Premiership Player Draft - Discussion Only

mayordenis

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

Apologies Bubs.



Well I've explained my reasons for picking him and if you disagree fair enough but what I would ask anyone is, would United have picked up the silverware they have in the past couple of seasons without him between the posts? In my opinion they would not have. He's been involved in several massive season-defining moments and more often than not held his nerve.

There are some fine keepers left in the game but in terms of keepers that can actually win you matches, I think VDS was the best one left.

I'm not having a go at you,
just don't rate him as a keeper, I would say yes united would of one the silverware over the last few seasons. I won't name names though.

eirebhoy

VDS must have been impressive for Fulham if Ferguson bought him and tipped him to be the best United keeper since Schmeichel. There's not much competition there but he probably lived up to that. He's captain of Holland with about a billion caps for them.

Of course he's a good pick. In fact, I bet if he was still at Fulham he'd be a unanimously thought of as an excellent pick a couple of rounds ago.

mayordenis

this has nothing to do with me being a Liverpool fan - I thought he was crap for Juve, Fulham and United, and for the most part for Holland too.

When he played for Ajax I thought he was the best in the world. I was wrong.

Bubs101

He was awful awful at Juve so realistically his career should have been over at Fulham. the fact that he played his way to Man utd showed how good he did there and at Man utd he's won 2 leagues and a Champions league. Nuff said

whatawaster

pick made and pm sent.

Delighted with my team so far.

Dont be at yourself

You'll have a lot of sideways passes with Gravasen and Hamann running the show!

mayordenis

The opposition won't get past the halfway line.

whatawaster

NekkidBibleMan wrote: »

You'll have a lot of sideways passes with Gravasen and Hamann running the show!

sounds good to me, i've got McManaman on the wing.

genericgoon

whatawaster wrote: »

pick made and pm sent.

Delighted with my team so far.

Very Trappatonni-esque formation right there. Although people do underestimate Graverson as an attacking threat.

mayordenis

whatawaster wrote: »

sounds good to me, i've got McManaman on the wing.

a keane often drops deep to act as an attacking midfielder/support strike and behinf henry that could be dynamite.

whatawaster

genericgoon wrote: »

Very Trappatonni-esque formation right there. Although people do underestimate Graverson as an attacking threat.

I would have picked Gibson and Whelan, but unfortunately neither qualify.

Bubs101

Gravesen is a good pick but he had his best season (the one Everton finished 4th) as an attacking midfielder according to Wiki. One of the reasons I stayed away

Fuzzy_Dunlop

Someone finally picked Clichy!:pac:

Frisbee

I was stuck on my last pick between Winterburn or Clichy.
Clichy offers more going forward. But I just figured Winterburn's experience made him a better pick...

Idu

Was hoping the Romford Pele would go unnoticed. Wanted him next. Nice pick

RasTa

Pick made, not sure if it's the right tall lanky African player from an Arsenal squad...

Frisbee

RasTa wrote: »

Pick made, not sure if it's the right tall lanky African player from an Arsenal squad...

When I first saw you picked Ade I was shocked.
But thinking more about it I think he represents relatively good value at this stage of the draw...

mayordenis

I was hoping I might be able to sneak Adebayor next round but oh well,
Daniel Agger for the win.

genericgoon

RasTa wrote: »

Pick made, not sure if it's the right tall lanky African player from an Arsenal squad...

Adebayor is a decent pick.

Also, I think Agger is poor value for this stage of the game.

Parlour is an excellent pick.

mayordenis

genericgoon wrote: »

Adebayor is a decent pick.

Also, I think Agger is poor value for this stage of the game.

Parlour is an excellent pick.

maybe you're right,
I've been building my team based more on what I want my team to be as an overall picture than simple the best value at each stage.

Agger and Sol Campbell = dream partnership in my opinion.

You don't always need the most ornate leg for a table, You need the leg that fits.

genericgoon

mayordenis wrote: »

maybe you're right,
I've been building my team based more on what I want my team to be as an overall picture than simple the best value at each stage.

Agger and Sol Campbell = dream partnership in my opinion.

You don't always need the most ornate leg for a table, You need the leg that fits.

I just think with his lack of PL game time and his non-spectacular run in that time, he is a poor pick. He has proven to be a good defender in his time at Liverpool but great, I would have serious doubts. Plus, I reckon you could've been able to pick him up 2 or 3 rounds down the line easily.

