Barcelona don’t keep their players for long? Are you serious? Xabi, Iniesta, Messi, Valdes (although he wants to leave). Almost half their starting squad have been there for years and are committed to retiring there. How can you claim that is not the case?

Exactly, I only wish that could be conveyed to JB as I am clearly lacking in the explanation department.

Perhaps what Mike was getting at was not goals scored, but the quality of said attacking play. Whilst we might see on average just as many goals, I doubt we see as much attacking play. It would be interesting to see how many goals come from penalties/breaks/set pieces in comparison to other leagues. These types of goals shouldn’t be considered attacking play because let’s face it, a long ball is hardly attacking football resulting in a goal. Maybe we are better off comparing shots on goal as a better indicator of what Mike is writing about.

The site http://www.whoscored.com/Regions/252/Tournaments/2/Seasons/3853/Stages/7794/TeamStatistics/England-Premier-League-2013-2014 has some good stats. I wonder how HAL compares in regards to completed passes/shots at goal.

JB

You’re off your rocker.

You asked “Now to the nitty gritty Drew, (Drew Who may I ask?) if you feel I am patronising (to whom?)”
I replied “You’ve been patronising in many comments I have read, with it culminating in the absurdity I had to read in response to my article regarding Moye’s poor performance. I took exception to that after witnessing it across many other articles posted here” which quite clearly explains where, and how you were patronising. It was in my Moyes’ article. That is why I mentioned Moyes, to explain to you where you wrote patronising comments. What is so difficult to understand about that?

Also, Drew is half my name, you are correct. But I fail to see how this is an issue to you, considering I am sure J Binnie is not your full name?

I entered the discussion stating you were blunt in the response, which I felt was rude. Regardless of if QsAF thanked you or not, I stated my opinion. And your problem to that is?

I then commented on the stats, stating that a paltry “decline” of 3.4% is hardly something to worry about, thereby contributing to the conversation about the stats.

The only stage I mentioned Moyes was when you specifically asked who you were being patronising to. In order to answer that question, I cited your comments on my article which were patronising.

Speaking of which, you should go back to that article, it is here> http://www.theroar.com.au/2014/03/22/much-maligned-moyes-solely-to-blame/ and read the comments from others about you. You make no sense, and the common consensus is such.

You then write “You chose to enter the discussion whichyou are entitled to do,but cited the declinewas paltry and nothing to worry about. Who said that it had????” But it was you who said it needed addressing! How dense are you!? You wrote “These figures are hardly “terminal” but are unlikely to change over the last games.So it’s back to the “marketeers” to maintain this improvement.” therefore you quite clearly said it needed tending to, I essentially agreed with you, and added that as far as I was concerned it is more of a plateau than a decline, and as long as we are competing with the other codes this isn’t really a problem.

You are completely off your head, how do you fail to comprehend, or remember any of this?

Has anyone been able to find our who qualifies for the concession tickets?

Mourinho is no doubt ruthless but he hasn’t been known to throw the baby out with the bath water. Maybe he will flick Schwarzer, bring back Courtois and pit him and Cech against each other. Having said that, both keepers would need to be receptive to the idea, which I doubt they would be – Cech not wanting to be bested and Courtois proving he can play at the top level, as a young keeper, will want to keep progressing.

I can’t wait to see who they sign to lead the line, but why not give Lukaku a shot?

I agree with most of your article, but I’d like to add that Chelsea have an embarrassment of riches available, so anyone that didn’t give them a shot at the title at the beginning of the season (“new” – although it is his second stint – coach and rebuilding or not) is having a laugh.

Glaring typo, that’s embarrassing – should read “This year could be even more exciting, especially given that arguably the most deserving player in the league to have not won a league title is in the mix – the scouse legend Stevie G.” oops :/

JB

Mate now you’re just going back on your comments and it is contradicting yourself.

You’ve been patronising in many comments I have read, with it culminating in the absurdity I had to read in response to my article regarding Moye’s poor performance. I took exception to that after witnessing it across many other articles posted here. Now it is kind of like that state of mind where when someone has put you offside, just their presence annoys you. I believe we have each fallen into that category for each other.

I could have quoted it differently, but I didn’t. The use of the … indicates text is missing before and after – I don’t see the problem?

I’ve already stated it – you were patronising to me and others as |I have read.

What is my full name to you? What if Drew was not even my real name? I could tell you my surname is Anderson but how or why is that relevant? If you’re so concerned about personal details, give us yours. I’d like your credit card number too 😉 Or are you just simply “Mr J Binnie” on all official correspondence?

