(08-24-2014, 12:45 AM)nefremo Wrote: Dev, I agree with you comments on the players. The only one is Poli. I didn't find him to be good. For some reason his feet just seem "heavy" when he is on the ball. He puts in a ton of work and I really appreciate that. But I found him to be the weakest (I don't mean physically) of the 3 midfielders in the first half (he did have make a great pass to De Sciglio for the first goal), and he didn't convince me against Sassuolo too.
To an extent I agree. I honestly thought Muntari was the weakest midfielder in the Juve half, not because he played particularly badly or made major mistakes, but just the lack of discipline and composure. In a competitive match, he'd have got at least a yellow and was risking a red at times.
Poli took a while to get going, but I think he generally did what was required. Tactically he was sound and technically he was ok, not making any significant errors outside of the one counter he ruined in the Sassuolo half. A lot of my opinion is dependent on how the players are progressing in preseason, so my view on Poli was much the case that these performances were a significant improvement than other performances made this summer, where he's looked below what we expect in this squad.
My view is much like yours though, we're still a midfielder (starter) short in this squad. Poli's not going to be that and imo, he's not actually our primary backup either, as I'd pick Cristante or Saponara ahead of him.
Which leads me to a point I wanted to post following some thoughts after yesterday's games. Currently, we're a couple of players short of what we need, but we need to replace existing ones in the squad. Just to give a brief overview, ideally by the end of this mercato, I think our squad needs to be...
3 GKs: Lopez, Abbiati, Gabriel/Agazzi
4 Fullbacks: DES as a main starter, Abate and Armero offering solutions with Albertazzi currently backup. Didac needs selling.
5 CBs: Currently we have one too many. Alex, Rami, Zapata and Bonera are the 4 main CBs, then we have Mexes and Zaccardo, imo one needs to be sold (ideally we'd sell both and have a top CB come in, but that's not happening).
5 Mids: Essien needs to be sold imo for a new starter mezzala. Right now I see De Jong, Montolivo and that new player being first choice. Cristante is De Jong's backup, Poli and Saponara as mezzala backup and Muntari the spare man who can fill all 3 roles. I would consider keeping Essien until January just as an extra man until Montolivo's back.
5 (6 counting Mastour) Wingers: El Shaarawy is my first choice, with Menez as a alternative. We'll hopefully get a left footed winger for the right, with Honda as an alternative and then Niang as the additional backup. Mastour can't be relied on at 16, it's all about experiencing senior football this year. Niang and Menez are important to fill in for attack too.
2 Forwards: Pazzini is our only one right now, so obviously we need a new starter. As mentioned above, Niang and Menez will also be relied on to be a 3rd option.
That's 25 (counting Mastour and not Essien). Bearing in mind we just have 2 competitions (Serie A and Italian cup), that's enough imo for this year. Barring exceptional circumstances with injuries, which shouldn't be the case given we play once a week, we should cope with those numbers. This is maybe more mercato talk, so I'll also post this there.
