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[Esmond Million's Bung]

3 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Absolutely about opinions.

Hegeler’s problem is that he looks so relaxed, but actually at CB he positions himself well, and on the ball his touch to move the ball for the next pass is quality.  Not better than Baker though, who rarely seems to need another gear.  His positioning is very, very good.  Doesn’t need to go on his arse very often.  He’s (Hegeler) not a ball-winner in the air, but he wins more than people give him credit.  Sometimes as a CB, you let the striker win it because he flicks on to nobody, which is what Millwall did, but Hegs criticised for not jumping.  Why try to win a header that puts the ball back into a congested area, exactly what Millwall wanted.  Little things people miss, because they are used to Flint-style.

The most important part about being a CB is being strong and not to be eased off of the ball easily, something Stones did not illustrate today with Liverpool's 2nd goal, I thought Hegeler was easy to ease off of the ball and more worrying was when holding the line he would invariably be the one to step out prematurely leaving space in behind.

I would rate him as an older version of Magnússon.

[Davefevs]

8 minutes ago, Esmond Million's Bung said:

The most important part about being a CB is being strong and not to be eased off of the ball easily, something Stones did not illustrate today with Liverpool's 2nd goal, I thought Hegeler was easy to ease off of the ball and more worrying was when holding the line he would invariably be the one to step out prematurely leaving space in behind.

I would rate him as an older version of Magnússon.

Disagree that strength is the most important.  Positional sense, awareness of danger, awareness of runs the split second you look up at the ball, etc. We take the stereotype of a big, strong, Centre Back to extremes.  I do agree that Hegeler isn’t like that, but he has other qualities, as i’ve Stated.

You’ll notice that in the past i’ve Actually been critical of Flint’s lack of aggression, but he has addressed that this season....think Che Adams goal last season.

As for Stones, he got caught a little bit wrong-footed, but then brushed aside by "we sold Coutinho, but we’ve got Bobby" Firminho.  Really poor.  All he needed to do was get his right arm out a bit and Firminho can’t get the nudge.  Poor at any level.  It is why Ferdinand became class and Stones won’t at the highest level (imho0.

[Esmond Million's Bung]

2 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Disagree that strength is the most important.  Positional sense, awareness of danger, awareness of runs the split second you look up at the ball, etc. We take the stereotype of a big, strong, Centre Back to extremes.  I do agree that Hegeler isn’t like that, but he has other qualities, as i’ve Stated.

You’ll notice that in the past i’ve Actually been critical of Flint’s lack of aggression, but he has addressed that this season....think Che Adams goal last season.

As for Stones, he got caught a little bit wrong-footed, but then brushed aside by "we sold Coutinho, but we’ve got Bobby" Firminho.  Really poor.  All he needed to do was get his right arm out a bit and Firminho can’t get the nudge.  Poor at any level.  It is why Ferdinand became class and Stones won’t at the highest level (imho0.

Stones should have got his nudge in first.

[Davefevs]

3 minutes ago, Esmond Million's Bung said:

Stones should have got his nudge in first.

Yep, you could tell his first thought was towards the ball and how can I play from here.  He misjudged the line of the ball, and paid the price.  I was delighted.

[Esmond Million's Bung]

28 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

Disagree that strength is the most important.  Positional sense, awareness of danger, awareness of runs the split second you look up at the ball, etc. We take the stereotype of a big, strong, Centre Back to extremes.  I do agree that Hegeler isn’t like that, but he has other qualities, as i’ve Stated.

You’ll notice that in the past i’ve Actually been critical of Flint’s lack of aggression, but he has addressed that this season....think Che Adams goal last season.

As for Stones, he got caught a little bit wrong-footed, but then brushed aside by "we sold Coutinho, but we’ve got Bobby" Firminho.  Really poor.  All he needed to do was get his right arm out a bit and Firminho can’t get the nudge.  Poor at any level.  It is why Ferdinand became class and Stones won’t at the highest level (imho0.

I never expected the Spanish inquisition.

"our two weapons are fear and surprise and ruthless efficiency, ........................are our 3 weapons, i'll come in again".