Same applies you you JB, if you see my name, why read?

Johan,

I think football in Australia would be better off if you, and people with your mindset quietly faded off into the distance with your port. You’ve gone out of your way to find a negative in the positive that is so many Aussie fans turning up, and it is completely unnecessary. What ever happened to supporting the underdog? Surely the constant (recent) disappointment of the Wallabies’ performances (or lack of) is just as much a reason to not attend their matches.

Their recruitment policy should be to copy Chelsea – look out for whoever Liverpool are after and sign those players. It’s working pretty effectively for the blues so far.

Jason, I think from an economic point of view it wouldn’t be a bad idea to sell RVP – he has waned this season, is clearly unhappy under Moyes (which means chances are he will continue to under perform whilst Moyes is there – or any manager that he doesn’t like, really) so selling him and taking a loss of 10 million (as opposed to getting less or nothing for him in a few years) seems like the best way out of a bad situation at this point.

You’re right though; form is temporary, class is permanent. But having temporary bad form that carries on for a full season – coupled with injuries stifling any chance he has of getting back into form – means that RVP is not the player he was last season under Fergie. Maybe he can go to Juventus as they seem to like out of favour strikers who haven’t been playing (Tevez) and reinvest somewhere else. Maybe they can steal Draxler or go for Insigne who is an exciting young talent. Very different player to RVP but it may force them to drop the long ball nonsense.

Craig Foster summed the performance up well “For David Moyes, the performance against Bayern was good. For United, it wasn’t.”

I’ve said it before and will continue to say it – saying the players are past it is absurd – sure they are getting older, but this same (more or less) team won the title last year, so I don’t accept that wholesale replacements will suddenly see United as title contenders again.

Jb

My name is on my profile, it is Drew – not sure how that is miscommunicated here?

I took exception to the patronising way you wrote – you say maybe I need to look at it again, but if your post causes someone else offence whilst you claim it wasn’t intended in such a way, then maybe you need to step back and take an objective view of how you phrase things.

You wrote, and I quote “…3 clubs have shown a decline…” so clearly, you did use the word decline and it is not something I imagined. Quite clearly you, my friend, are the one in need of reading what you wrote again.

I used the words paltry and plateau in my description of any perceived decline, so again not entirely sure what your point is by pointing out the words I used in description of, what you termed, a decline.

In the event you need guidance, because it shows that you have a poor memory, the comment in question was yours April 1st at 9:15am – just a few comments up that way. See – patronising isn’t it.

And to get in before you raise the point that I criticised you for being blunt, yet called you an ass, don’t bother – mine wasn’t thinly veiled contempt – it as meant outright.

Drew

J Binnie

Wow. That was blunt, and I use blunt because I’m sure I can’t call you an ass on here.

I’d say this is hardly a decline, more of a plateau. The percentage of “decline” (as you love figures so much) is a paltry 3.4%

It is all relative however, so as long as football is competing with the other codes, I say happy days.

Keep in mind, should jets make the finals these will no doubt go up.

Towser – I’d give my left family jewel for us to have the quality of player, and depth, and footballing culture that England have, even if they let their nation down consistently on the world stage. It would be miles better than what we currently have.

I agree with you that a quality football culture beats a poor football culture (regardless of how extensive said culture is) but I think it stands to reason that if the USA had the football culture of Uruguay as you argued then the USA would be the best team in the world, hands down. The sheer population and money in the USA, coupled with a football first culture, would make them unstoppable.

A similar thing happened this morning between Man U and Baryen. Schweinsteiger was sent off for a challenge which could be argued was a second yellow card (albeit rather harsh) after he looked at Rooney acting injured from what was a rather innocuous tackle from Schweinsteiger. I fully agree that referees are issuing punishments after seeing if a player is hurt. So maybe we shouldn’t be blaming play acting players who milk the most out of a soft challenge (because hey, the refs are falling for it) but maybe we should be blasting the referees for being so rubbish as to give, for example, a red card when a yellow may be more suitable.

Burn the refs to the stake, I say! Where’s our local lynch mob?

😉 tongue in cheek, of course – purely following in the over-reaction of our referees.

I’d say we let too many young talents fall by the wayside.

At the risk of exposing too much about myself personally, and banging my own drum, I’ll give you a run down of my personal experience in football.

Aged 9 I was invited to join an academy in Bowral – had to pass that up due to Dad moving for work.

