Bottomless_Sailor said:
Tron Coltrane said:
Hah... I was just saying that we had something that works great, homie. And I'm not in a hurry to trade something that works great for a chance that something might work great. Best case scenario you break even. As to the other points though...
I can tell you Premiership players who are great -- who had already played in the Premiership -- by suggesting that you can always elect to let another club roll the dice of trying a foreign defender and wait to sign the ones who pan out. Not suggesting that's how to do our business or save money, just answering your riddle with the word "Premiership" in it a lot.
I would imagine that Pellegrini played Clichy against more robust attacks because he's more conservative.
As far as Moreno's flaws, I only caught three games last year. His main flaw seemed to be people dribbling past him a whole bunch though.
All of this by way of saying I agreed with the guy who said the grass is always greener. I think our backyard is nicer than the one a lot of people are coveting. That's it. No worries if you believe otherwise, I just chose to reply because you seemed shocked that someone might have the temerity to disagree.
But doesn't dropping Kolarov for the big games say it all? Usually a manager has an obvious first choice back 5, but that our left back position keeps being rotated suggests that we do not have the solid all-round left back that we deserve yet.
And how do we think the grass is always greener? Is everyone also clamouring for the sale of Kompany/Aguero/Silva/etc?
This is it for me, man. I feel like it's gone a bit Monitor & Merrimack between us at this point, and I'm not sure I'm going to change your mind. Plus I feel like anyone in his good mind has stopped reading our posts now, which isn't much good to a public forum. Here are my exit thoughts:
Rotating fullbacks is essential. They can't play two 90 minute games a week the way we play. The fact that Zabaleta did it is a commentary on what was wrong at RB rather than a sign of something being wrong on the left. As for him not being trusted in critical games, he started the following (among others): Man U. (A), CSKA Moscow (A), Bayern Munich (A), Liverpool (H), Chelsea (H), and Barcelona (A). I think the idea that Pellegrini doesn't trust him in big games is a bit disingenuous. We just have two different style LB's, and Pelle has the luxury of picking horses for courses.
As for the grass always being greener, I think it was a commentary on this syndrome occurring every summer, not occurring with every player. Of course people aren't clamoring to trade in Silva & Aguero just because Messi and Ronaldo are out there.
At the end of the day, though, here's my main point: the best players in the world are gambles. You find the best LB in all of Europe and what you're buying is an 80% chance that it works out (that's an arbitrary number used for an example, before you get stuck on that). There is no such thing as buying a sure thing. Everyone was crying out for Cavani, and he had a decent season with 20 goals, but he was a shadow of the player they thought they were buying at that price (didn't help that it was a position they didn't need to fill). If you don't like the Cavani example, fine: Ozil cost £40m and got slagged off by his own fans for a disastrous dip in form throughout the second half of the campaign.
Every transfer is a gamble. So when you want to trade away something that isn't a gamble -- something that worked just fine last season -- it strikes me as crazy. He is literally a free signing the second he puts pen to paper on a contract extension, in a summer where our spending it very specifically limited. He's best friends with three of our senior players. And he's great. He led the league in assists for defenders. You know how many Moreno provided in La Liga last season? Zero. He's also improved drastically on defensive marking, and I've seen people flying past Alberto in the games I've watched.
So I'd rather keep what we've got. Doesn't sound like I'm going to change your mind, though, and I'm pretty sure you're not changing mine on this one. So maybe we can leave the thread to people who have transfer updates on him. Desperately hope he stays. What can I say, I've grown to love the Serbian Hammer.
