Match Ratings -VS- Birmingham City

[AW?]

I want to be number 6.

 

[SpurSince57]

I've made no reference to yesterdays game, as I wasn't there and couldn't even bring myself to watch FF. Settled for MOTD which is never a true reflection of a game.

We've all seen plenty of Bent throughout his career. I've seen enough to know what he's capable of.

And the Torres comparison is, frankly, ridiculous. You said at the start of the season when I criticised the signing of Bent that you'd prefer Bent to Torres (or words to that effect).
And I said the same then.

I doubt it. Unless some of us are closet Charlton and Tractor Boys fans. Please tell me you are neither.

So what does Torres offer other than pace? By way of example, what, exactly, did he do against us at Anfield other than fuck all for 90 minutes before popping up to score their equaliser? That wasn't an atypical performance. His shooting accuracy isn't that great, although when he does get on target he will score as often as not. By the same criterion, Bent doesn't do too badly.

And yet you suggested in the summer we'd be better off signing joke 'striker' Alan Smith, who is in reality a second-rate midfield clogger.

Look around and see what money gets you.

 

[dannythomas]

Well, I don't think any of us is in that great a position to judge what he's potentially capable of, B-C, because I doubt any of has spent that much time over the past couple of seasons watching Charlton games. But you say he 'cannot beat a defender'; I did catch Charlton's game at Anfield last season, and he terrorised Agger and Carragher. And doesn't the 'except by pace' apply also to Torres?

For the moment, until he gets a decent run in the side, which is maybe the biggest problem (only Spurs could spend £15m+ on a bench-warmer), I'm prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.

But what really fucks me off is that he seems to have become the main focus of blame for yesterday's farce. Sure, he was indifferent at best, but was it his fault the Brummies were able to penetrate our defence seemingly at will every time they came forward? I think not.

Well, we agree on the highlighted part at least. But since you are claiming that it is unfair to expect much from Bent until he gets an extended run in the team , would you leave out Berbatov or Keane for an extended number of games to accommodate him ? And when it is not working would you leave Bent on the pitch rather than subbing him with one of these two ? I mean, just to improve his confidence in the hope that he might suddenly produce the goods ? I would strongly suggest we get past 40 points before we try such an experiment.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

I still would rather have signed Alan Smith than Bent because Smith would have complimented our other strikers better than bent. He would also have defended from the front. It's funny that your always telling us that "managers know best" and yet you think Ferguson's signing of Alan Smith was stupid ? He understands the team dynamic and how players work with players. It's not who scores that's important it's how many quality chances a team creates. Alan Smith would have been a foil for all three of our strikers. Bent works with none. It's about fitting pieces of the jigsaw. Smith wouldn't have been my first choice of course but he would have offered something we lacked.

 

[SpurSince57]

Well, we agree on the highlighted part at least. But since you are claiming that it is unfair to expect much from Bent until he gets an extended run in the team , would you leave out Berbatov or Keane for an extended number of games to accommodate him? And when it is not working would you leave Bent on the pitch rather than subbing him with one of these two? I mean, just to improve his confidence in the hope that he might suddenly produce the goods? I would strongly suggest we get past 40 points before we try such an experiment.

Obviously, I would not. Neither would anyone else, unless they happened to be be certifiably mad. And therein lies the dilemma, doesn't it?

I still would rather have signed Alan Smith than Bent because Smith would have complimented our other strikers better than bent. He would also have defended from the front. It's funny that your always telling us that "managers know best" and yet you think Ferguson's signing of Alan Smith was stupid ? He understands the team dynamic and how players work with players. It's not who scores that's important it's how many quality chances a team creates. Alan Smith would have been a foil for all three of our strikers. Bent works with none. It's about fitting pieces of the jigsaw. Smith wouldn't have been my first choice of course but he would have offered something we lacked.

So you persist in the delusion that Smith is a striker? I mean, really, seriously? Well, one can hardly argue with his phenomenal scoring record, I suppose. 44 goals in 10 years. Whoopy-doop. That's what I call a striker. A veritable goal machine.

 

[Houdini]

I counted 45 goals on one set of stats, but one of those goals comes under "Other" but hey! Another set of stats for Smith states 344 appearances and 69 goals, 3 of those again in the "other" category, and none for his present club!
For some reason i thought he had scored a lot more.....but 69 out of 344......oh and 15 prem assists = £6m!

 

[haxman]

So what does Torres offer other than pace?

Injury free football, so far this season anyway.

21 goals in 32 games. 15 in 20 league games.

Settled at his new club quickly, despite moving to a new country and the language barrier.

Experience at the very top level, in the Champions League.

 

[SpurSince57]

And the reason he's scored many of those goals is his sheer pace, isn't it?

Do you think he'd have done as well if his appearances had been as limited as Bent's?

