Gareth Bale

Modric >>>>> Ramsey

correct

lucas better than them all obviously,

pacheco better than modric tbf

Lucas > Modric > Bale > Ramsey > Wilshere > Malouda (doesn't understand "passion")

Ivanovic would eat the lot of them.

I quite like Lucas.

quite like him myself but this 'he's a great player you just dont know football' is bollocks imo. He's doesn't do anything well enough to deserve mention yet, and if he has talent he's not yet shown a sustained ability to prove it at liverpool.

malouda is brilliant, wouldnt compare him with bale- dont think he's a winger, he's the left man in a front three at his best. But he's awesome. If bale can get to his level of effectiveness this past year he'll be a real player

says a lot about malouda that he endured a difficult start after arriving with so much hype and fought his way up to playing at such a high level. good thing liverpool didn't win that transfer battle, rafa prob would have ended his career.

malouda and drogba both, and maybe mikel- he's been much improved this season

It's been quite a common feature for Chelsea signings to take a while to get going - I can think of it happening with Drogba, Malouda, Mikel, Essien, Zhirkov, Ivanovic, Ashley Cole, Anelka and perhaps Kalou. Think this will also be the case with Ramires, who has already been written off by fans with shorter memories.

Just about the only player to hit the ground running in the last few years has been Boswinga. Deco started and finished brightly, but was shit in between.

Arsenal players, with the possible exception of Nasri, seem to make a massive initial impact, which makes it all the more noticeable when some of them start to tail off (Vermaelan, Clichy, Arshavin, Eboue, Reyes).

liverpool signings tend to play at a fairly consistent level from the time they join till their transfer to bursapor.

AKA Doing A Ballack

Yeah struggling to think of many recent Chelsea players who made an immediate impact... Anelka maybe?

Took Anelka a while, was used badly by Grant and possibly Scolari (although he scored under Scolari). Certainly wasn't playing anywhere near as expansively as he has under Hiddink/Ancelloti.

A lot of this is to do with the fact we had two shit managers in a row (Grant/Scolari) who couldn't get the best out of anybody.

Alex and Boswinga are possibly the exceptions.

essien took off very well for a central midfielder, i thought?

duff was good quite quickly for chelsea...carvalho?

Essien was typical actually, excellent first few games then went off the pace badly (very much tied to his two awful tackles v Bolton and Liverpool). Took him a while to get his mojo back.

Hadn't really counted those that had been and gone, in which case the key evidence against is Robben, who was incredible for the first three months and then never quite hit those heights again, and when he did, Wes Brown would kick him.

Anyway, back to Bale, one thing that people used to talk about a lot was his skill with a dead ball, and I remember a couple of amazing free kicks in his early days but not much since.

Anyway, back to Lucas - I like him too. It pained me to see them trying to punt him to Stoke in the last window.

bale's free kicks are taken by vdv, kranjcar, modric amd bae! These days. Not sure why.

Also we simply dont ever get any in that area, dont ask me why. Game against everton lately case in point.

http://twitter.com/landondonovan/status/29521618232#

:DDDDDDD

blue horseshoe love anacott steel

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/03112010/58/champions-league-bale-orders-taxi-maicon.html

102 players have more assists in the Premier League than Gareth Bale this season. He has 0. Alex Song more goals too. Hmm.

unfair. Stats also show he's created more chances than any other players, but our strikers have been terrible.

where do you get your stats from? been using this
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/players/stats?id=77653&cc=5739

football365 had it in one of their geekstats columns a week ago iirc, caught my eye.

He's also scored and set up a few in europe i think no stats to hand tho

would be interested in seeing that if you can track it down

not on my phone i cant, but will see later on.

Crouch has been awful this year so far, despite a good assists tally for vdv. I think pav would have filled his boots from bale deliveries by now

Yeah, I'd be interested in that too. If your team has fifteen chances on target and ten off-target, it's nice to be able to see who's setting up those twentyfive chances, rather than just who rolled a ball across for a last minute two-yard in-off-the-arse chance ten minutes after your lazy profligate striker has finally been hooked. Or something.

xpost

letters page in f365 confirms stat, fyi.

Easier to define an assist than the creation of a chance, i suppose ailsa

Aye, I know, but if you can count chances, you can count up who creates them, surely.

Would actually really like a stat to prove rubbishness of wingers' decision-making (i.e. the Aiden McGeady/Giorgio Samaras statistic) , but that's not actually possibly.

only by watching, really. Lennon's regressed quite a bit since his injury but at least he was taking guys on the last night again.

McGeady - having seen the first half last night, I endorse everything anyone's said about him in the last three or four years.

http://www.studs-up.com/comics/2010-11-04.jpg

anti-semite there

antisemite sam

A+

its bounced nicely and i've only just hit it and it's gone straight in innit

Inter Coach Rafa Benitez has likened Tottenham wing-back Gareth Bale to a Ferrari while comparing his defenders to Volvos.

The Wales international once again ripped Inter apart, this time at White Hart Lane, inspiring Spurs to a historic 3-1 victory.

“We have played many times against Bale,” Benitez said. “We know that he is quick and difficult to mark.

“It's not a question of the wide players covering him, but the problem was that we were losing.

“We needed to attack and when we lost the ball, Bale was quicker in the space and it was tough to contain him above all because he concentrated on the flanks.

“If I drive a Volvo against a Ferrari on a straight, I lose. The Volvo is a good car because it's our sponsor, but the Ferrari races faster.

“It's not a question of help from the wide players. Coutinho and Biabiany have worked a lot to improve in defence and I am happy with them, but they always have a defensive mentality.”

benitez is an expert at not having good enough players, it seems.

someone should maybe let him know that he TOOK OVER THE EUROPEAN CHAMPIONS and this shit wont wash anymore.

He didn't say he didn't have enough players, did he?

The Volvo is a good car because it's our sponsor, but the Ferrari races faster

This is awesome though.

i especially like
but the problem was that we were losing

he's certainly saying that he didnt have good players, matt.

Coutinho and Biabiany have worked a lot to improve in defence and I am happy with them, but they always have a defensive mentality.

That ought to read defensive I suppose. Enjoying this newly verbose and relatively laissez-faire Benitez, he needed a change of scene.

~~offensive~~