Today is election day, this will shape the world for the next few years. So glad Obama is going to become the next president of the US.
Anyways, Manchester United this season. Has been a slow start without Ronaldo. Also with Berbatov coming late we lacked some firepower early in the season. Fletcher was the only scorer after 3 games if i'm not correct.
Berbatov looked a bit out of it in the first few games, glimpses of brilliance, but not for more then 5 mins. Thank god we got out of that period relatively intact. 10 games in, we are sitting 3rd. 5 points behind Chelsea & Liverpool with a game in hand.
From when we bought Berbatov I always said we need to have 2/3 strikers (rooney, tevez, berba) playing at a time. We CANNOT play all 3. Unfortunately SAF did not agree and tried to play all 3 initially. Since then he has stopped doing that, sacrificing Tevez. This must be done. Furthermore, there is no reason y Berba cannot start on the bench. Rotation!
We have a great squad, there are many good headaches to have. The RB situation is a good example. Infact Fabio (the LB twin) is supposed to be better then Rafael (the RB). I look forward to his battle with evra. Although, Evra is damn good. Can't see him taking over save a major injury. I was not impressed with Neville last time i saw hime play. Would love to see these 18 yos taking over.
Also the other young Brazillian coming through the midfield (appart from Anderson), Possebon (or something). Really great passer of the ball. Love to see more of him!
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Olyroos Round Up
Overall a very disappointing campaign by our Olyroos. The illusion of being one win away from getting to the quarterfinals might entice some to say that we did ok, but not this punter.
Considering the creative play that this team showed in qualifying, none of that was on display in the Olympics. I believe we should not go into youth competitions in a negative defensive mind frame.
Youth competitions are a scouting goldmine, and what scout would give a crap about a team that scores only 1 goal. I say go for broke. If you set up to defend, not only will the attack suffer, but the defenders will suffer, conceding only 1 goal from Argentina becomes a team effort, not the good work of a couple of key defenders.
I can understand hesitation and safety in qualification, but when your goal is reached, go for broke. Realistically we were never going to medal here.
Overall Best Player: David Carney. I really hope he gets a run in the Premier League soon. Interestingly he was more of an attacking threat as the RB compared to RM, probably because he had more room to work with.
Most Promising Talent: Matthew Špiranović. What can i say about this kid, just turned 20 and dare I say it, future captain of Australia. He made the best run of any of our players, running past at least 3 Serbian players and putting a shot on goal .... as centre back. His most effective position is DM, and he is much loved by the Nuremberg supporters. Nuremberg were relegated from the Bundesliga so hopefully he gets back to playing top level competitive football soon.
I can't escape saying something about not having Burns and Djite there. SO STUPID!!! Would have guaranteed more goals for sure.
Edit: Found two great articles written by Craig Foster and Les Murray. I really respect these guys and they agree with me entirely (no surprises). FFA have come out to defend Arnold, bloody hell when will it (his career as an Australian coach) end!
Considering the creative play that this team showed in qualifying, none of that was on display in the Olympics. I believe we should not go into youth competitions in a negative defensive mind frame.
Youth competitions are a scouting goldmine, and what scout would give a crap about a team that scores only 1 goal. I say go for broke. If you set up to defend, not only will the attack suffer, but the defenders will suffer, conceding only 1 goal from Argentina becomes a team effort, not the good work of a couple of key defenders.
I can understand hesitation and safety in qualification, but when your goal is reached, go for broke. Realistically we were never going to medal here.
Overall Best Player: David Carney. I really hope he gets a run in the Premier League soon. Interestingly he was more of an attacking threat as the RB compared to RM, probably because he had more room to work with.
Most Promising Talent: Matthew Špiranović. What can i say about this kid, just turned 20 and dare I say it, future captain of Australia. He made the best run of any of our players, running past at least 3 Serbian players and putting a shot on goal .... as centre back. His most effective position is DM, and he is much loved by the Nuremberg supporters. Nuremberg were relegated from the Bundesliga so hopefully he gets back to playing top level competitive football soon.
I can't escape saying something about not having Burns and Djite there. SO STUPID!!! Would have guaranteed more goals for sure.
Edit: Found two great articles written by Craig Foster and Les Murray. I really respect these guys and they agree with me entirely (no surprises). FFA have come out to defend Arnold, bloody hell when will it (his career as an Australian coach) end!
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Graham Arnold you are an idiot!
title says it all really. what kind of person would not chose burns and djite for the olyroo team?
he has stacked his team with defenders, which is fair enough, we are ranked 15 out of the 16 teams after all.
