Moneyball won't win the Premiership 2012-13

bringing on Valencia cost us the win today so

not rly 'bantz' when a lot of ynahtid fans last season were saying bale was no more than a left footed valencia

Valencia was Utd's player of the season last year. Bale isn't as good as you think he is. What do you want me to say?

Hm: Roma-Inter, Valencia-Real, Bordeaux-PSG ... that's some tasty fare when I really ought to be getting the books open

i dont think bale is /that/ good

he is better than all of your attacking players other than rvp, but he is a fair distance inferior to rvp and i dont rate any of the others that highly

and yet we struggle on

ynahtid with rvp is like a dumb kid who found the cheat codes

could even call him a game genie if you shop him into the van nisty costume

i know, it's just not fair. It's not like their competitors are working with a Game Genie every season

damn

fist bump

it's mundane but bale kinda still has to fully establish a median effectiveness line imo, his bad days are such intolerable assclownery

ynahtid with rvp is like a dumb kid who found the cheat codes

Yes, after the embarrassment of last season's mere 89 points and 89 league goals it's fair to say he has transformed a lacklustre team that was going nowhere into a thing of beauty.

Kagawa looked useful today, arguably for the first time for United. Has he been played in that role before (left side of a front three)? It seemed to suit him better. De Gea is great, probably my favourite United keeper since Schmeichel - I'm relieved Ferguson has stopped rotating Lindegaard into the team. Re: the great Bale v all of United's wingers debate - when Bale's good, he's very good, but he can be anonymous. Valencia has recently been replaced by his untalented identical twin (and even when he's on form seems totally incapable of using his left foot). Young blows hot and cold - he's capable of great stuff, but more often is shit (and he dives). Nani is the most technically gifted but has no brain whatsoever and Ferguson seems to hate him.

after the embarrassment of last season's mere third place finish in a cl group featuring basel and a team almost nobody had heard of, too

i think we've all long agreed that utd can't be broken down into individual players, because most of their individual players would (indeed, do) go on to be nothing failures at sunderland.

NBS, i don't see where bale actually ranks against those guys- do you have him ahead of valencia, young, nani?

nani, apart from one burst of form a few seasons ago (tbf lasted most of that season) has been a waste of talent
young, apart from a much shorter burst at the start, has been a disappointment
valencia is more useful and consistent than either but is the kind of mid-talent-maximiser that one can't really get too excited about (but v typical, in that sense, of latter ferguson)

bale, when bad, is as bad as any of them, sure, but bale is better when better and isn't bad as often, i don't think

deems otm, and i even like a lot of mid-talent-maximizers like fletcher, o'shea, beckham etc

it's possible to see how excellent squad mgmt and motivation can turn ynahtid 09/10 or 11/12 an 85+ pt EPL team, while still finding them essentially unimpressive as an attacking team

this sense of dismay is increased when seeing high talent minimizers like berbatov and nani alongside the MTMs

the group movement today from houllebeque, rvp et al was some life of birds shit, dawson the shit-thick eagle dazzled by the flocking around him of those he'd thought his natural prey, throughout the team utd just move & pass so logically and devastatingly effectively that the concept of individual ability probably would seem like a strangely outmoded or quaint element to introduce, berbatov got et by a bear cos he was the silly cunt in the flock turning cartwheels

martin tyler actually described dawson as 'that braveheart' shortly after a homily that we ought not to forget the estimable toil of new lothar matthaus phil jones when 'giving the plaudits' to rvp

guy mowbray spends 30 seconds talking about walcott's goal without mentioning the pass by cazorla

United double-marked Bale yesterday and basically forced him out of the game/to run ineffectively through the middle and it's something he needs to learn to deal with because it will happen more and more often. I mean even Messi struggled with that throughout the last World Cup when nearly every team managed to keep him reasonably quiet.

i always thought the ideal way to deal with that is to REALLY keep a few opposition players pre-occupied and open up spaces others can use. if bale was to drag two or three players out to the left for most of the game, that could leave a big space in the middle to exploit.

What actually happened was that Fergie basically sacrificed any attacking threat down the right by playing both Rafael and Jones there, so there was no one to really get dragged out of position.

"Fernando was doing a great job. Afterwards, Demba gave us something we didn't have before."

goals?

"We cannot afford to drop points any more if we want to be in the top four."

This quote's a bit, um, unrealistic? Even if he's not actually targeting finishing with sixteen straight wins, I'm not sure his team is one you want to start heaping the pressure on.

