Any reasonable offer accepted

[Academica]

Gotta love these knee jerk reactions and people thinking that we can get rid of the "rubbish" and have a squad of 25 "world-class" players who would all be happy. We were playing most of our second string last night and we won 4-2. Not a bad evening and winning in the CL with a second string is something we couldn't have achieved even a couple of years ago.(albeit against weaker opposition)

Not many were complaining about Lescott when we won the league. Playing with a new partner is gonna affect the understanding. Talking about the new partner, Demichelis is often a headless chicken, switches off too many times and too happy to over-commit himself at the wrong time - but no one mentions him (yet!).

Milner, don't be daft, quality squad player who can fill in all over the pitch. Yeah he wasn't great last night, but still 100% effort.

Kolarov, again gets lambasted as soon as he has an average game, however he wasn't given too much protection in the first half by Nasri when VP were attacking us in numbers. A month ago most fans would have had an in-form Kolarov in ahead of a really underperforming Clichy.

The rags never won all their trophies with a squad of world superstars, they backed up their Giggs, Beckhams, Ferdinands, Keanes etc with the likes of Butt, Brown, O'Shea, Solskjaer etc...players just above average and happy to operate in a successful club within a rotation.

Got to agree Milner is really versatile and can run about aimlessly in several different positions.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

Gotta love these knee jerk reactions and people thinking that we can get rid of the "rubbish" and have a squad of 25 "world-class" players who would all be happy. We were playing most of our second string last night and we won 4-2. Not a bad evening and winning in the CL with a second string is something we couldn't have achieved even a couple of years ago.(albeit against weaker opposition)

Not many were complaining about Lescott when we won the league. Playing with a new partner is gonna affect the understanding. Talking about the new partner, Demichelis is often a headless chicken, switches off too many times and too happy to over-commit himself at the wrong time - but no one mentions him (yet!).

Milner, don't be daft, quality squad player who can fill in all over the pitch. Yeah he wasn't great last night, but still 100% effort.

Kolarov, again gets lambasted as soon as he has an average game, however he wasn't given too much protection in the first half by Nasri when VP were attacking us in numbers. A month ago most fans would have had an in-form Kolarov in ahead of a really underperforming Clichy.

The rags never won all their trophies with a squad of world superstars, they backed up their Giggs, Beckhams, Ferdinands, Keanes etc with the likes of Butt, Brown, O'Shea, Solskjaer etc...players just above average and happy to operate in a successful club within a rotation.

I agree with every point on this post except the Kolorov one. He's been consistently poor defensively since he arrived.

But your last point is the most pertinent. Our reserve back four and reserve holding midfielder flapped around. Big deal.

 

[Bozzie]

I think you have to remember that there is a massive difference between "squad" players coming in to cover injuries and games like last night. Last night was all about resting players and about giving squad players some game time because we had already achieved our objective. Therefore you end up making a lot of changes, was it 4 who started Sunday started last night, with the inevitable lack of cohesion between players who don't play regularly enough, let alone regularly enough together in a match day situation.
That said, there are some players who it would benefit both them and the club if they moved on, Scott Sinclair is never going to feature in a a City team again, Garcia and Kolorov simply aren't good enough to play for us now and Edin looks like he'd rather be anywhere but where he is whenever he plays. Micah and James Milner are, in my opinion, both good squad players but ironically they may well be the ones (with Dzeko) who feel the most need to leave in January, particularly Milner who must see his England place threatened by Townsend and the other youngsters coming through.

 

[jay_mcfc]

The problem is playing them all at the same time. Most of them are backups and should hopefully never play with more than 2/3 of them at once. Yesterday proved that.

It's not a bad squad though, when you can field that lot as backups.

 

[tolmie's hairdoo]

£3.50?

That's just for Milner though - the rest aren't worth a fart.

 

[FromPollockToSilva]

Any ideas on what players we should bring in to replace the ones afore mentioned? Its easy to say to get rid of these players, but who would be suitable replacements? I agree that some strengthening is required but i hope we dont "panic" buy in january and buy the wrong players.