What CL experience did he have before joining the Scousers?

 

[Legend10]

I'm all for giving Bent a fair chance and have said so previously, regardless of what people say there is certainly a need in strikers for rhythmn and most importantly of all confidence.

You don't become a bad player overnight and Bent has historically a very good goals to game ratio playing for poor sides. However it is difficult to argue that he isn't somewhat 1 dimensional, he has good pace and is very good in the air but isn't blessed with the best hold up play and will always have some difficulty in being influential against teams which play deep. He certainly isn't crap as some people are suggesting and I'm certain he will have some good spells for us and his overall goal percentages won't be bad.

But I have to say the comparisons with Torres are somewhat ridiculous and do Bent no favours at all. Torres is a top top striker capable of plying his trade at the very top clubs, he isn't just quick chasing balls he is also lightening quick when running with the ball, there is a world of difference. He is also very skillfull and has shown on numerous occasions this season that he has no problem in beating players in tight areas.

Really Torres is as about a complete centre forward that you will find, great pace both with and without the ball, great in the air, excellent hold up play, scores all types of goals with both feet and in the air and works his nuts of for the team to boot.

 

[stevenqoz]

Bent looks a write off this season. Confidence shot. Looking very much like an outsider. That said, we thought he was good enough to pay 16m for him and should therefore not be looking at what he can do just for this season. He is recovering from a significant injury. Suggest that we take any good stuff that comes our way as a bonus for 2008 and wait to see what ehe can do next year.

 

[haxman]

And the reason he's scored many of those goals is his sheer pace, isn't it?

Do you think he'd have done as well if his appearances had been as limited as Bent's?

What CL experience did he have before joining the Scousers?

The question you asked was what does Torres offer other than pace. I just gave some answers. Yes, he's quick, but I doubt he's as quick as Bent. And he's scored some screamers in his time, so he's got a good long range shot on him too. You were right about the CL, it was UEFA cup he played in

The other question you asked could be turned around and asked as would Bent have done as well if he'd had as many appearances as Torres? I doubt it.


Legend summed it up well for me in his post above.

 

[SpurSince57]

Which is why he cost £25m.

No, I wouldn't disagree (and I was mostly winding up B-C, as usual). But again, would Torres have impressed quite so much if his opportunities had been as limited as Bent's?

Maybe we should have stuck with Mido. :grin:

 

[haxman]

Which is why he cost £25m.

No, I wouldn't disagree (and I was mostly winding up B-C, as usual). But again, would Torres have impressed quite so much if his opportunities had been as limited as Bent's?

Maybe we should have stuck with Mido. :grin:

We both know that no-one can answer that question :wink:
It would have been nice to compare them if both had stayed fit and played a similar amount of games but thats football.

 

[nickspurs]

Can't really give ratings on the basis of MOTD (plus it's too painful) but it was a really poor defensive display and a woeful lack of service as far as I can ascertain.

Given the thread has drifted on to Mr Bent I think we all owe him some slack. His confidence is visibly shot to pieces and he's getting no opportunity to get any rhythm. Most strikers thrive on a run of games and he ain't getting that.

It's not his fault that we paid a huge fee for him when we had two strikers who were ahead of him (a £16.5M bench-warmer as SS57 put it). DC deserves the blame for this. I believe it was his signing (of course DL sanctioned it) and unless he strongly believed we'd lose Berba it was an idiotic piece of business. I'm not saying Bent is bad, just that we shouldn't have bought him for this bit-part role.

The only way he'll come good is if Keane or Berba get injured and he gets a run. I'm sure he'll then start to prove himself. If that doesn't happen I suspect we'll swallow our pride and ship him on/loan him out in the summer. This will be a great shame for the lad.

 

[tRiKS]

i saw this coming and put £25.00 with Ladbokes and our apathy on Saturday paid for my Friday night out and my meal with the mrs on saturday night too.

I feel sorry for the other teams around Brimingham becasue we'll get a few of them during clear UEFA cup weeks where we play a good team who aren't worried about getting injured and aren't still Euphoric about winning a cup final.

Saturday was a nessesary evil. Ramos now has something to take into training for the up and coming week and none of our players will be complacent for what is a much much bigger game on Thursday. Much rather we lost and learnt a lesson now than to have scraped though saturday and took our hangover through to Thursday.

I can see us remaining unbeaten for long time now because of saturdays rage enducing performance.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Which is why he cost £25m.

No, I wouldn't disagree (and I was mostly winding up B-C, as usual). But again, would Torres have impressed quite so much if his opportunities had been as limited as Bent's?

Maybe we should have stuck with Mido. :grin:

Brilliant wind up SS. Bit like the one a few months back when I said this:

Originally Posted by Bus-Conductor
Would you honestly have chosen Bent at 17.5 or Torres at 20 ?


