Micah Richards must stay

[tolmie's hairdoo]

Richards is a poor footballer, always has been.

Positionally and tactically. Only last season there was a piece with Neil Warnock, then at Palace, saying to Victor Moses that Richards was garbage.

If that's the opinion of a two-bob, what do you think Wenger and Ferguson tell their much better players?

As others have stated, you only have to cite Richards, to see why England are a disaster.

Physical attributes, but nothing else. Over-developed and over-hyped.

 

[the talisman]

Like the earlier poster says he is a by-product of poor scouting where being an athlete sems to outweigh any footballing ability. Being big and strong is a great asset when combined with skill ( like Viera was in his prime ) but surely it's better to have players who have good ability and improve their fitness rather than athletes and try to somehow find some skill that's not natural to them. Otherwise why don't we just go and sign the first 10 finishers in the olympics 100m finals and try and teach them how to pass and shoot!
Can't wait to Usain Bolt in a blue shirt!

left back?

 

[alera]

According to reports, Bellamy, SWP, Nedum, Richards, Ireland are all going this summer along with the expected (Robinho, Jo, Garrido, Caicedo etc etc etc).

The only thing is we dont want to sell Bellamy and the like to Spurs or teams we are competing with which makes it hard. If its true I dont know.

TBH I have mixed feelings, Bellamy should be kept for the last year of his contract IMO, hes 31 but his goals and assists could still win us something and help us get into the champions league. It would be high risk to let him go to spurs. £6 million well its alot of money to most clubs but our owners seems to have different ideas and are more interested in gettting into the champions league and winning things at the moment.

As for the others Meh I like them because they are home grown and part of me wants them all to stay, but even under Hughes who they all loved apprently they were getting a nose bleed once we were pushing on into the top 6.

Its a hard one. Richards looked like he was going to be world class a couple of years ago but he just has not come on at all. In fact hes gone backwards. His attitude is all wrong we gave these players big deals and it seems to have ruined them, they dont seem to have the desire and hunger to improve themselves and step up to the top level we want to be at.

One story I heard summed it up for me.

When Viera joined us last season he watched Richards training, afterwards he said to him were do you see yourself in 3 seasons ? What do you want out of your career ?

Richards gave the standard answer "Hope I`m still at city winning trophies playing in Champions league etc etc..."

Vieras answer "If thats the case why are you the last player on the training pitch and the first one off it ?"

Viera went up alot in my estimations when I heard that. My gut feeling, lots of fans favourites are going to leave this summer, I would like to keep most of them for the ride, I still think its high risk letting so many established players go all at once and replacing them with unproven prem players (As good as they are)

I think that if I am honest most of those with the exception of Bellamy are not champions league quality now and its debateable if they ever will be, the harsh reality is if we want better than 5 / 6th every season we are going to need better players even as cover really.

 

[Fat Chance]

Whats he got the potential to do, repeat his performance in the 1-0 derby win. Truth is all that caper with him was last gasp tackle and it being that lot we were ever so grateful. Down reality St. you've got to ask yourself why last gasp all the time? if your roundabout the correct position then the drama is not so great but with Micah it always was and he liked it the boy, got himself half pissed on it, was willing to give an opponent a slight head start in order to repeat his charge down. Just one little problem for the egotistical prick, allowing an opponent an edge in a running game cause your faster can easilly prove to be cheque-mate for a defender...the absolute numbest of coaches are versed to this. He gave Vincent the big chest after being relocated at fullback and with VK playing an obvious stormer in his old position. He did this whilst the game was live...so you'd not have to be the best guesser in the world to ascertain what he was thinking...i'm not into Freddie Parrot impressions but i'll repeat meself 'he did this whilst the game was live'....i never realised his team development skills were that advanced. He's shit, got fear in his feet cause he knows it. I suppose he'll always cause a bit of debate with folk keen to rate him so highly, so early. All that said..his feet together forward dive is a fantastic advert for the club...will be intresting to see who is willing to chuck some mullers at him.

 

[terry_phealens_mum]

they are running micahs diary on the offical site must be a sign hes staying put

 

[BlumerMooner]

problem with Richards is hes too busy thinking about how he looks - needs his head sorting and totally commit to the cause or fook off.

 

[MadchesterCity]

I'm not surprised but dissapointed on the opinions of many about Micah.

 

[BLUEMOONBAZ]

Problem is el hombre.. he spent to much time buking other things instead of his idea,s.. big time charlie now and inho a liability , rather keep nedum .He had enough chances ,these guys can only keep playing the acadamy product card so many times..move on i say

Yes I know he's a big time charlie now and a liability but people grow up and mature and when he does he could be a great asset for us. The question is will he mature soon enough before we give up on him and sell him or will he even mature enough at all?

He's only just turned 22 so I think he's worth persisting with for a little longer yet

Well thats a fair point m8 and i suppose he is young and maybe with bobby ,s no messing approach and some more experienced players he may turn it round ,but i think if a decent offer comes in he,ll be gone. And to be honest i think he needs a championship wake up call ..maybe on loan or if we sell make sure he has a sell on clause , but move him on is my take on it

 

[ono]

He's very average imo. Know a lot of people who played with him at Junior Level at Farsely Celtic when we was around 13 (i think) and back then he was average, but he was much bigger and faster than everyone else in the team so he got noticed. His footballing ability was pretty average, much like it is today. Problem is, he longer has the physical advantages at senior level as opponents know how to play against it, and they higher we go (Champions League) the more obvious this will become.


Whether or not he can be moulded into a good player is a different matter. He might have enough to work with and be successful at a top club, but the chances are, he won't imo. When all is said and done, he doesn't have much footballing ability to fall back on. However, i do understand that great teams are rarely made up of 11 great footballers, so maybe Bobby will see enough in him to try and turn him into a top player.

Without trying to sound too harsh, Micah Richards is a by-product of a scouting system that consistently fails the 'footballers' out there. Same can be applied for plenty of players in and around the England set-up. Then every 2 years we wonder why England fail so miserably on the world stage.

This is why to me he's a CB. He was never going to be a footballing defender, from day one you can see that, but its better to have one of each at CB anyway. In England like or not you are going to need a strong CB or you are going to get bullied at Bolton, Stoke, blackburn etc. Arsenals 'footballing' CB's are proof of that.

Englands problem's are something else and if SWP made it through it dis-proves your theory as he is tiny and has made it to the highest level. Your post makes it sound like there is a Xavi and Iniesta doing kick ups in a field on their own, because scouts told them they were too small or slow.

Not true, if those players were English they would have made it through the ranks, just like Joe Cole did and Wilshire is now.

Agree about CB thing, always thought that.

Disagree about the England problem. Xavi and Iniesta would struggle to get noticed in the first place in England. They'd spend the majority of the season with stiff necks from watching the ball fly over their heads. 3 players making it doesn't do anything to disprove my theory as we don't know how many better players haven't made it. In any case SWP, like Lennon and Walcott is exceptionally fast, which again is something which stands out at Junior level.

There's no genetic reasoning behind England not being able to produce technically gifted players. Watching the World Cup was embarrassing because even the lower ranked teams such as South Korea had much better collective technical ability than England. I can only make the assumption that the technically great players are getting lost somewhere in the hustle and bustle of wet and windy junior and amateur football.

 

[PistonBlue]

I'm not surprised but dissapointed on the opinions of many about Micah.

That's a strange thing to say. What do you mean?

It sounds like you're not surprised because you agree with many of the doubts about Micah's ability, but that you think we should make allowances because he came through the academy.