Aged 12 made the Gold Coast representative squad to compete at state titles. That same under 12 team I was in had someone by the name of Tommy Oar. Of our two under 12 squads which travelled to the state talent identification programs (consisting of 30 players) only a few (maybe three) were then selected for the Queensland Academy of Sport.

That’s a 10% progression rate. We are judging kids at a tender age of 12 as to whether they get a shot at the big time. For me, that is far too young. There have been many late bloomers a la Rogic, anyone?

Ideally, if the funding was available (which it isn’t), the best 50% (at least) of those kids at the Talent Identification state tournaments would be taken to their relevant state’s academy of sport, and coached for minimum 3 years, at which time the hard decisions could be made as to whether you were good enough or not.

Currently there is far too much wastage with the talent we currently have.

Oh to dream.

Then we move onto post-representative youth days. I became disheartened (like many of my team mates from that original Gold Coast best 11 squad) with the system in place there and we defected to something called The Futbol Institute – a privately run academy which selected players and took them to the Dana Cup in Denmark. As far as I know none of that squad either was picked up but the initiative was there. After making the squad we self funded ourselves to get to Denmark and play on the international stage, exiting the tournament in the quater finals stage to the Maltese national youth side (we are talking under 14’s here). Not too bad for a bunch of kids from the Gold Coast.

Then the sap story begins – I tore my ACL at age 15 and was out of the game for 2 and a half years. Bye bye any (slim) shot I had at making a living from football.

I won’t go on, but I’m sure this kind of story is common for most young footballers – missing out due to injury, or lack of funds to take a generation of footballers through. I don’t think there is any one way to get Australia to the top, and modelling ourselves on the Dutch with small sided games (or anyone else, for that matter) won’t be the be all and end all to our national team’s woes.

I think the only way the Socceroos will ever compete at international level will be with a shift in our culture – the rugby codes succeed because it is, more often than not, “The Aussie Way” – a way in which football is still very much second rate. If Australia doesn’t become a footballing nation, we won’t ever succeed. Funding present or not.

He will be eligible for Spain too….

Well said, Zee. But be warned, as soon as J Binnie gets a read of this you’ll have an out and out war on your hands – I wrote something similar and got a barrage of nonsense from him. Heads up.

Jets have a wealth of youngsters who for the most part have failed to live up to the billing. Brown from Gold Coast United has been a let down, Goodwin started well but has fallen out of favour, and I don’t think we’ve seen a Jet from their youth setup achieve anything decent in a while – with Taggart the exception (was he from the youth setup though?).

Oh I guess Brilliante and Gallager are doing well.

Here here.

I’d say there are no set formations, be it 4-4-2, 3-4-3, 4-3-3 etc. I’d say they are transitional. A 4-3-3 setup naturally transitions to a 4-5-1 in defence and conceivable a 2-3-5 in attack.

In regards to transfer policy, I think it was Pelligrini (although don’t hold me to that as I need to check and frankly can’t be bothered at present) who said meeting the minimum “English” and I use that term loosely as non-English players can be considered English by FA standards in a lot of cases, are far more expensive to sign and pay, and there are less of them at a top level. It is easier and cheaper to import players. That’s simple economics so of course players will be brought in. I don’t see what this has to do with the point of my article though – that Moyes is at fault.

What happened to Arsenal was again manager failure – everyone predicted they didn’t have the defence or firepower to contend when the business end of the season came around. And that is exactly what’s happened.

TheMagnificent11 summed it up perfectly – Moyes has under achieved.

I disagree – if we can play a high pressing possession game and our boys don’t give it away cheaply then we have every chance at competing. If Spain don’t have the ball then they can’t score.

The real question is, can we keep it from them for 90 minutes so they cannot score? No.

Man United’s problems are anything from imagined, as you claim. The facts are there – worst league finish in years. My article was trying to show everyone, plainly, that Moyes is to blame, and that is fact given the way the players performed under Ferguson, hence it is unfair to say the squad needs 6 new players, or to run petitions to oust Cleverly from the England squad because of his form with United.

I feel as though this will simply go back and forth – and maybe you should take a step back and read your comments because blind optimism (or blind defiance perhaps) doesn’t get you anywhere – meaning this is rather pointless, but here we go…

1. No, it doesn’t mean they should win this year, it means they should be challenging this year – like they have done for years previous after winning the title. You cannot claim the same group of players, with or without injuries and Scholes’ retirement, who won the league 12 months ago are allowed to run seventh because they are all a year older.

