(10-05-2011, 01:23 PM)ElMago99 Wrote: Overall you speak mostly truth and I agree with much of what you say, as always, however,
* I disagree about saying we're not deep.
Boateng, Aquilani, El Shaaraway, Robinho, Gattuso, Flamini, Ambrosini, Van Bommel, Seedorf, Nocerino, Antonini, Urby Emmanuelson. We have at least 13 players capable of playing in our (4) midfield positions in the diamond. I think depth is not the question, we are well deep, but the problem is quality. We do not have World Class midfielders, capable of changing a game. Robinho is a striker, and Boateng is a good midfielder with a lot of energy, but we have many slow, defensive minded players who just don't cut it anymore. Also, we have a problem with injuries, and lastly we GAVE AWAY our 2 promising midfielders in Strasser & Merkel.
* The biggest difference with Napoli this year and last year is that this year they are in Champions League!! A lot more games and a lot more pressure. Also, there squad is talented, esp their attack, but if one or 2 falls, they are in trouble. Pandev sucks, and cannot sustain any loss of lavezzi or cavani. If they go deep in CL, they will struggle in Serie A due to experience and lack of depth. They may do well in 1 of the 2, however, and it's nice to see a new team succeeding. In no way do I underestimate them, but to think they'll win Scudetto and go to Quarters in CL, I think it's too early, too fast.
About our roster: what I meant when I wrote we have no depth nowadays is we have no depth right now, because of the injuries ...
By taking your list, we have:
- Van Bommel, Seedorf, Nocerino who are fit and started
- Aquilani who is fit but not that good for moment (came late in Milan), Emmanuelson who is fit, sometimes good, but personnally, I'm not convinced
- El Shaarawy who is fit but also very young, we can't make the same mistake as we did with Pato in his debuts (putting the weight of the team on his shoulders)
- Boateng, Antonini (anyway, don't want to see him in midfield, it would have been better, if fit, to use him as LB and Zambro as RB) and Ambrosini coming back from injury (we saw the result with Boateng)
- Robinho, Gattuso and Flamini are injured
So, actually, in this midfield, taking in consideration the fact that some players are unfit/injured/not very good, we have no depth. That will probably change after the international break.
If everybody was there, we would have two complete midfields:
Van Bommel/Ambrosini, Seedorf/Aquilani, Gattuso/Nocerino/Flamini, Boateng/El Shaarawy + Emmanuelson able to fit in some positions of the midfield (if given some freedom to move on the pitch) + Robinho or Cassano able to fit in the AM spot. Of course, to compete in Europe, that's not good enough yet, we need more quality, like you rightly said.
About Strasser, I disagree, but I agree about Merkel, he could have been useful right now ...
About Napoli, it will depend on their schedule ... If when they play in CL then, they have to play against the likes of Cesena or other small teams, they could make a surprise. If when the games will matter, they have to play against Juventus, Milan, Inter, Udinese, etc ... (well, they beat Inter and us, so they can be calm now) then, they could struggle and have to choose between CL and Serie A.
One should not speak ill of the dead.
So stop laughing at Juventus !
So stop laughing at Juventus !