Bubs101

genericgoon wrote: »

I just think with his lack of PL game time and his non-spectacular run in that time, he is a poor pick. He has proven to be a good defender in his time at Liverpool but great, I would have serious doubts. Plus, I reckon you could've been able to pick him up 2 or 3 rounds down the line easily.

I'd agree. I don't exactly think Agger has been outstanding in his time in the premiership either

mayordenis

genericgoon wrote: »

I just think with his lack of PL game time and his non-spectacular run in that time, he is a poor pick. He has proven to be a good defender in his time at Liverpool but great, I would have serious doubts. Plus, I reckon you could've been able to pick him up 2 or 3 rounds down the line easily.

aye I've a big long list of stats on this draft and to be quite honest you're entitled to your opinion, There is going to be a scramble for Central Defenders as very very few people have 2 central defenders picked at the moment.
Again in the overall worth to other teams he may not be the best defender but he is the one for my team.

And also you're just plain wrong about non-spectacular, as a footballer he was just about the best player at Liverpool the season before last and had been brutally unlucky with injuries.

But cool we'll agree to disagree.

People will really need to start grabbing there central defenders though.

LuckyLloyd

mayordenis wrote: »

aye I've a big long list of stats on this draft and to be quite honest you're entitled to your opinion, There is going to be a scramble for Central Defenders as very very few people have 2 central defenders picked at the moment.
Again in the overall worth to other teams he may not be the best defender but he is the one for my team.

And also you're just plain wrong about non-spectacular, as a footballer he was just about the best player at Liverpool the season before last and had been brutally unlucky with injuries.

But cool we'll agree to disagree.

People will really need to start grabbing there central defenders though.

As a Liverpool fan, I have to say that I consider Agger to be extremely unproven. While he showed flashes before his injury, there were errors there aswell. And, imo, since his return to regular first team action he has been abysmal - this season he has demonstrated poor concentration levels and an inability to do the bread an butter aspects of his role competently.

I think the recent fascination with having 'ball playing' center halves is taken to an extreme at times. Simply put, if you are a center back who can't defend well, how good you are on the ball is an utter irrelevance.

Additionally, Agger has only just exceeded the qualifying criteria of 40 premiership games. His sample size is very small, so on one hand there is every chance that he will be a radically improved player 4 years hence. But equally, the fact that such a relatively small amount of games is littered with numerous individual mistakes and mental lapses is not a good sign.

---

But, aside from an assessment of Agger in isolation, I think the pick is very poor indeed from a relative value perspective. I understand to a certain extent your contention that you are making a team specific pick. However, we again come around to the fact that if you really wanted him you could have waited possibly all the way to round 11. There is a player I really want, but I know 100% that he will be available at the end. Agger has such a small amount of games, and has had such a small impact on the premiership that I really don't think he would be in demand anytime soon. There are at least 20 center backs that can be adjudged as superior players on the basis of their premiership appearances remaining on the board at this point. So, in my very honest opinion, the pick is a poor one.

Now, I don't mean to pick on you mayordenis and it's nothing personal. You are entitled to vehemently disagree with the above of course. But I'd stand by it.

mayordenis

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Now, I don't mean to pick on you mayordenis and it's nothing personal. You are entitled to vehemently disagree with the above of course. But I'd stand by it.

Don't worry I'm not taking it personally, I'm happy with your opinion and the opinion of others and thus far that has been negative towards this pick, but when my team is constucted I feel this pick will be an integral part of it.

I will probably disagree with the assertation that Daniel Agger cannot Defend, and also that he's been abysmal since return, in fact in our recent draws (baring the west ham game) he's put in much more tackles that Jamie and has continued to make driving runs and get involved in play.

In one season he showed he's a superior player in more or less ever aspect to Carragher. 1 huge error this season, and 1 error in the champions league in 06/07 against chelsea are the only mistakes I can recall in his time, there may be 1/2 more but I doubt it my memory is pretty reasonable.

A top team does require a ball playing central defender also, batting of the idea in such a out of the hand manner I think is somewhat short sight and overly simplistic. A great team should have someone, who like A good attacking midfielder can provide a link between midfield and attack, can provide you with a link between not only defense and midfield, but at times defense and attack.

ditpoker

agger is a "suspicious" pick...