I'd replace 3

Garcia -> Illarramendi from Sociedad.. Quality player.
Dzeko -> Just Sell and use a 4 of Negredo, Aguero, Jovetic and Guidetti
Kolarov -> Shaw from Southampton or if we could coax Coentrao from Madrid, he is well suited to the Premier League

Illarramendi moved to Real Madrid for €32M in the summer.

 

[Newtoncc]

The problem is playing them all at the same time. Most of them are backups and should hopefully never play with more than 2/3 of them at once. Yesterday proved that.

It's not a bad squad though, when you can field that lot as backups.

Agree, similar to Capital cup game against Newcastle, when you put all these in together they do look below par, however put a couple in with the A team and they don't look so bad, think this applies to most clubs who rotate.

Big issue for me is if we get rid based on them being back up or squad players how do you attract better quality players, especially in January, given that the players being brought in could end up fringe players too(money being the obvious answer).

Could do with Jovetic back as he would make a big difference in these type of games.

 

[Nelly's Left Foot]

It's not easy to assemble a squad of top top players and then keep them happy through the season and more. Maybe it can be done with 16 or 17 but in a squad of 24 or so it is inevitable and essential that some are either a) young and up and coming b) older at the end of a career c) just good solid pros who can play in a variety of roles.

What we are currently missing is the first category.Just not enough young lads who are ready for the step up.Maybe a few close like Lopes,Guidetti,Rekik,Denayer or even Pozo but not really able to handle premiership football. Yet.

We have a couple in category b like Demechelis and maybe Lescott but even with Joleon( as with Barry) they are driven enough to want to play regularly and therefore look elsewhere.

Category c I guess is Milner,Rodwell and in theory Garcia but I can't think of others. I think Milner usually does a great job for us but Garcia clearly does not.Rodwell could well be a quality player but just can't stay fit.

With all the rest it's about keeping them happy with enough games through rotation.Dzeko for one struggles with that and when he does play you might expect extra effort but it doesn't work like that.When Jovetic gets fit we will see some real competition as I expect him to be real quality and fighting hard to play against Silva and Nasri but at the moment he would be on the bench as those 2 are really playing well.

 

[FromPollockToSilva]

Most of these players have performed well this season when a) played in their proper positions and b) played with the first-team and not each other.

Kolarov was excellent against the rags because the rest of the team were first-teamers. Similarly, Garcia was good at Chelsea because he was played in his proper position and surrounded by first-team players. Playing a lot of second-choice players together brings all kinds of problems regarding cohesion as well as the rustiness of the individuals themselves.

The only big problem I think is Dzeko, because of his attitude rather than his ability. The lack of celebration last night, after sulking around the pitch for 90 minutes, suggests to me that we need him out of the dressing room as soon as possible. If he thinks games like last night's are beneath him, instead of an opportunity to stake a claim for a place in the first team, then he's beyond hope.

 

[cleavers]

We can carry the odd one or maybe even two when surrounded by 10/11 of our regular first team players but cannot accommodate 6 in one match. None of them are at the right level to be regular starters in my opinion and when put together they collectively look very average.

Which is why they are back up players, and why we look average when several play at once. Its not they are bad players, in fact all are pretty good players, but they aren't good enough to play the high tempo, quick passing, game that MP wants to play, they all need too much time on the ball, and aren't good enough passing under pressure. One or two at a time, and we'll be fine, and one or two may even develop it given practise. Unfortunately we do have to have back up players, and its unlikely we will be able to bring in much better players who will be willing to spend a great deal of time on the bench. Milner is another one, great lad that he is, but he looks too slow to play at the tempo we want to use, he can pass, but not so well if under pressure.

What he did at Sunderland changing three of the four defenders when he only had to change one contributed to us losing that match and this has got to stop going forward.

For me going forward, our strongest 11 play unless someone is out through injury. Rotating for the sake of rotating could cost us.

At Sunderland it wasn't just changing the defenders that was the error, we'd also lost Fernandihno as well, the so it was actually 4 of 5 defensive players changed, and that in front of a keeper who isn't regular. Its little wonder our defence is struggling if we keep making changes to it like this.