Football XLVIII - The Return to Normalcy.

[Alex.]

City are going to get crushed under the wheels of the Kinnear Revolution, you do know that, right?

Also I'm wondering about Southampton's signing of Osvaldo. Obviously, a very good player, but is he enough better than Lambert to justify the disruption that he will undoubtedly bring? Coz people like to sniff at him but Lambert is a fantastic all-round striker..

I'm liking Southampton this season, a lot.

I like the sound of "Kinnear Revolution" a lot. Seems to be a roaring success so far.

Osvaldo is quality and probably an upgrade on Lambert on paper. Lambert is a fine player though and bangs the goals in. Can't argue with his stats. People keep comparing him to Grant Holt for some reason and worry about a bad second season, but Lambert is a far, far superior player and I can't see any particular worries in that regards. Has to be between him and Carroll for that the third strikers spot in the World Cup squad this season, behind ROONEY and Welbz.

[Mme Erzulie]

Sturridge?

[polishgenius]

Oh, he's almost certainly a better player (though people sometimes underrate just how good Lambert is at the all-round game, he's a very intelligent hold-up man and passer), but at some point there's a reasonable chance he's going to smash Gaston Ramirez in the face which could cause tension.

I'd have thought Sturridge needs to be in the England list somewhere. It should be between Welbeck and Lambert really, mostly depending on Welbeck's goalscoring this season (I like the way Moyes uses him, so I'm hopeful of a useful season, but his finishing is a separate issue really).

The strange thing is that Welbeck is basically Rooney's direct competition for us at the moment.

[Alex.]

Sturridge?

I'm just not convinced by him. Would like him to have a good season and put some pressure on Welbeck, but he doesn't ever seem to have the consistency.

[Top Notch Balanter]

Sturridge is much better than Welbeck in terms of club football just look at their goalscoring records in the past 6 months. Sturridge could easily be the top scoring English player in the prem this season. The difference is that Welbeck while pretty useless manages to score for England on a frequent level. I can see Carroll getting the 3rd striker spot as we will only see 1 of Welbeck and Sturridge. Lambert will miss out due to Carroll being a completely different option to any of the other strikers and Lambert being over 30

[baxus]

I'm just not convinced by him. Would like him to have a good season and put some pressure on Welbeck, but he doesn't ever seem to have the consistency.

a striker scoring one goal for the whole season and you talk of his consistency?

now i'm sure you're trolling us once again.

sturridge is most definitely a better striker than welbeck, carroll and lambert.

on the other hand, rooney has definitely shown more than sturridge so far, but he's absolutely great one season than mediocre (compared to his great season) the next.

[Alex.]

How many goals you score doesn't have to do with consistency though.

Welbeck will always offer exactly the same thing, and it happens to be something that would be quite useful for England. Sturridge scored more goals last year, but if his performances go up and down all the time. That's what I meant.

[polishgenius]

a striker scoring one goal for the whole season and you talk of his consistency?

now i'm sure you're trolling us once again.

Well, Welbeck is better than Sturridge at everything that isn't scoring and has a better attitude when things aren't going his way to boot, but yeah, that finishing thing definitely puts Sturridge ahead. Especially for England - it's not as big a concern for us because we have goalscorers everywhere so the collective improvement in teamwork whenever Welbeck is on usually results in goals, whereas for England the vast majority of scoring responsibility falls on the two frontmen.

I do rate Sturridge very highly though. Whenever he's been given a chance as the center-forward, he's banged in the goals. Before he arrived at Liverpool my main concern was that he's a bit selfish and holds on to the ball too long, but he's taken to their quick-passing style like a duck to water.

Tbh, though people insist on comparing them they're not that comparable. You could easily play them together. Sturridge is a lot more like Van Persie, though obviously not as good.

[Raja]

So Ramsey, Rosicky and Gibbs all seem okay and probably will travel. Sagna still a doubt, which is unfortunate as he's probably the only one who can play any position along the back four.