VDS is quality. he was great at.. everywhere...
Ajax

* Eredivisie: 1993–94, 1994–95, 1995–96, 1997–98
* KNVB Cup: 1992–93, 1997–98, 1998–99
* UEFA Champions League: 1994–95
* UEFA Cup: 1992
* UEFA Super Cup: 1995
* Intercontinental Cup: 1995

[edit] Juventus

* UEFA Intertoto Cup: 1999

[edit] Fulham

* UEFA Intertoto Cup: 2002

[edit] Manchester United

* Premier League: 2006–07, 2007–08
* Football League Cup: 2005–06
* FA Community Shield: 2007, 2008
* UEFA Champions League: 2007–08

[edit] Individual

* Best European Goalkeeper: 1995
* Dutch Football Goalkeeper of the Year: 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997
* Dutch Golden Shoe: 1998
* UEFA Euro 2008 Team of the Tournament


the man is just a fantastic keeper/

mayordenis

suspicious? on what grounds? That I'm a pool fan?

Pires, Campbell, Klinsmann, Wright-Philips, Barry and Nolan are my other picks.

Suspicious? I fail to see.

ditpoker

on the strength of your other picks you have by far one of the better squads assembled in my opinion. suspicious in that i dont think agger fits there in terms of quality. it'd be like cristiano ronaldo signing for wigan, its suspicious.

basically i really dont rate agger. I think there's about 10 players in the current premiership who are better in their position that agger, and about 20 still unpicked players in that position that have graced the premiership in years past.

mayordenis

ditpoker wrote: »

on the strength of your other picks you have by far one of the better squads assembled in my opinion. suspicious in that i dont think agger fits there in terms of quality. it'd be like cristiano ronaldo signing for wigan, its suspicious.

basically i really dont rate agger. I think there's about 10 players in the current premiership who are better in their position that agger, and about 20 still unpicked players in that position that have graced the premiership in years past.

I'm getting worried to be honest,
seems this pick has been slated and it appears fairly.

ditpoker

at the end of the day i picked bruce and pallister as a partnership not because they were far and away the greatest individual player, but a quality duo, and you say you picked agger and campbell cos you think they'd work well together.

i gotta be honest and say i dont know ALOT about agger, but i saw him play 2 games this season against spurs and another pool game (think a champions league game) and he was the 4th best centre back on the pitch in every game. just one of those players i never rated and was surprised to see him go as early as round 6...

... but gotta be better than lloyd picking 2 left mids!

eirebhoy

genericgoon wrote: »

Very Trappatonni-esque formation right there. Although people do underestimate Graverson as an attacking threat.

Certainly not a Trap midfield. Gravesen's way too attacking, undisciplined and crazy to play the role Trap would want. Gravesen has fantastic technical ability. A superb passer of the ball and probably only 2nd to Nakamura when he was Celtic when it comes to the players' range of passing. He's always been best as the attacking player in a 3 man midfield.

LuckyLloyd

eirebhoy wrote: »

Certainly not a Trap midfield. Gravesen's way too attacking, undisciplined and crazy to play the role Trap would want. Gravesen has fantastic technical ability. A superb passer of the ball and probably only 2nd to Nakamura when he was Celtic when it comes to the players' range of passing. He's always been best as the attacking player in a 3 man midfield.

I agree with this. And I think it was a big part of the reason why things didn't exactly work out for him at Real - he was the wrong player for the role they wanted him to play. That said, I think he will work very well in that lineup because Hamman is the ideal player to slot beside him. Dietmar is an exceptional reader of the game and will be content to sit deep and mop things up infront of the back four - giving Graveson a license to be, well, Graveson.

I really like that front six to be honest. There is a lovely mixture of pace, guile, creativity, determination and toughness. I'd almost go so far as to say that it is the best first six players in the draft thus far.

Trippie

ugh this is tough

Frisbee

Feck sake Trippie did you get a look at my shortlist?

Xavi6

There's much better players left than Flamini and Agger imo.

shoutman

This is a tough one.... really struggling to find the type of player I was looking for... might have to change my whole overall gameplan.

Bubs101

Flamini only had one good season

shoutman

I think my pick is good value at this stage.

Xavi6

Not so muchwith Tevez (well maybe a little) but certainly Agger and Flamini, I think people are forgetting there's more to the Premiership than the past 2 or 3 seasons. Some crackin players from 10 or 12 years ago are being overlooked for what is, in the greater scheme of things, mediocrity.

genericgoon

shoutman wrote: »

I think my pick is good value at this stage.

Yep, I think Tevez is a good pick. Not sure about how he will fit into your current team. There is no real anchor there per se, although I suppose there is room to slot one in if Barnes is pushed out to the left. Wouldn't trust Gerrard in that defensive role if that was what you were planning. But a

---

Gerrard

---

DMC

---

Young

---

Barnes

---

Tevez

---

---

Drogba

---

is impressive.