And you replied with this:

SS57:
Bent, obviously. Any signing is going to be a gamble, and strikers more than most, you know that as well as I, but Bent is about as low-risk as you can get. Torres may come good, but I doubt he'll score any more than Bent, and perhaps not even as many, and he's almost certainly going to take some time to adjust. And was he really only £20m? Is that including Garcia?


I remember you also arguing that Mido was better than Kanoute for months.


Your "wind-ups" come heavily disguised as someone who actually doesn't understand football very well, gets exposed, then pretends he was on a "wind-up".

 

[Shanks]

I love this website, but sometimes the people posting just make me sit here and wonder ..

last Sunday, Robbo got hammered for his position against the free kick. And it was the general assumption that if he stood more to his right (like he did on saturday) then it would have been accepted if Drogba hit it over the wall into opposite corner.

Now you are saying that Robbo has the wrong position for this free kick...

Don't make me fucking laugh.

It's absolutely ridiculous that you think Robbo was in the wrong position. I can see the arguement for the cup final, but this time, no chance....

poor bloke can't fucking win no matter what he does.

 

[SpurSince57]

I said Mido was a more effective goalscorer for us than Kanoute, B-C. Which he indisputably was, by any criteria you choose to apply. He also provided pretty nearly as many assists as Fredi. I don't believe you'll ever find I said he was a better footballer, because he wasn't and isn't (although he is by no means as poor as you consistently made out).

And yes, I'll hold by what I said. Buying strikers is always a gamble. For £10m less than Torres, with an excellent record in the EPL over two seasons (if it had been just the one I would have agreed it was total madness), he represented less of a risk. Torres didn't turn out to be another Morientes or Kezman (or Kuyt, come to that), but at the time there was no guarantee of that. Nor is there any certainty that if Bent had got a proper run in the side, from the off, that he wouldn't have knocked in a dozen or so by now and that some people on here wouldn't be singing a very different tune. But given the way the season has panned out, Jol and Ramos have stuck with Berbatov and Keane for very good reasons.

Rumour has it (and rumour is all that we have to go on) that DL and DC were confident of offloading Defoe in the summer, and Mido had definitely outstayed his welcome, and that was the rationale behind signing Bent. It makes sense to me. And unlike Torres, who was clearly going to be first choice from the off, Bent was initially destined to be Number Three. But we ended up having to accommodate him and Defoe, and, regardless of whose fault it was, the league season went to hell in a handcart. While we were all wondering what was going on, Liverpool got off to a real flyer.

Now as Ledge says, Torres is a far more technically accomplished player, as well as being extremely quick, but at the end of the day he, like Bent, is going to be judged on his goals. Unlike Berbatov and Kanouté, neither is going to bring too much else to the party. Torres' passing is nothing to scream about, any more than Bent's (in fact Bent's is marginally better), and he hasn't provided too much in the way of assists either. He's also had well over twice as much time on the pitch as Bent, and in the vast majority of those games he's played the full 90 or very close to. It's hardly a level playing-field for purposes of comparison.

It's purely hypothetical, but if Bent had played as much as Torres and turned in a comparable goal tally, would we be worrying that he was a technically inferior footballer? I doubt it. And whilst three goals may seem a pretty paltry return for our £15.5m, it's no worse or very little worse than several highly-rated players who've also had a lot more time on the pitch—Kuyt and Owen, for starters.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Football has evolved SS. You either haven't evolved with it or deliberately chose to not see the point I have tried to make many, many times.

For Bent to make sense we would have to play to his strengths. This would mean changing the way we play football - in my opinion for the worse - personnel, tatics and possibly formation.

A footballer is limited by his abilities. Bent has one - pace. It therefore limits is effectiveness and that of everyone around him. It limits the type of chance you can create for him and it definately limits the job he can do for his team mates.

Buying any player is a gamble, as you rightly say, but buying one for 16.5 million (a club record by some distance) with such a limited skillset was just madness. Unless of course we were going to become Charlton with 5 in midfield every game and huddlestone chipping balls over the defence for Bent to chase. At which point I would have sold you my season ticket (at a knockdown rate). After all, that system managed to get Charlton relegated.


And I still stand by what I said. If you would chose Bent over Torres you are clearly excercising the right that everyone has to be a stubborn twit.

 

[SpurSince57]

Well, I no more wish us to play a long ball as our only tactic than you, B-C, although as I've always said, if it's as a surprise measure or all that's left it most certainly has its place. Even Arsenal had to resort to it against Everton the other week.

What I would dispute is that we would be forced to play that way to make the most effective use of Bent. I honestly don't see how you can make that kind of categorical statement. Yes, pace is his major asset, but surely there are more ways of utilising it than hoofs over the defence.

As for the £15.5m, well, you'll have to ask Levy and Comolli about that.