[Davefevs]

40 minutes ago, Esmond Million's Bung said:

I never expected the Spanish inquisition.

"our two weapons are fear and surprise and ruthless efficiency, ........................are our 3 weapons, i'll come in again".

No-one expects the Spanish Inquisition  

[Mr Popodopolous]

On Taylor and Hegeler.

I thought while Tayloe was at least providing a steady stream of assists, or reasonable numbers anyway he was worth persisting with. One vs Manchester aside however, these seem to have dried up and combined with the fact he wasn't terribly prolific for us it doesn't look positive. He scored v Palace too, again in the Cup.

Hegeler- always thought he's best placed between the defence and the midfield. Whether he is needed except for shoring up purposes or trying to slow the tempo down late on in this system, would be another matter IMO. Never really saw him as a centre back tbh

[Cowshed]

2 hours ago, Esmond Million's Bung said:

The most important part about being a CB is being strong and not to be eased off of the ball easily, something Stones did not illustrate today with Liverpool's 2nd goal, I thought Hegeler was easy to ease off of the ball and more worrying was when holding the line he would invariably be the one to step out prematurely leaving space in behind.

I would rate him as an older version of Magnússon.

John Stones recently had season average passing accuracy of 97%. That is the most important part of his game.

[Esmond Million's Bung]

1 minute ago, Cowshed said:

John Stones recently had season average passing accuracy of 97%. That is the most important part of his game.

That might be the best part of his game but he is employed as a defender which should be the most important part of his game and today he was poor.

[Cowshed]

11 hours ago, Esmond Million's Bung said:

That might be the best part of his game but he is employed as a defender which should be the most important part of his game and today he was poor.

I would politely suggest that Man City employ players based on their footballing ability. This also applies for a centre back like Stones and goal keepers. Possession is the most important part of the teams game. It is what the team is based upon.

[Lorenzos Only Goal]

Stick to the plan, gambling on promotion could badly break what we have started here which is stability and sustainable progression.  Over performance shouldn't be a reason to deviate neither should underperforming.  

[Esmond Million's Bung]

1 hour ago, Cowshed said:

I would politely suggest that Man City employ players based on their footballing ability. This also applies for a centre back like Stones and goal keepers. Possession is the most important part of the teams game. It is what the team is based upon.

May I politely suggest that Man City shipped 4 goals yesterday and Mr 97% played like a drain and they had 64.4% of the possession and lost, I am well aware about Pep’s philosophy but I doubt very much that even he would have been impressed by Stones weak performance yesterday.

Manc are the best team mainly because they spent the most money, is Pep a footballing genius?, who knows, we might get a better idea if he had ever coached a team with no money.

[Cowshed]

1 minute ago, Esmond Million's Bung said:

May I politely suggest that Man City shipped 4 goals yesterday and Mr 97% played like a drain and they had 64.4% of the possession and lost, I am well aware about Pep’s philosophy but I doubt very much that even he would have been impressed by Stones weak performance yesterday.

Manc are the best team mainly because they spent the most money, is Pep a footballing genius?, who knows, we might get a better idea if he had ever coached a team with no money.

The tactical flexibility of having highly technical players in every position leads to less mistakes and more points gained.

Having a great defender who is not technically great on the ball leads to less tactical flexibility and less points gained.

Mr 97% keeps the a ball more, his teammates keep the ball more, they attack more, shoot more, are more tactical and have lost one game this season. I expect Mr Guardiola will not be getting the hair he does not have off about one game,

Is Pep a footballing genius? Yes. His teams display brilliance and tactical ingenuity. Manchester City play a brand of 4-3-3 that is new and exciting, and not a copy of Barcelona. The man affects football culture. His ideas are affecting English coaches positively even at grass roots level. Genius all day long.

[Abraham Romanovich]

17 hours ago, Red Right Hand said:

Stick with the plan IMO. If we don`t go up, so be it and anyone who suffered the fallout post Hull can surely never want to go through those wilderness years again.

 

I agree stick with the plan -one only has to look at Brighton's experiences, prior to being promoted it was a 3 horse race for the top 2 they missed out on goal difference and and had a disaster in the playoffs.