Was watching the Spurs game yesterday ( don't know why, I just like pain ) and it's strange how Lennon has not made as much progress as say Walcott, theo has become so much better with his final product, his finishing is so much better than it was.

[polishgenius]

Lennon's final product is something to behold. I really wonder if he'll be holding down a first team spot this season, unless they sell Bale and don't replace him in which case he will.

[lessthanluke]

Had a shitty start to fantasy football anyway. Lets hope Ageuro nets a hat trick tonight!

[Alex.]

Rapist Watch:

Nile Ranger - One year deal at Swindon;

Ched Evans - Still in jail.

[Raja]

Rapist Watch:

Nile Ranger - One year deal at Swindon;

I think I'm a bigger fan of the Andy Carroll watch, but this is my favorite thing about Ranger.

Lennon's final product is something to behold.

The strange part is that I think he's better than Walcott in getting past his man, but the quality of his final product has stayed more or less the same. There was a point that people picked him before Walcott in for the RW position for England.

[Alex.]

I think I'm a bigger fan of the Andy Carroll watch, but this is my favorite thing about Ranger.

Never gets old.

[Raja]

I mean how self serving can you get? Thought I wonder how much that would hurt.

[Alex.]

I hope it really, really hurt.

[polishgenius]

The strange part is that I think he's better than Walcott in getting past his man, but the quality of his final product has stayed more or less the same. There was a point that people picked him before Walcott in for the RW position for England.

To be fair a lot of people are better at getting past their man than Walcott- he has improved, but he's still not really good at anything other than running really really fast, and shooting. His passing and crossing isn't much better than Lennon's tbh; he gets a lot of assists but the way Arsenal play helps him a lot in that regard. For every cutback and cross that goes right, there's five that go sailing way over the box or off the first defender or whatever.

[Raja]

To be fair a lot of people are better at getting past their man than Walcott- he has improved,

Yes, Walcott is woeful getting past his man but thankfully he does make runs behind the defense fairly well, the last one I remember was the friendly before the city game where he was picked out by Ramsey ( or was that the City game? Not sure ) I'd say his one touch passing has become much much better than a season ago,but he is still prone to drilling the ball in rather than trying to pick someone out. I'm more impressed with his finishing, it's got to a point where I think I could finally trust him to finish if he's got a half decent chance ( Saying that he is probably going to miss a bunch against Fenerbahce)

What we really need is some sort of combination of Walcott and Gervinho.

[polishgenius]

he does make runs behind the defense fairly well,

Again, he has improved, but I think he's still got a ways to go here. Specifically, what he does is wait for the pass then run for it, rather than make moves to create the space for said pass. He's fast so it works, but he could be a lot more dangerous.

This is a lot more obvious when he's trying to play in the center, though. I can't remember which game it was last season, but there was one where he was in the middle and the opposition, despite his pace, were quite happy playing a high line because he just never makes the move. If they'd done it with Javier Hernandez who's got a similar skillset in a lot of ways to Walcott but moves so much better, he'd have had about fifteen one-on-one chances.

Which is why Walcott should never, ever be played in the middle.

[Raja]

I'm trying to figure out which game you're talking about, I know Giroud was suspended for the last three games of last season but I don't think those were the ones. He shouldn't play in the centre for the reasons you've mentioned, and the fact that when he's got his back to goal he ends up shielding and then eventually giving away the ball. Maybe it's because I didn't expect him to even get to where he is now ( I was totally okay with him leaving ) and I know he's got much much more he can do for the team, specifically not go walkabout when we don't have the ball.

I don't even remember the last time I saw Hernandez play, to be fair though, I haven't seen United play much either. Van Persie has ruined any sort of excitement I had for games against United.

ETA: Those runs are far easier from the wing than say the center, but your point about wait for the pass and then run is correct, it was certainly the reason why him and Cesc worked really well.

ETA 2: A Telegraph journalist says Arsenal have thought to have bid for Cabaye, he does not have a figure though.