And a note about Van Persie. In 2012-2013 season, after scoring against Everton on 10 February 2013, Van Persie went ten games without scoring, finally ending his barren run when he scored a penalty against Stoke on 14 April. It wasn’t all roses for RVP last season, and he did get injured. So your claims that is is a “one off” that he has been injured this year and not scored as much because of it are rubbish.

2. The Mirror thought it was a drubbing – http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/liverpool-fans-set-sights-premier-3252302

Again, penalties or not, United were opened up time and time again. You can’t get a penalty without getting into the opponent’s box. Slice it any way you want, United were outclassed and opened up many a time.

3. Yes, exactly! Scholes was there with him! Fergie had a system that suited RVP up top, with Scholes and Rooney behind him. There is no more Scholes, so obviously that system won’t work anymore yet Moyes is still trying to play it! Therefore the blame is on Moyes for persisting with a system that does not work, still making Rooney play deeper, even though it doesn’t work without Scholes! What are you trying to explain because again you’re not making any sense.

4. Not just the commentator and I who thought Giggs had a blinder – http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/ryan-giggs-stars-david-moyes-6853747

For every one of your counter claims I can find several resources to back me up. You’re alone on this one too, bud.

5. Average and mediocre are the same this – they both mean middle of the range. You write “Manchester United should be competing for the the best around the world You mention Ronaldo,Messi,and Iniesta improving any team.I agree but they are not in this Utd squad,my point exactly.” So how did they manage to compete last year with the same group of players minus Scholes that they now have? Your logic does not make sense, again.

6. You write “The reason I told you to forget Fergie,Managers don’t win game, players do and this squad does not have the class to compete with the ever searching Man City,Chelsea or Arsenal who keep coming up with classy players and in that I would include Suarez.” Mate, this is getting beyond comprehension. If United have, for the most part, the same squad as last year, and Fergie won with that squad, whilst Moyes cannot win with that squad, then quite clearly managers win titles. You are making less and less sense as you go on with this. If losing Scholes was such an impact, tell me why losing Ronaldo wasn’t? Ronaldo was miles better than Scholes but United still won titles without him.

JB, my rebbudal;

Point 1 – exactly. All but two are Fergie’s men. Therefore all but two win the title last year. I’m not sure what you’re getting at in point 1 as it only seems to confirm my claim that United are a shadow of the team they were under Moyes. So surely, Moyes must be to blame – I don’t see any other explanation.

Point 2 – it was a drubbing because United don’t lose 3-0 at home. Period. It was a drubbing because by the end (granted with 10 men) they were chasing shadows. And it was a drubbing because Liverpool opened them up time and time again. Regardless of where the goals came from, it could have been 5-0. And you don’t get penalties (valid or not, not trying to deny the dive) unless you’re threatening in attack.

Point 3 – explain it me how it is ludicrous to compare the team from last year to that of this year? You stated in point one that they are practically the same side! Never have I read something more hypocritical. You’re right about Rooney though. Moyes is trying to make the players fit a system, not the system fit the players which is how it should be. So clearly, that is squarely on Moyes once again. But if you think back, Fergie’s deployed Rooney deeper and still won the title. Your claim that my point was lost in the writing of my article, but it seems clear – Moyes has ruined united.

Point 4 – I don’t accept age as an issue here. From united winning the title last year to the new season starting and united playing like crap is only a few months. A few months doesn’t rob that much. Plus against Olympiacos, Giggs was one of the best on ground. But yes, the EPL should in principal not become a nursing home. We can agree on that.

Point 5 – that makes no sense. How can these so called “mediocre” players as you describe them go from winning the league last year to bombing just a few months later? If they are mediocre as you say, and that mediocre players don’t make the top four, who did that same group of mediocre players finish first last year? Turns out if was wrong in my response to point 3. Your statement in point 5 is the most hypocritical thing I’ve ever read. Obviously positive additions to any squad would benefit any team – put Messi, Ronaldo and Iniesta into Bayern Munich and the best team in the world gets better. What isn’t obvious is why you think Moyes isn’t to blame.

Point 6 – all I’ll say is again that the same group of players last year had the ability to mix it with the best. Now they don’t. And at the risk if repeating myself yet again, the biggest factor in that difference is Moyes. United haven’t had any of the truly top players in the world in their squad for years. Post Beckham era it was Ronaldo, Van Persie (when he was firing under Fergie last year) and Rooney. That’s three players over a few years whilst the likes of Ronaldo, Messi, Robben, Xavi, Iniesta et al. have been plying their trade elsewhere. So again, explain how Fergie could do it, and Moyes can’t with the same players, yet it is wrong to blame Moyes?