Why blame Arsenal for England's problems!?!

[thegame24]

clichy evra, id keep clichy tbh.

id take our centerbacks over uniteds (you will see how weak they are in central defence as the season goes on)

Any of ou right backs over neville.

Hleb over giggs
Gilberto over hargreaves
Fabregas over Scholes (this one is easy tbh, scholes is strugling to find passes these days)
ronaldo over rosicky

 

[banduan]

It's very difficult to do player-to-player comparisons when teams tend to be built together.

If we pooled Man-U's player's and ours, I'd pick:

VDS, Sagna, Ferdinand/Toure, Gallas, Evra, Hleb, Cesc, Bert, Ronaldo, Rooney, RVP

It sounds absurd to pick Hleb over Giggs, but only because we remember how incredibly good he was, but not how less good he's become.

But it's all theory really, as teams are stronger than the sum of their players, especially true for Manure and Arsenal.

 

[mood]

I just read this.

I think a big part of the blame for lack of English talent has to go to the English players' attitudes themselves. A lot of youngsters are impatient, and make big moves to Chelsea or Man Utd and blow their careers away. Or have lows with their managers, or waste away their potential by fooling around. Look at most youngsters in Italy, Spain, France.. they all take their football seriously and are brought up well.

Foreign influence is needed, and it will only help local talent to add to other dimensions of their game. I'd like to see more local talent coming through, but let's face it... with their attitude, and their prices, managers will continue to tend to foreigners.

 

[banduan]

I think a big part of the blame for lack of English talent has to go to the English players' attitudes themselves. A lot of youngsters are impatient, and make big moves to Chelsea or Man Utd and blow their careers away. Or have lows with their managers, or waste away their potential by fooling around. Look at most youngsters in Italy, Spain, France.. they all take their football seriously and are brought up well.

Then how do you explain youngsters from Spain and France coming to the EPL and not blowing their careers away?

 

[seb_afc]

seriously, the more i think about this, the more i feel that both teams have their own advantage.

its quite impossible to work out who is better than who.

for eg, you could say adebayor is better than rooney because his physical presence works very well with the others etc

lets not get carried away here mate!

 

[Mostarac]

Then how do you explain youngsters from Spain and France coming to the EPL and not blowing their careers away?

A big factor in that is the mentality amongst the young players in the UK compared to continental Europe. Younger players from Europe seem much more mature too compared to their counterparts from the UK.

 

[Alfonso]

Then how do you explain youngsters from Spain and France coming to the EPL and not blowing their careers away?

There are many reasons for this. For example, on the whole when a kid moves from his country to abroad he takes it a lot more seriously than his English peers, mainly due to the fact that it is not only a career move but a life change as well. A lot more is sacrificed in these cases, for example, their parents might have saved up a lot of money and have to deal with the consequence of potential financial risk, esp if they come from a modest background, so their son could follow their football dream. Therefore, the kid has added motivation of justifying his parents big financial risk. In general the foregin players take their opportunites less for granted than the domestic talents. Also, if your a kid and move to a foreign country at 14/15 you have to do a lot of growing up, and that is why perhaps they are more mature than their English counterparts, as Mos has mentioned. They are mentally stronger due to the journey they have embarked on, and as a result are less prone to screwing up their careers in later life. They are more grounded.

This happens in tennis a lot as well, where special talents move from their home to specialist countries where they can develop their game further. Its these players that usually do better in the long term as they have to have a strong mentally from a early age.

 

[Macho]

People are quite comfortable to pick Rosicky/Hleb over Giggs. However, i feel it is jusdging on his current state..he is getting on a bit aint he?
If it was Giggs in his prime over Hleb/Rosicky in their prime....I know who I would rather have in my left winger position....



Thats Giggs in his prime by the way.

 

[Alfonso]

Of course you would choose Giggs at his prime over Hleb and Rosicky of now. But the interesting question, and one I often have with my mates, is in their prime who was the best out of Overmars, Giggs, and Pires?

Very, very hard question. And any order you put them in would not be considered as silly.

 

[Glovegun]

Giggs even now is still a great player, last season he was fantastic, and he is more versatile player now rather than just an out-and-out winger. One of the few United players I a) respect, b) dont hate immensely and c) would have loved to have seen in an Arsenal shirt.

 

[Chips&CurrySauce]

There is nothing between Giggs and Pires when they were both at their best.. Maybe I'm bias but I'd take Pires pre his cruciate injury, over Giggs, but like I said its too close to call.. However I'm sorry to say both Giggs and Pires were a different class to Overmars. Overmars was great in a counter attacking side, but he din't have the vision, touch and flair of Pires and Giggs.

 

[Lukazan]

Overmars was class in his own right, but he didn't quite have as much to his game than Pires and Giggs.

I'd take Pires in his pomp over both of them. He was an amazingly talented footballer and one of my favourites of all time.