Even so with the resources disposed to him he has decided to play 3 defenders as midfielders. Milligan as a defensive CM, Carney as LM & Zadkovich as RM. Even with the team he chose, which is not the team i would have chose, you should play Milligan at CB and Spiranovic at CM. Spiranovic actually plays for Nurenberg as a CM and they love him, they think he's great. And you can tell by his solo run late in the first half that he would be quite the attacking threat. Milligan however is useless in that position, he plays it like a CB, comes back to clear, but offers nothing going forward. In fact playing him alongside Musialik, a natrual DM, is too defensive. They cannot make the passes to give it to our forwards and we end up depending on the CBs to bomb it up.
I would have djite playing forward, and Archie playing behind him. I would play Burns on the right and push Zadkovich to right back. On the other side is ok, carney offers enough going forward. milligan and north at the back, and spiranovic in the middle. Maybe Musialik if i was feeling defensive, but sarkies if i wanted to attack.
Troisi and bridge are guys that i would be looking to bring on. so frustrating watching this defensive team, this is not how we played to get into the olympics and it's not good to watch!
i've written this as we are finishing the first half, and if they win then i will eat my words!
who is this idiot that they are playing up front anyway? anyone heard of him!?
EDIT just seeing on wiki that we've already played. wonder how the other games will go.
he has stacked his team with defenders, which is fair enough, we are ranked 15 out of the 16 teams after all.
Even so with the resources disposed to him he has decided to play 3 defenders as midfielders. Milligan as a defensive CM, Carney as LM & Zadkovich as RM. Even with the team he chose, which is not the team i would have chose, you should play Milligan at CB and Spiranovic at CM. Spiranovic actually plays for Nurenberg as a CM and they love him, they think he's great. And you can tell by his solo run late in the first half that he would be quite the attacking threat. Milligan however is useless in that position, he plays it like a CB, comes back to clear, but offers nothing going forward. In fact playing him alongside Musialik, a natrual DM, is too defensive. They cannot make the passes to give it to our forwards and we end up depending on the CBs to bomb it up.
I would have djite playing forward, and Archie playing behind him. I would play Burns on the right and push Zadkovich to right back. On the other side is ok, carney offers enough going forward. milligan and north at the back, and spiranovic in the middle. Maybe Musialik if i was feeling defensive, but sarkies if i wanted to attack.
Troisi and bridge are guys that i would be looking to bring on. so frustrating watching this defensive team, this is not how we played to get into the olympics and it's not good to watch!
i've written this as we are finishing the first half, and if they win then i will eat my words!
who is this idiot that they are playing up front anyway? anyone heard of him!?
EDIT just seeing on wiki that we've already played. wonder how the other games will go.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Player Ratings
forgot to add this to my post match r/v
it will be 5 star system:
1 star = very poor
2 stars = poor
3 stars = did a job
4 stars = good
5 stars = extremely good
van der sar (gk): 3 stars
did a job, nothing spectacular. saved 1/7 penalties, turned out to be the winning save. looked shaky with corners and a few poor clearances. I love the winning save how he pointed to his left goal post and dived right! hilarious, putting that one more doubt in anelka's head probably did a little bit.
brown (rb): 4 stars
sure he put the cross in for the goal, but it was scholes' flick that made space for him, and it was ronaldo that beat essien for that goal. attacking wise he was fair, but defensively he was huge. malouda did nothing!
vidic (cb): 4 stars
huge, monster of a player. i love the guy. absolutely crushed drogba, mentally and physically.
ferdinand (cb): 4 stars
good game for him. together with vidic nullified the attacking threat of drogba. intersting that he got away with fly kicking joe cole in the head. i think if cole had of gone down maybe the ref would have given it. appart from that scare a solid performance from the lad.
evra (lb): 4 stars
together with ronaldo he demolished the right sided defense of joe cole and essien. went missing a bit in the second half but still did a job.
hargraves (rm): 4 stars
great great effort and performance. could have improved on his corners. but his cool penalty kick might put him in the running over ronaldo to be first choice penalty taker.
carrick (cm): 3 stars
did a job, tracked back well. too many long balls though. also didn't take the open goal that was given to him. he needs to be more leathal from outside the box. everyone knows he strikes the ball well. just needs some killer instinct.
scholes (cm): 3 stars
did a good job, great flick to open up brown for the cross. justified SAF choice to start him.
ronaldo (lm): 4 stars
good performance from the kid. he would have been on 5 stars in the 1st half but went missing in the second half and to top that off missed his penalty. he was looking like a top class player in the first half. essien had no answers to the questions he was asking. all the attack came from going down the line and yielded the best results. tevez should have buried his cross in the first half.
