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Speakers' Corner week 18 responses
Dec 19, 2006 | 7:38PM | report this

Djnima I wanted to hear your thoughts on your fellow Fox Football Pundit Nick "get the beers in" Webster.

I do admit that his prediction does look set to come true, but who knows who else Fergie can bring to the team in January. I hope for the leagues sake that it does go down to the wire. I think Chelsea need to reinforce the back four and bringing Cech back will help. I do think Utd were unlucky to come away with a result. They don't seem to "go for the jugular" as Fergie puts it. Thoughts?

Bobby - I think I would like to comment on it from my perspective rather than providing my thoughts Nick’s article. First of all, I picked Chelsea to win the Premiership this season and I still think come May they will be the champions. However, the shine has been removed from Chelsea this season-this is not the team we have seen the last two years.  A pattern has evolved whereby Chelsea get behind in a game or are having trouble breaking down the opposition -- Newcastle as an example – then Essien moves to wingback, they throw on another forward or two and they finish up getting a result.

Chelsea is allowing the opposition to score first to a far greater extent than we have seen before. They have also all lost to Middlesbrough and Spurs after taking the lead. If they don't get themselves sorted out they will drop more points.  By now teams should know what to expect in terms of the Essien move and you should see teams adjust their tactics accordingly.  Clearly Mourinho has been unable to sort out the predicament of Michael Ballack and Frank Lampard essentially occupying the same position. It is a bit like the Lampard/Gerrard problem that England suffers with.
Chelsea has relied on a few players to bale them out this season- Drogba perhaps being the most prominent.

Henry14 - Gone are the days that you would look at the league fixture as an arsenal fan and predict a win on Saturday l noticed something that l never thought would happen. A new all time low was recorded in the gunners’ team. Surely the young team has made the standards of the arsenal team fall. l could not believe that drawing with Portsmouth is now seen as symbol of character, something that was unheard of a few seasons ago. Arsenal built their reputation on thrashing all the teams they have drawn with at home. Half the season have gone one has come to a conclusion that surely some of the players are highly overrated. l watched the Portsmouth game twice and suddenly saw that they is no longer any pride in pulling the Arsenal jersey. RVP, Clichy, Eboue, Hleb, Toure, Djouru have all been a disgrace this season. l could not believe that we can not have a two match winning streak. These players has been living in the glory of Pires, Bergkamp, Henry, Vieira, Ashley Cole, Sol, Lauren to such an extent that they are happy to have the ego that comes with it but not the performance. These players have not stepped up and to show how their ego affects them after a performance like that some of them go to the media and claims their can still win the league which is disrespectful to the fans. They are young but so are 11 of the 20 teams in the Premiership and if they are not careful they are staring at UEFA cup football in the face and an empty stadium. The reality that Wenger hides from is that he should sign two or three good experienced players in midfield and attack.

Do you think there is any better country at producing strikers like Italy, if you look at their goal scoring chart over the seasons it is amazing. And what do you think about Sheffield United.

Bobby - Henry14, I am beginning to get bit concerned that you are going to do yourself a mischief jumping on and off the Arsenal wagon. You're upset about drawing with Portsmouth, but go back to the “Invincible Year” and did Arsenal not draw with the newly promoted Portsmouth that season? Young players do not become better players by not playing them. In your words signing “two of three good experienced players in midfield attack” assumes that these players are automatically better than what Arsenal presently has.

As for Italian strikers, I can think of a few countries that are better at producing goal scorers.  Brazil and Argentina come quickly to mind.  You will have to explain to me what is amazing about the Italian goal scoring charts over the seasons.

Neil Warnock has Sheffield United working very hard and it has paid off with some vital goals in the last few weeks.  However, I cannot see them doing anything else but battling relegation all season although I fancy their chances of eventually surviving.

Jeffers77 - What do you think are the chances that Tottenham will win a trophy this year? They’ve been in great form lately, looks like they are coming together very well as a team. They’ll have to win some big games obviously to have a chance at winning something, but I think they could pull it off this year.

Bobby - Martin Jol has been talking up the UEFA Cup so that may be his number one target.  But if you look at the last 32 of the UEFA Cup I think you can see is going be extremely difficult tournament to win.