 

[Anzac]

I'd also suggest that there are very few coaches in the EPL who are capable of developing an individual local talent. IMO there are very few local players who have been able to burst upon the scene at a young age, and then have been able to continue to improve their game once achieving international status at the highest level.

Don't get me wrong - they have been very good at what they do, but I don't think their overall game has continued to develop. It's like the coaching looks to refine the talent in the areas already identified without adding to their game.

For me none of the likes of Beckham, Owen or Rooney have developed different areas of their game since making a name for themselves. IMO this limits their range of skills when faced with class teams at the highest level. To me they have remained as essentially the same type of player but have perhaps improved their decision making.

Perhaps it's also got something to do with the way the 'British' game seems to specialise in roles on the pitch.

 

[bigtimetopbanana]

it's an interesting top 100. As many of you said, comparing defenders to forwards is hard.... but
- Hargreaves better than Vieira? I'd love to find a Man U fan that thinks the Canadian is a better player !!!!
- Ferdinand better than Maldini? Forgive me while I puke.
- Joe Cole better than Franck Ribery? I'm sorry, I'll get my hat.

I cut the data to show the relative strength of each team, by giving a weighting of 1 to the top player of the list, 0.99 to the 2nd, down to a weighting 0.01 to the 100th, multiplied that by the number of players a club has on the list....

Chelsea 7.97
Barcelona 6.48
Manchester United 5.7
AC Milan 5.18
Real Madrid 4.26
Bayern Munich 2.47
Valencia 2.29
Inter Milan 2.16
Juventus 2
Liverpool 1.73
Arsenal 1.63

Gee..... someone should fire Chelsea's manager if they can't win the Champions League with that lot.
Liverpool, Arsenal and Inter Milan are either, way overperforming, or way under-rated.

 

[Tony Montana]

it's an interesting top 100. As many of you said, comparing defenders to forwards is hard.... but
- Hargreaves better than Vieira? I'd love to find a Man U fan that thinks the Canadian is a better player !!!!
- Ferdinand better than Maldini? Forgive me while I puke.
- Joe Cole better than Franck Ribery? I'm sorry, I'll get my hat.

I cut the data to show the relative strength of each team, by giving a weighting of 1 to the top player of the list, 0.99 to the 2nd, down to a weighting 0.01 to the 100th, multiplied that by the number of players a club has on the list....

Chelsea 7.97
Barcelona 6.48
Manchester United 5.7
AC Milan 5.18
Real Madrid 4.26
Bayern Munich 2.47
Valencia 2.29
Inter Milan 2.16
Juventus 2
Liverpool 1.73
Arsenal 1.63

Gee..... someone should fire Chelsea's manager if they can't win the Champions League with that lot.
Liverpool, Arsenal and Inter Milan are either, way overperforming, or way under-rated.

Very interesting data mate. Thanks for that. How did you do it exactly? I can't get it fully.

And it's true, we're either overpeforming or under-rated. In fact this is one of the most interesting things i've read on Arsenal-Mania.

Excellent.

 

[bigtimetopbanana]

Tony.... I stuck the players and their clubs into a s/sheet. Gave a reverse weighting to each player, so Kaka gets 1.00 for AC Milan, Ronaldo 0.99 for Man U, Ronaldhino 0.98 for Barca. Then add up for each club.

So Arsenal get:
0.68 for Cesc
0.34 for Gallas
0.3 for Kolo
0.19 for Van Persie
0.12 for Eduardo
= 1.63

Not really scientific.... 1 Kaka does not equal 5 Van Persies !!!!! But it makes the point !

 

[banduan]

You could use square roots to reduce the variance.

 

[tactica442]

it's an interesting top 100. As many of you said, comparing defenders to forwards is hard.... but
- Hargreaves better than Vieira? I'd love to find a Man U fan that thinks the Canadian is a better player !!!!
- Ferdinand better than Maldini? Forgive me while I puke.
- Joe Cole better than Franck Ribery? I'm sorry, I'll get my hat.

I cut the data to show the relative strength of each team, by giving a weighting of 1 to the top player of the list, 0.99 to the 2nd, down to a weighting 0.01 to the 100th, multiplied that by the number of players a club has on the list....

Chelsea 7.97
Barcelona 6.48
Manchester United 5.7
AC Milan 5.18
Real Madrid 4.26
Bayern Munich 2.47
Valencia 2.29
Inter Milan 2.16
Juventus 2
Liverpool 1.73
Arsenal 1.63

Gee..... someone should fire Chelsea's manager if they can't win the Champions League with that lot.
Liverpool, Arsenal and Inter Milan are either, way overperforming, or way under-rated.

You may receive a call from Ambrovch for a presentation.

 

[Tony Montana]

You could use square roots to reduce the variance.

oooooh! Look at me, i'm a great mathematician.

 

[number_0]

time to bump up the thread after such a sensational display from england