2011-2012 English Football Season and STEWART DOWNING WHAT ON EARTH Thread

[Loony BoB]

When that guy got himself sent off, I actually felt sorry for him. Not because he didn't deserve to go off - he did. But because... well, was that his debut (EDIT: Ah, second PL game)? Because he's not Premier League quality. At all. He is not ready. 19 years old, two PL games to his name, two red cards to his name. I just checked and last year he was playing for Welling United F.C. in the Conference South. I mean... damn. Pay for a proper defender and pay well, Arsenal. £6m for Cahill is an absolute joke and to be honest, an insult to the player. And even if he did sign, why would he want to at the moment? Unless another couple of defenders followed, it wouldn't be worth his trouble - he'd have more of a chance at getting into European football at Bolton at the moment. So if United can spend £16-18m on a young defender, and you want to buy the "real deal" that has been there, done that when it comes to proving himself in the PL... expect to pay a significant amount, easily in the double digits. Even if he's only got one season left with Bolton (which may be the case?), at least pay £10m, because if you don't, you won't be in Europa next year and you won't be able to afford the wages of three European quality defenders, let alone four.

Delighted with our guys but to be honest, we played just as well as we did last week. Arsenal just absolutely dire. Our two conceded goals were weak but then again, three out of four defenders were often in the opposition half and they probably were getting a little slack at times. Gutted for Welbeck, though. We could have scored ten - or more.

EDIT: #Shambles trending on Twitter xD

[demondude]

I'll be honest, I've lost most of my interest in football over the last two years for some reason, which is a shame because I used to be all over it. This is glorious, however. Some of my neighbours are massive Arsenal fans and they're really obnoxious about it. Arsenal carrying on their dire run would far succeed all of those turds I've posted through their letterboxes put together.

So yes fingers crossed that Arsenal keep doing tit. I know we're not very far in so I'll hold the celebrating off for a bit longer.

[Psychotic]

Remember when this thread used to have five+ Arsenal fans posting in it? Now we have 0. Who am I supposed to howl at like an enraged baboon now?

One way or another, I think we just saw the end of an era today. Either Wenger's untested youth philosophy goes, or he does.

Also to be fair BoB, Liverpool v Arsenal at the Emirates last year, we had two young lads playing only their second full game in both the full back positions (Flanagan and Robinson) and they did damned well. Nothing wrong with youth. It's just that if your youth isn't very good in certain areas of the pitch you should buy better players for those positions.

[Loony BoB]

Also to be fair BoB, Liverpool v Arsenal at the Emirates last year, we had two young lads playing only their second full game in both the full back positions (Flanagan and Robinson) and they did damned well. Nothing wrong with youth. It's just that if your youth isn't very good in certain areas of the pitch you should buy better players for those positions.

Yeah, but that guy was brought in from playing a handful of games in the Conference South (two loans to two clubs). He wasn't even good enough to play for his main club in league one at those two points last year, so why would he suddenly be okay to go into a PL team? I know there are injuries, but there aren't that many injuries to their side and in all honesty they may have been better to give the CB spot to someone from their midfield backup such as Lansbury, or even put Ramsay in CB and put Lansbury in the middle. The main point, though, out of the whole ordeal, is that £6m is not the amount of money you should expect to pay for a defender like Cahill.

It probably didn't help Jenkinson that their tactics were rubbish. But even when they corrected faults in their tactics, new ones appeared.

Credit to him, though. He got an assist.

[Old Manus]

At least this gives me some hope for next week.

[Psychotic]

Lansbury and Ramsey are hardly experienced veterans either. I think Lansbury has played less minutes in the Prem than Jenkinson hasn't he?

Anyway, Bolton, having seen that, will know of Arsenal's desperation to buy. They also know they received a nice wad of cash for Fabregas and Nasri, who incidentally must've been breathing a sigh of relief they got out just in time. Bolton will surely crank the price for Cahill through the ceiling, as if the premium on buying young English talent wasn't high enough. Wouldn't surprise me if it was £25m or more.

[Cuchulainn]

Sunday was a good day

[Psychotic]

Ins: Jordan Henderson (£16m from Sunderland), Charlie Adam (£7million from Blackpool), Alex Doni (free from Roma), Stewart Downing (£20m from Aston Villa), Jose Enrique (£5million from Newcastle), Sebastian Coates (£7m from Nacional), Villyan Bijev (undiscl from California Odyssey, Craig Bellamy (free from Manchester City).