Bubs101

I think tevez is another poor pick tbh. No offense or anything but he nearly got West Ham relegated because he was so bad for 3/4 of the season and his good time at Man utd is too short to rule out his horrid time there and his good time at Man uts hasn't exactly been outstanding

genericgoon

Bubs101 wrote: »

I think tevez is another poor pick tbh. No offense or anything but he nearly got West Ham relegated because he was so bad for 3/4 of the season and his good time at Man utd is too short to rule out his horrid time there and his good time at Man uts hasn't exactly been outstanding

To be fair, his run in the first half of the season was stop-start at best and continued to be for a large stretch of the season. There was also huge sideshow going on with West Ham at the time with a change in maanger halfway through the season and the whole MIS debacle. However, when he was given a good run, he was one of the main catylsts behind the revival of West Ham. I don't think hes a great pick but I think its a good pick and I reckon he'd be one player snapped up in the next few rounds. There was better value out there but not a huge amount in that position.

Bubs101

His goalscoring record is very poor, 22 goals in 70 games and I don't think he offers too much else that Drogba doesn't already. they're both physichal and industrious. i just think that it's a poor stand alone pick and a poor pick given his team

shoutman

IMO there is no player left in the draft who would compliement Drogba as well as Tevez. They are no similar players at all imo, Drogba an be played as a target man, a phenomenal one at that, Tevez can be the link between midfield and attack. To say they are both industrious physical players and thus wont compliment each other is a shortsighted opinion. Tevez is physical in the way that he wont be nestled off the ball, Drogba is physical in that he will win headers against some of the best defensive players in the league (Martin Laursen can unfortunately attest to that).

As I said in my write up I did not pick Tevez for his goalscoring prowess, but he will pop up with the occasional stunner and is another big game player who always seems to perform his best in the big games.
With this pick I have decided to change my overall team layout but I think it will end up being a very positive change.

Bubs101

That's a massive leap of faith though. Since Drogba has been at Chelsea we've had Anelka, Mutu, Crespo, Shevchenko, Pizzaro and more and not one has had a decent partnership with Drogba. In fact, since Drogba has been in the premiership one thing he has shown is that he can't work with another striker. If you play Tevez up front with Drogba you stifle his game and 4-5-1 Drogba is a completely different player to 4-4-2 Drogba and by different I mean better

shoutman

Tevez can play the behind the front man role too you know. Also none of the players chelsea have tried to partner Drogba with have been similar to Tevez.

Bubs101

shoutman wrote: »

. Also none of the players chelsea have tried to partner Drogba with have been similar to Tevez.

That's just bad logic. You can't assume something will work when everything else tried has failed, especially when Sheva, Crespo and Anelka had much better records than Tevez when they came to Chelsea and are all different players to each other. Also, it's not like Tevez is Mutu or anything, he can't spark up chemistry with any other striker.

Personally, I just think that the pick of Tevez is kind of like your Barnes pick. It's not too bad on paper but it just doesn't suit your team in my opinion, which of course is liable to be proven wrong

shoutman

So my logic of saying that its possible that Tevez can work well with Drogba because on paper it looks like their charactersitics match up well is bad logic, but you saying because he hasn't worked well with others he wouldn't work well with Tevez is good logic?

Tevez and Drogba would be a fomidable partnership, that said I still am not sure if I will play two up front...

As for the Barnes pick, it might of been a slight oversight at the time, but none the less I think its a bit shortsighted to say he wont fit into my team when I have yet to pick my whole team.

Barnes was still a good player during his time in the premiership, he may of been bad value for when I picked him but he still will suit my overall vision for my team.

Bubs101

shoutman wrote: »

So my logic of saying that its possible that Tevez can work well with Drogba because on paper it looks like their charactersitics match up well is bad logic, but you saying because he hasn't worked well with others he wouldn't work well with Tevez is good logic?

No, the logic that Tevez and Drogba will gel despite the fact that Tevez has never gelled with a similar striker in the premiership and Drogba has never gelled with any striker in the premiership is poor logic with no examples or facts to back it up whereas pointing out that Drogba has never gelled with any striker or excelled in a 4-4-2 formation and is therefore unlikely to gel with Tevez in a 4-4-2 formation seems to have more basis in fact. That's the way I see it anyway

shoutman

Lets be honest, its very hard to say whether or not any two players will gel, even if they are the two most gelliest players on earth there is still the chance that they wont gel.
I think should they gel (which due to the fact I am a magnificent manager, will mean they will), then it would be a good partnership no?