NAMING RIGHTS THREAD: Liverpool really won't win the Premiership 2010-2011

he's had an unusually mistake light season or so but he has made plenty of mistakes prior to that, plus as I say, he offers little resistance in goal. it's not just challops, vds has always made mistakes, from way before he played for man u, and never been top class. i wouldn't be panicking if i was a man u supporter, his retirement is no watershed.

that is to say at the same time as i'm being accused of challops i'm also saying i don't think vds retiring means it's the end of man u dominance...so read into it as you will.

afaik he played for ajax, juventus and y'nahtid over a fifteen yr period in which all of them were european champions while playing about 50000 times for holland yet 'barely a top four keeper'

arteta is a beast tho

no way would steven reid get in that birmingham team ahead of him

mind u ive been saying for years, they havend had a proper fullback since ruel fox moved to newcastle

gerrards had it imo, you can see his hearts not in it

its not even a question of resources its a question of fat

its all about getting the wingbacks pushed forward so sandro can get into that deeplying midfield role and make it his own

armand traore never had the nous for it mind

who was he up against for netherlands? traore won a european cup let's not forget...john o'shea looking for cup number 2

even big nyron nosworthy would be a short-term replacement at that price

Point out all these mistakes then Local Garda cos i certainly don't remember them.

I mean i can recall a lot more errors from...oh i dunno...Pepe Reina

afaik he played for ajax, juventus and y'nahtid over a fifteen yr period in which all of them were european champions while playing about 50000 times for holland yet 'barely a top four keeper'

― eid orb (nakhchivan), Thursday, May 5, 2011 7:27 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

this ignores his time at fulham, where he had to go due to either a series of mistakes or buffon's arrival at juve (heard both versions)

they bought buffon cuz he was a major prodigy, partly expedited by van der sar having a long-term slump in form around the turn of the decade

idk, since ive stopped following football so closely, 97% of the players just sort of blur into a homogenous mass, apart from messi and eto'o you can p much swap any given player with any other player at an an equivalent team

vds is approx as good as vds

he is a vds level player and hes not going to improve on that level

traore won a european cup let's not forget

Never could. Him and Harry Kewell! It's an even more amazing comeback when you read that starting XI.

starting XII

/deems

btw armand traore has never won a european cup :( so close to it once upon a time, f u lehmann.

vds is a terrific keeper he just suffers from not being buffon. if a striker fucks up, you think oh well, he'll get another five shots this game - if a keeper fucks up you lose. vds occasionally makes high profile cock ups, sure, but so does reina, casillas, cech, cesar and lloris. And yes, often he doesn't have to do much because Vidic saves him a ton of work. But when he's on, he's on imo. I have watched Utd quite a bit recently and he's been on fire, certainly one of the ten best keepers in the world.

He may not seem like a hard player to replace this summer but Rio is getting old, Vidic is 29 and could easily end up somewhere like Real in the future to ease the interest burdens and if/when Utd are left with just Smalling and Evans*, then it will be incredibly noticable if they don't have a keeper the calibre of vds behind them. *Of course VDS regularly plays behind these two but it can still feel like a Utd-worthy back 5 with him in charge.

Too right, filthy cheating foreigner Ramsey should apologise for making England's Brave Ryan Shawcross cry and getting his mummy to pick him up after the game:

WHAT a terrific gesture it would be if Aaron Ramsey came out with a statement – and the sooner the better – about his broken leg incident ahead of his first return to Stoke on Sunday.

There will be all kinds of hullabaloo about him coming face-to-face with Ryan Shawcross for the first time since the tackle which left Ramsey with a badly broken leg 14 months ago.

But he could kill all that off in an instant by saying he accepts that Shawcross never meant to cause him any damage with the tackle.

If only Lou Macari had known a week ago that the US were on the verge of tracking down Bin Laden

Smalling's getting good btw, I thought he was ropey at first but I've been impressed with him of late

Yeah i mean to go from the Isthmian League Premier Division (had to look this up) to a Champions League semi-final in four years is a pretty decent rate of progress.

looking forward to seeing him crowned Galactic Overlord in four years' time

can't see Fergie retiring that soon

Probably bullshit, but £30m + James Milner for Gareth Bale? How about it Spurs fans?

https://twitter.com/#!/Robbie9Fowler/status/66193500877750272

https://twitter.com/#!/bunglejeno/status/66198059318657024

30m plus milner.

We cant use milner tbh, otherwise yeah snap hand off.

We can get more than £30m for him. Think Milner has probably had the most disappointing season of any Premiership player given the position he was in at the start of it, but he's not significantly better than, say, Pienaar on the left and we have more than enough creativity in central midfield.

Would take Johnson over Milner actually.

Presumably Milner is still being valued at around the 20m mark, even though his reputation has deteriorated a lot at City.

Agreed, average-to-good midfielders are not what you need to be focusing on at the moment.

Whenever I see Johnson I'm impressed, but he doesn't seem to play that much and I suspect I'm only seeing his highlights anyway. I'd like to see him regularly in a role where he has more responsibility for the attack, he seems to be largely window-dressing at City.

I think Johnson is fairly overrated.

He'll either move to another club and become a great player, or he'll occasionally sparkle and become the new Joe Cole.

Johnson missed something like 12 games over the winter through injury and his absence coincided with City's worst run of results of the season. Since his return from injury he's been a first-choice pick and the team have been winning matches. He's been good on his few appearances for England, too.

I think Milner's a very good footballer who made a move that didn't work. He was being raved about on here not so long ago. If he recaptured his form he'd be more than average-to-good imo.

Wait - Milner went to City?

you must be thinking of Sturridge

Keeps playing those lovely through balls for Sturridge iirc.

bah xp

milner was surprisngly good in one of the recent england friendlies iirc. kinda thought he might fit in at right back for city eventually.

also i completely and utterly forgot jerome boateng was there until he was linked with bayern the other week

Hasn't Boateng just been injured for an entire season? The Premiership isn't a happy place for Boatengs really.

johnson is very effective, for an english winger, but prob better on the right.

I rate both he and milner, tbf, but milner wouldn't replace bale and tbh modric sandro lennon prob all keep him out of our midfield in the other positions

He'd be a p good gerrard replacement?

unless sandro comes on leaps and bounds next season i still think ur missing something in there with just him, thudd and modders

not quite sure what though

keeper, 2 strikers, maybe tidy up the cb situation with a young kjaer investment type, & something different in centre mid - maybe a driving player like milner wouldnt be so bad actually

xp add pace on the wings and one fwd who can hold up and score and i dunno looks good to me.

442 with modric on left and vdv in a striking role works too tho, if bale goes

Also I'm sorta thinking that Bale has been waiting for an approach from one of the great clubs of Europe and not Man City, but maybe the massive piles of cash will make him feel better.