Dwight4007 - Arsene Wenger has been having some emotional control issues lately. Given his fantastic success over the past 10 years, is he displacing some frustration over the play of his young team onto opposing managers and match officials?

Bobby - Probably.

Bigdavedisaster - With Keane's injury do you think he is done at White Hart Lane? I hope not because I believe that Spurs increased level of play cannot be credited to the matching of Berbatov and Defoe but rather to the play of Huddlestone who just gets better with every match.

Bobby - Perhaps with his injury it might make it more likely that Keane will not leave come the January transfer window.  It certainly looks like Huddlestone is the heir apparent to Michael Carrick. He seems to be improving rapidly and certainly looks the part.

Realmadridccfan – 1. What do you think of the FIFA rankings that FIFA re-jigged after the World Cup? They make no sense at all! How does the United States end up 30th at this ranking, Canada 82nd, Trinidad & Tobago 91st, Guinea 23rd and Cuba 46th? This new formula that FIFA has come up with is pretty dumb.

2. Out of all the EPL managers right now, which club get's their money's worth in terms of getting the most out of their players and the financial resources (or lack their of) that the club has?

3. Who do you think is the most under-rated and over-rated goalkeeper in Spain's La Liga right now?

Bobby–1. I pay no attention to the FIFA rankings – absolute worthless ####.
2. It is going to vary from week to week, and I think you can only make that call come the end of season. However, Bolton has to be ranked highly on a value for money to points basis.
3. There are more avid watchers of La Liga than me who are better qualified to comment on the goalkeepers.  However, I would throw in the name of Roberto Abbondanzieri (Getafe) as someone who perhaps doesn’t get enough credit; on the other side I think Carlos Kameni (Espanyol) is often more style than substance.

LosAngelesChelseaFan - I agree 100% with your Summary on Chelsea on FSWR tonight (Chelsea not as good as last year’s 4-3-3 team, Boularouz being a disaster, risky tactics, Drogba getting more space, etc.).

I really don’t get the claim by the media that Chelsea has a deep squad to get them through while others may not last. They’ve been running on fumes and 30 yard strikes recently. We had this discussion earlier but they have no right winger, they only play well when they take Geremi off the pitch, there’s no CB coverage and we all know the Ballack/Sheva issues. Terry’s injury may not be trivial and explains his pretty passive displays of the last month or so. Kalou, Mikel are high risk.

It was interesting that JM today said that he wouldn’t have played the midfield diamond if Terry had been fit. I guess they can’t just dump Sheva, and I guess Ballack will be in the picture till they have someone better or they switch formations.

Do you have any thoughts about who Chelsea could get in the transfer window?
Maybe there’s a swap on the way. Have you heard any rumors?
Who do you think Man U should/could get?

Bobby - The last thing Chelsea need is to sign more players.  They have not successfully integrated the ones they signed in the summer saw adding more to the mix is not going to make the situation any better. I think many Manchester United fans are hoping that Fergie will sign another striker even with Larsson arriving on loan.  It looks like the move for Owen Hargreaves is definitely off so it might free up some substantial money for Fernando Torres. But there again Atletico Madrid may want to keep him until the summer and make a big push for a Champions League spot.


18 Comments | Add a comment   categories: Chelsea, Manchester United, Michael Essien, Newcastle United, Jose Mourinho, Frank Lampard, Michael Ballack, Didier Drogba, Portsmouth, Sheffield United, Tottenham Hotspur, Martin Jol, Robie Keane, Tom Huddlestone, Michael Carrick, Bolton Wanderers, Espanyol, Getafe
 
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ABOUT ME


BobbyMcMahon
I am the soccer analyst for the Fox Soccer Report and appear twice a week - every Monday and Friday at 10:00 EST. I have also been a regular contributor to the Fox Soccer Channel website since the summer of 2004. Over the last twenty years I have contributed to various radio and television programs throughout North America as well writing about the game for newspapers, magazines and websites. Thank you to all who take time to visit this blog and especially to those of you who post your comments and thoughts. PS - If you have questions please post them on the regular Monday blog. I am unable to answer e mails posted to the inbox on this site. And one more thing. If you have questions or complaints or compliments about programming please contact Fox Soccer Channel or Fox Sports World Canada directly. I have no control over what the stations televise.
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