Premier League thread

[The Skipper 20,593]

Defensive is still their achilles heel, remains to be seen how Mangala adapts, but still..

Out of that backline 'including keepers', only Kompany would break into our side.

Agreed, but I was hinting more at their squad depth tbh. They have more than decent players in almost every position.

[The Skipper 20,593]

how many HG are there in their team anyway? English I spot Hart, Milner and Lamps, but any of those foreigners are HG?

They have Hart, Milner, Clichy, Sinclair and Lampard. 5 HG players. More than us which is quite funny.

[Reddish-Blue 2,223]

They have Hart, Milner, Clichy, Sinclair and Lampard. 5 HG players. More than us which is quite funny.

They also have Micah Richards and Boyata (belgian CB) as homegrown players..

Thats 7 HG players

[The Skipper 20,593]

They also have Micah Richards and Boyata (belgian CB) as homegrown players..

Thats 7 HG players

Forgot about Richards. Boyata I can see going though tbh, but yeah that's at least 6 HG players (Richards is club trained too). They're a lot better off than we are.

[King11Didier 916]

The difference is that we have a manager, but they don't.

[iseah100 5,612]

Very strong. I think we are more well rounded.

[Barbara 15,149]

I didn't mean it like that... I meant from those 22. They need to have five in those 22, they have only four

Their 'advantage' is having an English GK. I put it between quotes because Hart can be unpredictable for streaks. He isn't a top GL imo, there are tons better than him. Then they have a few English players in the bench and young prospects.

We have two English players starting for us as well as a homegrown, I wouldn't say they're better than us per say. If you count Victor Moses in the squad we'd have more than them, as Aké and Christensen have been promoted and Zouma - staying with us, will spend three years until he's 21 and therefore will count as HG in the future too.

[Magic Lamps 11,449]

We have:

----------Courtois----------

Azpi--JT-----Cahill--Luis

----------Matic----------

----Fab------Oscar-----

Willian--Costa-Hazard

---------Cech-------------

Iva--Zouma---Christensen-Ake (lets pray we will never have to play dat defense, maybe better buy another defender...)

----------MIkel-------------- (ugh)

----Rami----Van Ginkel

Schürrli--Drogba--Torres/Salah

imo in midfield and defense we are on par - maybe no in depth but surely in quality- with City. The problem and that is scaring me the most is that we have Costa as a striker but no one else with real quality. OK, drogba and Schürrle could help out but City won the league playing two strikers against the small teams, which IMO is the way to go against sides who can give you a hard day when having 11 men behind the ball. We don't really have the players or the variability to play a fluent 442.

[DYC. 7,542]

City still have the strongest squad, by far...

They wet their pants when they see this though..

[The Skipper 20,593]

I didn't mean it like that... I meant from those 22. They need to have five in those 22, they have only four

Actually, a team has to register 8 HG players in a squad of 25, hence why a team can only register 17 non-HG players. City have at least 6 if you include players that are not in either XI like Scott Sinclair or Micah Richards (7 if they want to include Boyata), so they're much better off than us. They can nearly fulfil the whole quota and have a near full squad of 25 (excluding u21 who don't have to be registered) whilst we only have a squad of 20 with 3 HG players in JT, Terry and Fabregas (4 if you include Moses who is very likely to be off anyway). Of course it doesn't really matter because Jose likes his squad to be a small number of around 20, and we can (for now) fill up the rest of the extra squad spaces with u21s who don't need to be registered, i.e. Zouma or Ake.

[Barbara 15,149]

We have:

----------Courtois----------

Azpi--JT-----Cahill--Luis

----------Matic----------

----Fab------Oscar-----

Willian--Costa-Hazard

---------Cech-------------

Iva--Zouma---Christensen-Ake (lets pray we will never have to play dat defense, maybe better buy another defender...)

----------MIkel-------------- (ugh)

----Rami----Van Ginkel

Schürrli--Drogba--Torres/Salah

imo in midfield and defense we are on par - maybe no in depth but surely in quality- with City. The problem and that is scaring me the most is that we have Costa as a striker but no one else with real quality. OK, drogba and Schürrle could help out but City won the league playing two strikers against the small teams, which IMO is the way to go against sides who can give you a hard day when having 11 men behind the ball. We don't really have the players or the variability to play a fluent 442.

We shouldn't need to play 4-4-2 to beat smaller sides. We need to work well in the attack. With the quality of our AMs and Costa, we should win without much trouble against the bottom half of the table. You don't need two strikers for that, you need to be clinical and dangerous, many teams manage to be that without two strikers.

But I, of course, agree we're very poor with our available backups for the striker position. It could be our Achilles heel, and could here is just me being nice, it probably will. I still can't believe this shit.

Actually, a team has to register 8 HG players in a squad of 25, hence why a team can only register 17 non-HG players. City have at least 6 if you include players that are not in either XI like Scott Sinclair or Micah Richards (7 if they want to include Boyata), so they're much better off than us. They can nearly fulfil the whole quota and have a near full squad of 25 (excluding u21 who don't have to be registered) whilst we only have a squad of 20 with 3 HG players in JT, Terry and Fabregas (4 if you include Moses who is very likely to be off anyway). Of course it doesn't really matter because Jose likes his squad to be a small number of around 20, and we can (for now) fill up the rest of the extra squad spaces with u21s who don't need to be registered, i.e. Zouma or Ake.

my point remains the same. That picture has 22 players, at most 17 can be non-HG and as you guys counted only four it means one of them has to be off.