Outs: Paul Konchesky (£1.5m to Leicester City), Jason Banton, Deale Chamberlain, Douglas Cooper, Sean Highdale, Steven Irwin, Nikola Saric (all released), Stephen Darby (season loan to Rochdale), Gerardo Bruna (nominal to Blackpool), Peter Gulacsi (loan to Hull City), Martin Hansen (loan to Bradford), Milan Jovanovic (£700,000 to Anderlecht), Tom Ince (undiscl. to Blackpool), Daniel Ayala (undiscl. to Norwich), Nabil El Zhar (free to Levante), Sotirios Kyrgiakos (undiscl. to Wolfsburg), Dani Pacheco (loan to Atletico Madrid), Alberto Aquilani (loan to AC Milan), Emiliano Insua (undiscl. to Sporting Lisbon), Joe Cole (loan to Lille), Christian Poulsen (undiscl. to Evian), Villyan Bijev (loan to Fortuna Dusseldorf), David Ngog (£4million to Bolton), Philipp Degen (released), Raul Mereiles (£12million to Chelsea)

Possibly the best transfer window I have ever experienced as an LFC fan. Firstly, because of the outs. So much dross from the Hodgson and Benitez (yes I love Rafa, but his signings were 50-50 in terms of brilliant and diabolical!) eras have been cleared. In fact, with Raul gone that means every signing Hodgson made other than our third choice keeper is gone. I'm not thrilled about that one, and I sort of wish we still had Aquilani as he is a perfect replacement, but then again it's not like CM is an area LFC is particularly light in, with Gerrard, Adam, Henderson, Lucas, Spearing and Shelvey - I'd say we're still covered. Raul is kind of a hit-and-miss player. Sometimes he can be great, and other times he can really go missing. Given their past history with signing players from us (see; Torres, Benayoun) you would've thought Chelsea would've learned their lesson.

The signings have been great too. We may have paid over the odds for Downing and Henderson, but they're definitely decent players. We also got some very very good deals for the other signings we made. Doni and Bellamy are two very experienced individuals and to get them on frees is fantastic. I did not have a bad word to say about Bellamy when he was at LFC last time, always thought he wasn't given enough of a chance, glad he's back. Adam, Enrique and Coates are all good buys at the price. Coates especially. I read one article that said "Liverpool have signed twice the player Phil Jones is at half the price" May be a bit of hyperbole, but it's exciting. The media are making a big deal about how much money we're supposedly spending, but when you take into consideration the amount of money we've just slashed from the wage bill (£20m per year - most contracts are 3-5 years I think) that's where it's actually come from.

We haven't signed any world class superstars like Aguero, Mata etc. but what we have done is built a very nice squad with depth and options, something we haven't had in a long time. Now that this in place, hopefully we can get a CL spot which will give us both more money and pulling power to buy a couple more Suarezes. ...christ, random tangent but imagine a team of Suarezes. I think I just came.

After two seasons of dross (well, one and a half) I think we've finally got back to where we were 3-4 years ago.

edit: DEGEN GONE TOO! smurf YES. Today is awesome. He was the last one I wanted gone.

[Old Manus]

So, the Swans have signed a sub goalkeeper, and two nomark backup defenders, one costing £250,000, and the other beiing Federico frigging Bessone on a free transfer who left 2 years ago to go to League 1 Leeds because he is a League 1 standard player. He got released from smurfing LEEDS for not being good enough after leaving us for not being good enough. We're (SPOILER)even more screwed.

[Loony BoB]

I would say that Mereiles (or whatever) is a loss to Liverpool and denying it is silly, but then again, they signed Adam and Henderson and that's a net gain, especially since both have already been performing well. But Mereiles was still a very good player for you guys, I think your best player last season?

Everton, man, damn. They got boned. Not sure who had a worse transfer window, them or Swansea. Probably Everton.

[Psychotic]

Lucas was our player of the season last season, and if we'd lost him to Chelsea I would actually cry! I am not saying Raul's not a loss. Given the choice between keeping him or having £12m I would choose keeping him. Definitely would have liked Raul to stay and LFC are weaker without him. But it's not as much of a loss as losing, say, Maxi would be, given that we don't have a lot of cover out wide. My own view on him as a player, when he is on form, he is a pure maestro. The "When" isn't especially consistent. And I think Kenny agrees - he's been behind Adam and Henderson in the midfield pecking order this season.

[The Captain]

I would tend to agree with that. Once Gerrard comes back, which is only a week or so away, Raul would have been even further down on the bench. Basically, we now have a very solid starting 11 and can rotate through a midfield of Lucas, Stevie, Adam, Henderson, Downing, Maxi, Spearing and Shelvey with strikers being Suarez, Carroll, Kuty and Bellamy. The defense is also much stronger and I think Coates will be a big signing, especially since he cost half of what Cahill would have. Plus, we also get to bring up some more youth to compete for spots. Maybe Sterling, maybe Coady?