Bale double marked out of the game, lennon destroyed them down the right. If dempsey functioned at all as a conduit (as opposed to getting shots off etc, which he's actually doing pretty well) and defoe occupied the cb's a little more consistently, then bale getting locked down like this wouldnt be a huge disaster

"Fernando was doing a great job. Afterwards, Demba gave us something we didn't have before."
goals?
― cozen, Monday, 21 January 2013 10:32 (2 hours ago) Permalink

didn't score tbf

last season
bale 14 assists (99 crosses) 9 goals (126 shots)
valencia 14 assists (107 crosses) 4 goals (22 shots)
nani 12 assists (133 crosses) 8 goals (63 shots)
young 11 assists (81 crosses) 6 goals (51 shots)

hard to say - i guess, bale has produced the most "output", and fewest shit crosses (if we can just assume that assists came from crosses) to boot - but then the shots to goals ratio is pretty bad. 14 shots per goal when even ashley young managed 8.5 per goal.

would still prefer Bale's 9 goals to Young's 6

spaffing away possession half the time in process?

lennon, though
8 assists (26 crosses) 3 goals (18 shots)

but i suppose he doesn't really "cross" balls

9 goals (126 shots)

I don't read that as "14 shots per goal" - more like "gives the fucking ball back to the opposition all the fucking time".

Kris Commons went through a period last season where he kept shooting from anywhere. I think he was taken aside and politely advised that just because he was capable of cunting them in from 30 yards didn't give him the right to keep trying it every time he had the ball. He is now a much more productive player.

pogba looking good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E60BYQZSlY

ooof

the boy is special huh?

also Young's a cheating divey cheater xps

have to say i'd be pretty excited if coutinho to liverpool happened. has he lost his way completely? he looked brilliant in europe a couple of times when i've seen him.

i like how Bale is the living embodiment of the answer to WilliamC's question upthread. if you had a player doing that on Football Manager you'd be having words.

Young's a cheating divey cheater

In any discussion involving Nani and Bale that's like pointing out that he has feet.

He should stay on them then.

Think it's fair to note bale's wasteful shooting alright, tho the threat of it keeps opposition players on their toes (disproportionately so, maybe, loikinf at the stats)

Lennon is a great little player when forced/encouraged to run to wherever he wants the ball to be as opposed to sending it there with his foot. Is cutbacks and first time layoffs are p good tbfttl, anything requiring more orce is usually beyond his ickle legs

I spent a good 25% of yesterday's match thinking how much I enjoy his gait.

Infamous boss toddler waddle iirc

Think AVB is to an extent reining in Bale's Superman complex, which Redknapp actively encouraged and was getting out of control towards the end. As a general rule the more frustrated he gets the more he'll try and just shoot from wherever. Can't remember the game but there was one occasion when he missed a penalty and was pretty much shooting from the half way line by the end. He needs to grow out of it definitely.

I'm not going to get involved in any discussion about Utd's wingers (especially with regard to Valnencia's supposed consistency compared to Nani) cos it just makes me want to go "youse are all fuckin idiots"

Not us pickin em bud

If we we're talking about all of them at their best I'd probably go Nani > Bale > Valencia >>> Young. A season or two ago Nani was probably one of the top three attacking players in the division but he was very poor before getting injured this season and it seems like he can't really be arsed.

he just needs love (or a new contract)

There must be something in what you say but my hatred for Nani blinds me to any possibility that he isn't completely shit. Must be a phenomenon unique to fancy types - I have no problem recognising Terry as good, and a cunt.

Similarly I will continue to under-rate Bale even after he has won 3 Ballon D'ors and the World Cup for Wales.

I sometimes thing Nani is one of the most skilful players in the world, but only if I don't watch him for very long. He's easily the best running with the ball guy at United, but that doesn't mean much in their current setup.

GET INVOLVED
Ollie on text: "Everyone decried Di Matteo's sacking at West Brom but look where they are now. Newcastle ditched Hughton and then finished 5th. And for all the criticism Abramovich gets, Chelsea won the FA Cup and Champions League after he sacked AVB. Clubs that sack their managers seem to be doing pretty well right now - horror stories like Blackburn no longer the norm."

You could equally point out that Newcastle are now flirting with relegation and lie below the team Hughton now manages, and that Abramovich replaced AVB and had Euro success with the very same Di Matteo that West Brom saw fit to sack.