Also their HG players aren't that great, so instead of strengthening their team with HG players (like we did with Fabregas for example, already having two first team players), they're just filling their quota to complete 25 - which we're also doing, but I believe our HG core to be stronger than theirs, which means we can have even stronger non=HG. We have three first team players, while they have barely two (as I said I don't consider Hart that great and Clichy ma not even start for them). so in order for them to accommodate those players you're mentioning and that aren't even in those 22 pics, they'll have to let go of at least one of those non-HG players. Also if Lamps leaves in January, they'll have to let go of another or bring a HG replacement for Lamps, because I don't believe it's possible to continue to have him counting as HG after the winter window when he's going to be gone

[Magic Lamps 11,449]

We shouldn't need to play 4-4-2 to beat smaller sides. We need to work well in the attack. With the quality of our AMs and Costa, we should win without much trouble against the bottom half of the table. You don't need two strikers for that, you need to be clinical and dangerous, many teams manage to be that without two strikers.

But I, of course, agree we're very poor with our available backups for the striker position. It could be our Achilles heel, and could here is just me being nice, it probably will. I still can't believe this shit.

IMO every team needs a plan B. And playing two strikers is defo a viable plan b against stubborn and pressing sides.Skipping the midfield battle and playing some old school power football will not only help us against the bottom half but also against aspirants like swansea, southampton or everton. Anyway we would all feel more comfortable with at least another quality striker.

[Namika 922]

If Costa get injured, we can still put André or even Cesc striker.

[Barbara 15,149]

If Costa get injured, we can still put André or even Cesc striker.

still not enough to compete for titles.

We need a new striker... God could make some miracle for Torres leave this club this window. Even if he stays, we should get another striker and work with 4. Bring an English or HG - such as Jay Rodriguez - so we don't need to offload yet another non-HG.

Splash some money on Saints, their owner the Catharina woman wants to make as much money off of the team as possible. We have the money to splash

Does anyone know what's the status of Sturridge's contract? Maybe when he realizes he won't win fuck at Liverpool we could buy him back a couple of seasons down the road - if Liverpool accepts the money, that is. I wish there were release clauses in England in times like these

[The Chels 2,502]

The only way I see us getting a new striker is if Costa gets injured before the transfer window closes. After all the striker complaints from fans and manager last year it's unbelievable to think we're one injury/spell of bad form away from the same thing. Meanwhile City have 4 strikers, all of which are better than our 2nd and 3rd choice.

[Barbara 15,149]

should have loaned Oriol and a bunch to Saints in exchange of buying Jay Rodriguez.

That way they wouldn't spend much money in rebuilding their team and we would have a decent (far from brilliant but decent) HG striker. we could have sent Oriol, Marko - if anyone even wants him - Moses, Atsu and who else they wanted from our U-21. All those kids would get EPL experience in a good club, Saints would have saved their rich little money (and make some more from Rodriguez) and in a year or two they could even have bought a couple of them (if we saw fitting). Even PIazon and Bertrand could have made part of the package if we have thought about it before. Except for two matches they play us, they could have had a few guys to replace theirs. Everyone would be happy and Mourinho could keep his three other strikers, as Jay counts in the 8 players from the 25 squad.

Damn it.

[zolayes 14,489]

should have loaned Oriol and a few bunch to Saints in exchange of buying Jay Rodriguez.

That way they wouldn't spend much money in rebuilding their team and we would have a decent (far from brilliant but decent) HG striker. we could have sent Oriol, Marko - if anyone even wants him - Moses, Atsu and who else they wanted from our U-21. All those kids would get EPL experience in a good club, Saints would have saved their rich little money (and make some more from Rodriguez) and in a year or two they could even have bought a couple of them (if we saw fitting). Even PIazon and Bertrand could have made part of the package if we have thought about it before. Except for two matches they play us, they could have had a few guys to replace theirs. Everyone would be happy and Mourinho could keep his three other strikers, as Jay counts in the 8 players from the 25 squad.

Damn it.

PL clubs only allowed one loan from another PL club

[The Skipper 20,593]

should have loaned Oriol and a few bunch to Saints in exchange of buying Jay Rodriguez.

That way they wouldn't spend much money in rebuilding their team and we would have a decent (far from brilliant but decent) HG striker. we could have sent Oriol, Marko - if anyone even wants him - Moses, Atsu and who else they wanted from our U-21. All those kids would get EPL experience in a good club, Saints would have saved their rich little money (and make some more from Rodriguez) and in a year or two they could even have bought a couple of them (if we saw fitting). Even PIazon and Bertrand could have made part of the package if we have thought about it before. Except for two matches they play us, they could have had a few guys to replace theirs. Everyone would be happy and Mourinho could keep his three other strikers, as Jay counts in the 8 players from the 25 squad.

Damn it.

Southampton can spend lavishly, not only have they sold excellently, they also have a billionaire owner. They can get much better players than our u21s.

Edit (not to you specifically but to those who think Soton are struggling) - plus add to the fact that they've already replaced Lallana and Lambert with two equally as good players in Tadic and Pelle. They really won't struggle as much as people are saying they will. Bertrand is an ok replacement for Shaw, Clyne is still there so Chambers doesn't need to be replaced... That's pretty much 4/5 players replaced - they're fine.