Most importantly, our books are getting streamlined which is big as we move away from the previous owners terrible mismanagement of the club. If we can progress in to the Top 4 this year and based on early returns fully think we can, we'll make even more moves come January and then beyond.

My ideal starting 11 now:

Reina
Kelly Carra Agger Enrique (With Coates, Skrtel, Johnson, Flannigan for backup)
Lucas Gerrard Adam (With Henderson, Maxi, Spearing and Shelvey for backup)
Kuyt Suarez Downing (With Carroll and Bellamy for backup)

I'd take that against any team in the Prem right now.

As for other moves:

Arsenal, eh, I guess they improved their team somewhat. But frankly why did it take this long? I still think they're team is lacking. Arteta can be good but he's so brittle and if goes down, who do they have after him? The defensive players were no-brainers frankly, but I think a lot of their issues are tactical and unless those get addressed, not even the best defenders in the world will matter.

Spurs, also eh. I don't see how they're going to stay in the Top 5 this season. With Van Der Vaart out for a while, they've lost their wildcard creative player. Modric is good but looks unsettled. Maybe he SHOULD have been sent to Chelsea. We'll see.

Man Utd, no surprise, made no big deadline deals and frankly, why should they? They look immense, though I do wonder if they should maybe shore up the defense a bit more, because Rio looks like he's done being an every week player and if they should lose Jones or Smalling, they'd be very weak there. Still, they remain the favorites.

Man City... I almost thought the Hargreaves move was a joke. In a way, it was as if Man City did it on a dare, could they actually sign a player without overpaying for him? If he's healthy... he could be useful, but will he ever be healthy again?

Which brings me to Chelsea. I'm frankly very confused by why they grabbed Raul at the deadline. It was my understanding that AVB wasn't the biggest fan of him when they were together in Porto. Now, they grab him so he can what, be an impact sub? For that amount of money? I get it that money isn't an issue with them but it seemed like an odd move. What they really need to do is sort out their strikers. Torres, God bless him, isn't the same player he used to be. Maybe they can try using Mata as a deep lying striker and use Lukaku until Drogba comes back, IF he comes back, up top but there's something about this team I don't really like at the moment. I still think they'll finish top 4 but something just seems off.

I think Stoke made some interesting moves, as did Sunderland and was happy to see the new clubs also trying to strengthen themselves but man, you have to feel for Everton. They are drowning in debt and lose probably their most creative midfielder and don't replace him. It's going to be a long year for that end of Merseyside. Wigan and Blackburn too have the look of teams that may be drowning quickly.

Revised season predictions:

Man City
Man Utd
Liverpool
Chelsea
Arsenal
Sunderland
Spurs
Wolves

Relegated: Wigan, Blackburn, Newcastle, QPR, Norwich (Any of these 5)

Take care all.

[Loony BoB]

Keep in mind that Obi Mikel and Ramires commonly start for Chelsea. Mereiles is not going to be an impact sub behind those two. If he is, that's ridiculous, because Ramires in particular is not close to Mereiles and Obi Mikel is just a go-to player when Essien isn't fit/playing well. Creativity was always the word being used for what Chelsea lacked, and with Mereiles and Mata, they've two players with more creativity than any of their initial midfielders. As for strikers, if you think you can say Torres won't come good, you're optimistic or bitter. If you think Anelka and Drogba aren't capable of 15 to 20 goals, I'd disagree. Lukaku and Sturridge are incredibly good for their age and I expect them both to be PL stalwarts for many years to come (have you seen Lukaku? It's insane when you think about him being so much bigger than most seasoned central defenders... and I'm talking about when he was just 16).

[Psychotic]

Well, he was behind Henderson and Adam!

[The Captain]

Chelsea's striker problem is essentially a game of musical chairs. Who exactly are the must starts? Does Drogba start when healthy? Does Torres? Does Anelka, does Sturridge, does Lukaku? The problem is they haven't yet found a partnership that works. It's a wonderful problem to have but until they settle it, they won't be as good as they can be or think they should be. At the other clubs with multiple strikers, there is a definite hierarchy:

Man Utd: Rooney, then Hernandez and Welbeck
Man City: Dzeko, Aguero then probably Tevez
Liverpool: Suarez, then Carroll and Kuyt
Arsenal: Van Persie, then pray.

But Chelsea don't have a defined Alpha Dog striker and until they figure out who that is, I think they'll be unsettled.

Their midfield too is the same way: you have Lampard, Malouda and Mata as the obvious starters, but they need a defensive player in there too. Man Utd have Anderson, Liverpool have Lucas, Man City have Yaya. Meireles isn't that. I really don't think he'd start over any of those three players and they need someone to play the DM position, which is why Obi Mikel, Ramires, Kalou and/or Essien play there. Meireles IS an impact sub player not a starter for them.

Take care all.