SuperDunny's argument is he was brought up by Ajax so is capable of playing anyway. I think with so many 433 teams around crowding the midfield, if you play 442 you need two work horses in centre midfield, which he isn't. He's a playmaker, and a very good one.

Yeah, that's a good point.

I'd still keep CS points as they are, though. If a team concedes a goal, does it really matter if it's in the 55th or the 65th minute?

The problem is that if you have a defender who conceeds a goal in each half, he scores 1pt. But if you have a defender who conceeds 0 goals in the first half, and 2 goals in the second half, he scores 3pts. It would be hugely annoying.

Personally, I'd love to see 4pts for a penalty no matter who scores it.

Could give 5 points instead of 4 for a CS. I just think if you concede a goal, it doesn't really matter what time you concede it, you've still lost your CS - maybe you've drawn instead on won, maybe lost instead of drawn.

1966 for every other outfield player they might only turn up for 5 minutes and get a bonus of 3/4/5 points. What I mean is say a midfielder crosses a ball and gets an assist. He does nothing else for the game and his team loses he still gets 3pts for the assist. He might even cost his team a goal and lose the game for his team he still gets the points.

A defender could have a storming game for 45/60/75 minutes and get nothing for it at the end due to a mistake by one of the other players on the team. The team might even win due to his efforts but because a striker gets two goals and a midfielder has a stormer he gets no bp's or any points at all?

I really think a partial cs bonus is the way to go even if its only 1pt for getting to 45mins with a cs and 3pts more for the full 90minutes

I like 6pts total for a clean sheet = 1 goal for a striker = 1 assist and clean sheet for a mid. I think that works well.

That just worstens the big disparity between a clean sheet and one goal.

How about defenders recieve an extra 2pts for only conceeding one goal, suffer no deduction for 2 goals, but then loose 1pt per goal after that?

However, I could see (and wouldn't object to) an equivalent of the goalie save points coming in for tackles or something.....

...that was to 1966 BTW

B&B - I like that idea, but I'd probably go for an extra 1pt if you only concede 1.

I suppose you could get points for goal-line clearances, too - I could be wrong, but don't they show up as saves for the defender already? Would be easy to give 3 points for a goal-line clearance.

Yeah that would work too B+B great idea.

Fully agree with all of that MF. However re Song he needs to stay def midfield and not be caught oop in the opponents box when arsenal lose posession. Arsenal have enough attacking players without need the def mid to chip in also.

As regards set plays again a lot of the reason the concede the fouls is because the attackers in the team are not tracking back imo leading to song et al having to make rash/cynical challenges to try and prevent teams from scoring. Arsenal dont concede anywhere near the same ammount of free's v the top teams.

Mentality wise there does not seem to be anything wrong with them versus the big teams so for me it's just a matter of them being too c0cky for and not putting in the shift v the smaller teams. They could learn a lot from Barca's defense (which is also apparently rubbish and too small and whatever you want to say about it).

Song's pushing forward can actually be extremely effective at times, as it works well with Arsenal's pressing - it worked wonders in the wins against Chelsea and Man City, for example. However, he can leave the defence exposed if he gets it wrong.

I do think our tracking back has improved on the whole though. One thing Wilshere doesn't get enough credit for is his willingness to get back quickly, unlike Diaby or Denilson who just amble back as if there's no danger.

The mentality issue certainly isn't a cockiness thing - you only have to look at how poor the players were in the Carling Cup final - that wasn't cockiness, it was nervousness. We only won two games following that game, so its pretty obvious we just fell to bits.

pretty much agree word for word.
word

Wenger has to shoulder some of the blame for all of this surely.

Interesting this stuff on Song staying back. It's exactly the same with Fletcher. Both are better destroyers. They're haters, not lovers.

All the players you refer to are squad players not first XI. Sturridge, Mceachran, Bertrand, Kakuta will all be given chances, they need to take those chances.

hmm I read it, but don't actually have an account. Already considering it though.

Not to get too carried up in the weekly FFS england player bashing, remember Capello, who's won pretty much everything and worked with the best players on the planet thought enough of Henderson to call him up to the senior squad. Yeah he failed but there's obviously something there.

for the record i quite like henderson.
i thought he was trying far too hard in the under 21s tournament as if he had to prove a point with that price tag, trying 40 yard passes when pre-move he was far more efficient.
as for bertrand benching cashley to play the yoof would be silly, they've sent him out on several loans and give him a few years and he could be an adequate replacement

This is the same Capello who called up Shaun Wright-Phillips to his World Cup squad, played Lampard and Gerrard in central midfield vs the USA because he didn't call up any holding mids other than a half fit Barry, refused to give PL goalkeeper of the year Joe Hart a chance until after the World Cup, etc, etc, etc.

For the record, i still think Rodwell could be a brilliant DM.

Faulk i'm not suggesting Capello doesn't make mistakes, but Henderson isn't as sh*t as people make out on here. He's not worth £20m, but he's not a bad player.

of course not. he's a decent young midfield player.

If Liverpool had spent, maybe £7 million on him, I'm sure a fair few people would have just gone: "hmm, good signing."

not sure about rodwell. i'll cut him some slack as he's had a lot of injuries lately but i just get the sense he's not the hungriest player out there. he has this quite content air about him imo which he should only have when he's actually become something, not just a good prospect.
basically if he took a leaf out of chicharito's book of rabid enthusiasm i think he'd be far better off.

Yeah that's fair enough. I think he also needs to be more aggressive to be a successful DM, although Carrick and Busquets are hardly Keane-esq.

On a side note, i hope jamsiep stays in Botswana. Imagine how insufferable he'll be with this Villas-Boas chat on his return.

ha keep forgetting he's in africa.

"but mr priest i do not care about stuart broad"