Nothing changed the following season justed added a couple of players there was no mass exodus and they continued to stick to their plan and achieved promotion.

This is just the start of our journey

 

[Esmond Million's Bung]

32 minutes ago, Cowshed said:

The tactical flexibility of having highly technical players in every position leads to less mistakes and more points gained.

Having a great defender who is not technically great on the ball leads to less tactical flexibility and less points gained.

Mr 97% keeps the a ball more, his teammates keep the ball more, they attack more, shoot more, are more tactical and have lost one game this season. I expect Mr Guardiola will not be getting the hair he does not have off about one game,

Is Pep a footballing genius? Yes. His teams display brilliance and tactical ingenuity. Manchester City play a brand of 4-3-3 that is new and exciting, and not a copy of Barcelona. The man affects football culture. His ideas are affecting English coaches positively even at grass roots level. Genius all day long.

I would love to be able to judge his tactical ability at a team with little or no money to spend on players, not at clubs that occupy 3 of the top 5 places in world for wealth and at a club with the worlds richest owners.

I wouldn't mind betting that even Pep will be going through defensive drills this week on the training.

 

PS:- 2 games now by the way they struggled against a lil old team from the championship, maybe LJ found the key to Pandora's box.

PPS:- My this season genius award would go to Roy Hodgson, turned Palace around and even gotten Benteke to look as if he gives a shit.

[Welcome To The Jungle]

My problem is that if we invest in a big player or two, they'd also demand big wages. If we fail to go up we go back to 2012 with players on big wages that are perhaps not good enough.

[Esmond Million's Bung]

4 minutes ago, JonDolman said:

I think eliasson looks an excellent signing. Still not sure on mags, but steadily improving so still too early to say with him. Engvall still too young to say, as is Taylor Moore. Although we might have overpaid for both. And Taylor for 300k has been a very good bit of business. He was a huge part of our cup run and keeping us up last season, when it seemed no one else could form a partnership with Tammy. Hegeler the one very bad signing imo.

Opinions, I don't think Magnússon is improving and I believe LJ is only playing him more because needs must with our injury situation. Engvall might be too young who knows?, but if he is no closer to first team football than the day that we signed him and it would appear a reluctance to go out on loan in the English leagues, we may never know.

As for Eliasson I have said in the same way that ODowda took time to blossom and improve his overall game prior to his injury, hopefully we will the best of him next season.

As for Taylor everything that you mentioned is and has been consigned to the history books, his league form (which should be his bread and butter) is poor and he has not impacted games that he has started in or those where he came on as a sub, I don't see him as a championship player.

[Kid in the Riot]

21 hours ago, Esmond Million's Bung said:

I think most of us will agree that so far we have had an unbelievable and probably unexpected season.

I for one would have settled for mid table flirting with a chance of the play offs.

But has our success and the rise to 2nd in the table and for once the plaudits of the so called experts given us a problem?.

And that problem is surely which route do we now choose?.

Do we go for it financially in this window or stick to the plan?. Neither of course can guarantee success but one might give us a better chance obviously.

For me our real problems are going to occur once the season is over, if we miss automatic promotion, fail in the play offs or even fail to make the play offs, will the now backbone/experienced and most talented players want away especially given the experience of prem opposition in the league cup.

Flint, Baker, Bryan and Reid, imagine losing all 4?, IMO it would be almost like a starting from a scratch position for us and instead of building upon the success of this season, we will be rebuilding once more. I believe sadly that we could probably allow Flint and Bryan to leave and still push on but losing all 4 would be a disaster.

So are we going to be the Crewe of the championship? or the Bournemouth of the championship?, it is a fine line and a realisation of how far we have progressed in such a short time and the problems that that success brings, it’s never easy is it?.

Interesting post. There's certainly a balance to be had IMO and I am a little concerned that our two January signings thus far are young lads who are pretty inexperienced (very in the case of Walsh). 

