Plus Bale...
Eactomondo! Do you ever feel people disagree with you for the sake of it? Eek
Plus Bale...
There's alot of talk flying about regarding various players in various positions, but I was wondering what everyone thinks should be our list of priorities this summer with regards to transfers?
For me the list should be, in order of importance...
1. Goalkeeper
2. Defensive minded central midfielder
3. Creative central midfielder
4. Left sided midfielder/winger
5. First class centre back (assuming Ledley won't be fit again)
6. Left back (as backup to Bale)
7. Right winger (this increases if Lennon leaves)
8. Another striker (especially if Bent leaves)
Those for me are the priorities. Obviously if Berbatov leaves then that changes everything and a quality striker becomes one of our top priorities, and I suppose 3 & 4 are fairly interchangeable...we just need some creativity from somewhere.
1. Ball winning central midfielder with guts and leadership
2. Ball playing central midfielder with the ability to dictate tempo
3. Left winger who can beat a man and get a cross in regularly with their left foot
4. Goalkeeper
5. Experienced centre back with proven quality
6. Another central midfielder
I think I agree with TSH.
If all of our attacking play is coming down the wings, we will need full backs who are great going forward and have huge engines on them, i.e. the purchase of Hutton when we already had Chimbonda (who often didn't seem to have the energy to bother running back after going up the field and whipping in a cross that went into the stands). Bale is exactly the left back Ramos is probably dreaming of, full of energy, can run all day, has the ability to overlap the winger effectively and can put in decent crosses. As I already stated the defensive side of his game and in particular his positioning will no doubt improve a lot with experience and hard work. Gilberto is a stop gap backup to Bale in this exact same role.
Why can't he use the same skill set as a winger with a left back behind him. A couple of reasons I can think of off the top of my head.
Firstly he is unlikely to ever be someone who is a natural outlet in terms of having raw pace and isn't going to beat a man repeatedly and get crosses in from the byline. I know not all wingers have to do that, but if you don't then his crossing may as well come from slightly deeper or on the overlap as a Ramos style fullback as they are up there most of the time anyway and so an out and out winger will offer us a second attacking approach.
Secondly is the trend toward the 4-5-1/4-3-3 formation. In a formation like that Bale would end up being a wing forward who would be relied on greatly as a goalscoring/goal assisting double threat. Whilst his crossing isn't in any doubt and he will always chip in with the odd goal because he has a great left foot I don't think he could ever adapt to a wing forward role.
On the right I am far happier with having Lennon or Steed in that role than I ever would be with Bale or Gilberto on the left. Yes Steed could do it on the left to an extent but wouldn't have that same ability to stretch the front line like you need in that formation and would drift in far too much and just make us narrow.
So for me a right side with Hutton/Chimbs(Gunter) with Lennon/Malbranque is far more naturally suited to both formations than we would be with Bale/Gilberto/Malbranque on the left side.
I think what I am trying to get at is when attacking I expect our full backs will be like second (crossing style) wingers, with our wingers more direct and naturally able to add width and pace. Right we can, left we can't.
nicely put dude. i would add a layer to that though. Like with Alves, on occasion Bale will play infront of another full back. UEFA cup. Sevilla at home had Alves RB and Navas RM ... away Alves was RM and another FB behind him. Now that possibly was becasue Navas does have an acute touch of the BA Barracas's but there were other RW alternatives available to ramos but he chose Alves to affectively play a slightly more defensive steel to that side away from home. AS seville looked more and more like challangeing for la Liga Sky put on more of thier games post chirstmas last year and the same use of Alves was apparant in some away games.
I would suggest though Bales position will be overwhelmingly LB... actually in the 4 games Ramos had Bale for 3 were at LB only 1 at LM .... my guess would be that Ramos would play him in those two positions over the course of a season at about the same split 75% LB 25% LM.
a side note. Bale is quicker than it seems you give him credit for.
I would definately go along with that. I am sure there will be opposition, or even at certain times in a match, i.e. defending a narrow lead where a slightly more cautious approach will be needed and certainly Bale can be used as a left mid with a more defensive minded full back behind him.
Sorry I wasn't saying Bale was slow by any means, just not a direct runner with that change of pace where he will skip by a fullback.
Apparently, Ramos has said he wants to build a squad around Berba and Keane.There's alot of talk flying about regarding various players in various positions, but I was wondering what everyone thinks should be our list of priorities this summer with regards to transfers?
For me the list should be, in order of importance...
1. Goalkeeper
2. Defensive minded central midfielder
3. Creative central midfielder
4. Left sided midfielder/winger
5. First class centre back (assuming Ledley won't be fit again)
6. Left back (as backup to Bale)
7. Right winger (this increases if Lennon leaves)
8. Another striker (especially if Bent leaves)
Those for me are the priorities. Obviously if Berbatov leaves then that changes everything and a quality striker becomes one of our top priorities, and I suppose 3 & 4 are fairly interchangeable...we just need some creativity from somewhere.