli had from his run. I'm all for players rotating and getting involved with different elements of the play but Adebayor was all too often in no position to score and with no good reason to be out of position either.
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Both very good points here. I hope you're right in the first about the improvement of passing (in fact I think you likely will be), and very true about Ade's movement off the ball.

These are things that I think can largely be fixed with time. Other problems though, such as simply not having a player in central midfield who can grab the game by the balls and flip it, cannot be fixed with time.
 
SonicSarr

SonicSarr

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Jun 7, 2012
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Plays a bit like Sterling from Liverpool judging from his vids. Good goalscoring record too. Looks an upgrade on Townsend & would give us some much needed pace. Have to save I've never heard of him but looks worth a punt a 22 yo.
 
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