I must also say that in the second half he should have cut inside more, and be more selfish. they were onto his touchline hugging ways, and they knew he would be looking for the run of evra. he needed to take a few more shots. normally i don't encourage this, but u got to keep ur opponent guessing.
rooney (cf): 2 stars
i hate to give such a poor rating to my favourite player but he was pretty ineffective. afterall he had 0 shots on goal. his showed some class in the first half by recieving some long balls, not bad for a medium height (at best) cf. he also did some good wing play, creating another golden chance for tevez. i think SAF should have taken him off at about 65-70 mins, but rooney told him 5 more minutes and ended up giving him a lot more.
i think with rooney it's a confidence issue. ur the center forward, ur allowed to have some shots, who cares if u miss, ur bloody brilliant! i think it was soccernet podcast that compared him with alan smith. i hope that never happens. rooney has loads of talent, come on kid!
tevez (cf): 3 stars
great running from the argentine, poor finishing though. that is what worries me about our cf combination. they are great great team players, but finishing needs some improving. well on the plus side these guys will only improve.
giggs (winger): 2 stars
when giggs came on hargraves went into the middle to partner carrick as effectively 2 DMs. giggs went to rm, didn't do too much. put a goldern opportunity into terry's head. converted his penalty but was ultimately quiet.
nani (winger): NA
came on in extra time and didn't have time to do anything really. put away his penalty though
anderson (cm): NA
can't rate him either, had like 2 mins to play. put away his penalty. i really like this kid and should have been given more time. esp the way chelsea midfielders were dominating.
it will be 5 star system:
1 star = very poor
2 stars = poor
3 stars = did a job
4 stars = good
5 stars = extremely good
van der sar (gk): 3 stars
did a job, nothing spectacular. saved 1/7 penalties, turned out to be the winning save. looked shaky with corners and a few poor clearances. I love the winning save how he pointed to his left goal post and dived right! hilarious, putting that one more doubt in anelka's head probably did a little bit.
brown (rb): 4 stars
sure he put the cross in for the goal, but it was scholes' flick that made space for him, and it was ronaldo that beat essien for that goal. attacking wise he was fair, but defensively he was huge. malouda did nothing!
vidic (cb): 4 stars
huge, monster of a player. i love the guy. absolutely crushed drogba, mentally and physically.
ferdinand (cb): 4 stars
good game for him. together with vidic nullified the attacking threat of drogba. intersting that he got away with fly kicking joe cole in the head. i think if cole had of gone down maybe the ref would have given it. appart from that scare a solid performance from the lad.
evra (lb): 4 stars
together with ronaldo he demolished the right sided defense of joe cole and essien. went missing a bit in the second half but still did a job.
hargraves (rm): 4 stars
great great effort and performance. could have improved on his corners. but his cool penalty kick might put him in the running over ronaldo to be first choice penalty taker.
carrick (cm): 3 stars
did a job, tracked back well. too many long balls though. also didn't take the open goal that was given to him. he needs to be more leathal from outside the box. everyone knows he strikes the ball well. just needs some killer instinct.
scholes (cm): 3 stars
did a good job, great flick to open up brown for the cross. justified SAF choice to start him.
ronaldo (lm): 4 stars
good performance from the kid. he would have been on 5 stars in the 1st half but went missing in the second half and to top that off missed his penalty. he was looking like a top class player in the first half. essien had no answers to the questions he was asking. all the attack came from going down the line and yielded the best results. tevez should have buried his cross in the first half.
I must also say that in the second half he should have cut inside more, and be more selfish. they were onto his touchline hugging ways, and they knew he would be looking for the run of evra. he needed to take a few more shots. normally i don't encourage this, but u got to keep ur opponent guessing.
rooney (cf): 2 stars
i hate to give such a poor rating to my favourite player but he was pretty ineffective. afterall he had 0 shots on goal. his showed some class in the first half by recieving some long balls, not bad for a medium height (at best) cf. he also did some good wing play, creating another golden chance for tevez. i think SAF should have taken him off at about 65-70 mins, but rooney told him 5 more minutes and ended up giving him a lot more.
i think with rooney it's a confidence issue. ur the center forward, ur allowed to have some shots, who cares if u miss, ur bloody brilliant! i think it was soccernet podcast that compared him with alan smith. i hope that never happens. rooney has loads of talent, come on kid!
tevez (cf): 3 stars
great running from the argentine, poor finishing though. that is what worries me about our cf combination. they are great great team players, but finishing needs some improving. well on the plus side these guys will only improve.
giggs (winger): 2 stars
when giggs came on hargraves went into the middle to partner carrick as effectively 2 DMs. giggs went to rm, didn't do too much. put a goldern opportunity into terry's head. converted his penalty but was ultimately quiet.
nani (winger): NA
came on in extra time and didn't have time to do anything really. put away his penalty though
anderson (cm): NA
can't rate him either, had like 2 mins to play. put away his penalty. i really like this kid and should have been given more time. esp the way chelsea midfielders were dominating.
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