How do you replace a guy that hardly ever started?LoveCity said:Musacchio is about the only one I'd consider from Villarreal, maybe Valero to fill the vacant deep-lying midfielder role and replace Pizarro but would prefer Benat from Betis for a cheap regista signing. Rossi is a good striker but after back to back horror injuries could be a shadow of what he was. But Musacchio has the potential to be a world beater with the right coaching, he is very young and from the River Plate youth system.
pudge said:How do you replace a guy that hardly ever started?LoveCity said:Musacchio is about the only one I'd consider from Villarreal, maybe Valero to fill the vacant deep-lying midfielder role and replace Pizarro but would prefer Benat from Betis for a cheap regista signing. Rossi is a good striker but after back to back horror injuries could be a shadow of what he was. But Musacchio has the potential to be a world beater with the right coaching, he is very young and from the River Plate youth system.
Maybe I should rephrase it, Why would you replace a guy that hardly ever started?LoveCity said:pudge said:How do you replace a guy that hardly ever started?LoveCity said:Musacchio is about the only one I'd consider from Villarreal, maybe Valero to fill the vacant deep-lying midfielder role and replace Pizarro but would prefer Benat from Betis for a cheap regista signing. Rossi is a good striker but after back to back horror injuries could be a shadow of what he was. But Musacchio has the potential to be a world beater with the right coaching, he is very young and from the River Plate youth system.
By having someone else fill his role as a squad player?
benat or valero would both be good squad playersLoveCity said:pudge said:How do you replace a guy that hardly ever started?LoveCity said:Musacchio is about the only one I'd consider from Villarreal, maybe Valero to fill the vacant deep-lying midfielder role and replace Pizarro but would prefer Benat from Betis for a cheap regista signing. Rossi is a good striker but after back to back horror injuries could be a shadow of what he was. But Musacchio has the potential to be a world beater with the right coaching, he is very young and from the River Plate youth system.
By having someone else fill his role as a squad player?
pudge said:Maybe I should rephrase it, Why would you replace a guy that hardly ever started?
Tells me that it's not really a priority
If it was an area of such need then he could possibly have gotten better than Pizarro, who once again, didn't start very often.LoveCity said:pudge said:Maybe I should rephrase it, Why would you replace a guy that hardly ever started?
Tells me that it's not really a priority
Because Pizarro plays a specialist position that nearly every top squad has or has had, a position Mancini obviously wanted someone for or else why bother signing Pizarro? Valero and Benat are good but low profile players for the role, assuming Mancini doesn't want a deep-lying playmaker starting regularly (if he did then someone like Sahin would be more ideal). Players of this mold have been so important for top clubs over the years - Scholes, Xavi, Alonso, Pirlo. We have no one who can pick out an inch perfect pass from the halfway line and often seem stagnant in midfield because of it when teams set up narrowly with 10 behind the ball... especially in away matches where our inability to break down teams nearly cost us the league and it's only going to get worse next season with teams playing negatively.
pudge said:If it was an area of such need then he could possibly have gotten better than Pizarro, who once again, didn't start very often.
Perhaps Bobby was trying to make a point to the board by signing a 30+ year old player on loan?
I agree that we need someone to help us break stubborn teams down, it's just too many times I've heard things like "we need another Pizarro" (I know you didn't say it, I'm not having a go at you) while he was mostly a bench player and disappeared into games that he started.LoveCity said:pudge said:If it was an area of such need then he could possibly have gotten better than Pizarro, who once again, didn't start very often.
Perhaps Bobby was trying to make a point to the board by signing a 30+ year old player on loan?
Pizarro was a part of Mancini's Inter team that won Serie A so I doubt he brought him in just to spite Marwood, who wouldn't go balls out for De Rossi or anyone else in January. I'm sure there were midfielders he would have preferred to Pizarro like DDR (who also has a good passing range from midfield) but the purse strings were again tightened.
I think we need squad players who offer unique characteristics. If we are 0-0 away at Everton (using them as an example as they are negative bastards who we never beat away) who have 10 men behind the ball, what can Milner and De Jong bring that Nasri and Yaya already can't? But a player like Benat and/or a better winger than Johnson would offer something different, something that would give us other ways to try and get past them and also in the winger's case force Everton to play less narrow, creating more space in the middle where our play is so heavily based.