If you look at clubs that get promoted from this division they tend to have plenty of experienced, older players and that's something we lack at the moment. I quite like the way Brighton did it, after missing out on the play-offs they signed Glenn Murray to lead their line. Bags of experience and goals. Also Hemed and Steve Sidwell. Those are statement signings that will get you promoted. I hope that if we are in this division next season that the club look at signings like those as we'll be in a very good position to attract that type of player. 

On the flip side of course it does feel like we've had our fingers burnt a few times recently with this type of signing ie El Abd, O-Neil, Tomlin, Hegeler, Odemwingie etc. But as you've pointed out our success rate on younger/potential signings isn't as good as some would make out either...

[Cowshed]

22 minutes ago, Esmond Million's Bung said:

I would love to be able to judge his tactical ability at a team with little or no money to spend on players, not at clubs that occupy 3 of the top 5 places in world for wealth and at a club with the worlds richest owners.

I wouldn't mind betting that even Pep will be going through defensive drills this week on the training.

 

PS:- 2 games now by the way they struggled against a lil old team from the championship, maybe LJ found the key to Pandora's box.

PPS:- My this season genius award would go to Roy Hodgson, turned Palace around and even gotten Benteke to look as if he gives a shit.

I don't think at the zenith of football Mr Guardiola's ability to coach Manor Farm would be relevant. Its his ability with outliners that is important.

You have moved away from the point regarding Stones again. He is an outliner. The metric that is of most importance in his game is his passing ability, it is why he was signed, and it is why others like Ederson are at this particular club, it is not just money. It is not because goal keeping and defending are the most important factors of their game, because they are not. Goal keeping and defending in this Man City team is possession.

I wouldn't mind betting that even Pep will be going through defensive drills this week on the training ... No doubt all teams do. And I have no doubt Mr Guardiola will be paying attention to the Rondo's,  small sided passing drills etc go to make sure their game speed which let them down for once playing through the thirds (first) is up to the intensity required.

[Esmond Million's Bung]

24 minutes ago, Kid in the Riot said:

Interesting post. There's certainly a balance to be had IMO and I am a little concerned that our two January signings thus far are young lads who are pretty inexperienced (very in the case of Walsh). 

If you look at clubs that get promoted from this division they tend to have plenty of experienced, older players and that's something we lack at the moment. I quite like the way Brighton did it, after missing out on the play-offs they signed Glenn Murray to lead their line. Bags of experience and goals. Also Hemed and Steve Sidwell. Those are statement signings that will get you promoted. I hope that if we are in this division next season that the club look at signings like those as we'll be in a very good position to attract that type of player. 

On the flip side of course it does feel like we've had our fingers burnt a few times recently with this type of signing ie El Abd, O-Neil, Tomlin, Hegeler, Odemwingie etc. But as you've pointed out our success rate on younger/potential signings isn't as good as some would make out either...

Our problem could be that if we don't show some 'here and now' ambition in this window given the position that we find ourselves in, some of our more ambitious better players might use that as an excuse to move on in the summer if we fail with auto or play offs or even fail to get into the play offs, a marquee signing might tip the balance in favour of one more season, however our season ends, that's my point.

[chevron12345]

23 hours ago, Alex_BCFC said:

Stick with the plan. It might take another 3 years but we are heading the right way. 

Good players come and go but our overall strategy looks good to me - pick up young quality players. We only sell for crazy money like Kodjia so not everyone will go at once. I really don't think Baker or Reid will go anywhere either. Bryan maybe and Flint is less likely than it was but still it's possible. 

Johnson still at City in 3 years if not promoted? Doubt it.

[phantom]

8 minutes ago, chevron12345 said:

Johnson still at City in 3 years if not promoted? Doubt it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38257893

[Robbored]

15 minutes ago, chevron12345 said:

Johnson still at City in 3 years if not promoted? Doubt it.

SL sees LJ as an integral part of his long term plan for establishing stability within the club.

Too many managers have come and gone in SLs time and each time when they're sacked it causes huge disruption in the entire club because it's not just the manager that goes it's his entire backroom staff as well.

The new man comes in with his own staff and own ideas and everything starts again. The entire playing squad gets unsettled with a new man in charge. Lansdown is breaking that cycle and the main reason he didn't sack him last season.

LJ wil be at City long term whether he achieves promotion or not.

[chevron12345]

39 minutes ago, phantom said:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/38257893

So what? Means nothing in football.

23 minutes ago, Robbored said:

SL sees LJ as an integral part of his long term plan for establishing stability within the club.

Too many managers have come and gone in SLs time and each time when they're sacked it causes huge disruption in the entire club because it's not just the manager that goes it's his entire backroom staff as well.

The new man comes in with his own staff and own ideas and everything starts again. The entire playing squad gets unsettled with a new man in charge. Lansdown is breaking that cycle and the main reason he didn't sack him last season.

LJ wil be at City long term whether he achieves promotion or not.

:laugh:. Unless he leaves for another job!! 

And if he carries on with such success good luck to him if he decides to move to a bigger project...in few years time that is.

 

[phantom]

38 minutes ago, chevron12345 said:

So what? Means nothing in football.

Other clubs aren't owned by SL

[chevron12345]

2 hours ago, phantom said:

Other clubs aren't owned by SL

Think your misunderstanding. If LJ wants to leave for a new project that certainly won’t be SL decision. He won’t ask for his permission to leave for a bigger club.

[Davefevs]

9 hours ago, Cowshed said:

Is Pep a footballing genius? Yes. His teams display brilliance and tactical ingenuity. Manchester City play a brand of 4-3-3 that is new and exciting, and not a copy of Barcelona. The man affects football culture. His ideas are affecting English coaches positively even at grass roots level. Genius all day long.

It is open to debate though.  Could he for example re-build Arsenal without being able to out-muscle all other teams financially in the Prem.

That is the outstanding question.....Barca, Bayern and City are financial heavyweights in their country.  Of course Spain has Real too, and this country has Man Utd and Chelsea offering stern competition.

I don’t know the answer.

I will say that he learned quickly that last season no game is a guaranteed 3 pointer, like in Spain and Germany.

[Cowshed]

34 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

It is open to debate though.  Could he for example re-build Arsenal without being able to out-muscle all other teams financially in the Prem.

That is the outstanding question.....Barca, Bayern and City are financial heavyweights in their country.  Of course Spain has Real too, and this country has Man Utd and Chelsea offering stern competition.

I don’t know the answer.

I will say that he learned quickly that last season no game is a guaranteed 3 pointer, like in Spain and Germany.

As a coach it is not open to question. Barcelona have reshaped how people think about football. At the heart of that was Mr Guardiola. His methodology has seeped into FA coaching course and affects football from its grass roots up to the EPL and across the globe. 

Mr Guardiola has won titles in two nations and looks to be heading to being a champion in another nation. Money? So what. In each of those nations his teams have been wonderful to watch, and each has played a style of football that is quite different to the other.

His Man City team is like a think tank of ideas. He pursues tactical innovation. His use of 4-3-3 displays passages of play that are unique in football because of his innovative ideas in employing a Keeper (Ederson), who is the equivalent at times of Paul Scholes with the accuracy and length of his distribution.

The only person to match him, and at one point statistically outperform him was Mr Mourinho who Spain apart pursues a dour path. I would also label Mr Mourinho a genius who guarantees success, the rest don't. The major difference is that Mr Mourinho is not going to leave the same legacy, he will not alter the way people think about and play football world wide.

[Davefevs]

@Cowshed - do you think he could rebuild Arsenal though?  Curious.

[Cowshed]

39 minutes ago, Davefevs said:

@Cowshed, - do you think he could rebuild Arsenal though?  Curious.

I will say yes.

He has improved players - Sterling. Arsenal players could also benefit.

He has despite the reputation of being all about the money brought in Alonso for a low fee elsewhere. I would suggest the signing of Stones who at the time I posted about on here would represent value, was a quality footballer(not a joke), and had the rare ability in an English player to play such a pivotal role in a Guardiola side would be a success. These are the types of players Arsenal could have afforded if they had a man like Mr Guardiola in charge. Arsenal have spent forty million plus on signings, they are not the paupers. of football