₦airaland Forum

debosky: Dembele has potential, but is nowhere as good as is being hyped. . . .at least not yet. Looking good playing in Fulham colours ain't the same as turning out for United.

dembele is actually underrated by many......
i have followed his career from holland and he was playing behind a striker in fulham but the goals weren't forthcoming - sometime last season, martin jol moved him back and he has been a colossus in his new position ever since! on saturday, he actually exposed what united are seriously lacking - strength in the middle of the pitch! sometimes you need an enforcer in that area of the pitch to curb incursions!

I'm always wary when pundits want to copy what other teams have in order to win. You don't need to have a Yaya Toure type player in the middle. Utd hasn't had one of those in the past 5 years but won 3 league titles. What you do need is a plan B, when plan A doesn't work, and that's what Yaya T provides. Your plan B will not necessarily be the same as that of Citeh.

in those 5 years, united had a younger scholes, owen hargreaves and fletcher patrolling the midfield and battering opponents to a pulp! you need an enforcer in the middle of the park unless you are barca - and barca press all over the pitch more than any team i know so they get away with not having an enforcer. couple that with their possession football and you get a picture of why they get away with it!

StarBoard: [b][/b]
I'm glad you have come to the realization that we are stil wafer-thin in the middle.This is coming against the back-drop of your listing 8 midfield players that you thought were available in the midfield.

wafer-thin because we don't know what to expect from our midfielders injury-wise! dembele is a good value at £15m - the names we bandied when we had this discussion were way too steep a price. none of m'vila, martinez or de rossi woukld cost less than £35m like bayern is finding out as we speak!

honestly, ando-clev are good value in the midfield - going forward, they are as good as any midfield pair this league as ever seen but they are weak defensively! besides, their injury record is not something to write home about and an injury to one almost renders the other one useless - so they carry a huge risk! fergie should have gone all out to sign dembele - giggs/ scholes would retire by january or next summer and i don't know if fletcher can return back to his 2008-10 form!

montelik: personally I feel there is a little too much hype about Dembele. make no mistake dude is talented, but I feel its a case medium size fish in a small pond, forming local champion. we have seen players like this before. Parker, Palacios, Adam e.t.c.

the hype is justified! what he does more than most central midfielders is his drive in the centre of the pitch, his ability on the ball and his reluctance to get dispossessed! anderson used to do that for us - take the ball from our half and run straight into the heart of the defence of his opponents but he doesn't do it often! it is what makes yaya toure a force of nature - i really think we need such a player in our midfield plus he can tackle too and put himself about. fecking hell, he's only 25!!! the perfect age to sign players of his ilk....in the next 2 seasons, fergie would pay £30m to get him with daniel levy scamming us again! it's inevitable!

now he would certainly be an improvement over our aged legends, but I just don't feel he is a true big team stand out player, unlike Sigurdsson whom I can see developing into one.

our season can turn from hope to despair if carrick suddenly breaks his metatarsal!
anderson/cleverley have fitness issues - it would be a miracle if fergie manages 25 league games from them each! scholes/giggs shouldn't even be discussed(they are corpses)! fletcher has been away too long - we don't know what to expect! jones/powell are unproven and untested at this level so we are very light in that area!

montelik: ^^ haba don't kill them with hype. sigurdsson and dembele combined can't match Keane in his prime not to mention Keane and Scholes.

villas-boas has done well with those 2 signings, all he needs to do now is to keep van der vaart and his 4-2-3-1 with adebayor leading the line is as potent as ours! lennon on the right, bale on the left and you have the most balanced team in the league!

Ibime: All these are stories. . . Im sure he made same key passes at Villareal, yet his output is poor. Why not tell me about his goal record. You have given valid excuse that his teammates dont convert his chances, now tell me about the other half of his output - him actually scoring some goals!

in the last 4 seasons, cazorla scored 27 league goals, you are not impressed with that stats, right? well - the bad news is andreas iniesta scored 15 league goals in the same period.....so we should conclude iniesta is not productive or iniesta is dud?

Stewart Downing also told us about his key passes, claiming he made enough but had zero assists and zero goals.

downing's excuse is valid!
suarez and caroll are the most useless strikers on the planet! if those guys were being paid to miss golden chances, they wouldn't do a better job than what they are doing currently in front of goal! on the goal side, downing is shyte with 0 goals under his belt but santi cazorla scored 9 league goals @ malaga last season - so what's the basis of this daft comparison?

StarBoard: Anything to get rid of those old relics, abeg.
Besides, I think our play would be more progressive with DEmbele.But as it turns out, we'll never know, since he's joining the Spurs.

the media revealed fergie made a bid some weeks back but it was too low and martin jol rejected it. fergie knows we have a problem in the centre of the midfield but i think he is keeping faith with anderson and fletcher(injury wise).....i hope his gamble pays off cos a midfield of sigurdsson and dembele looks more promising than keane/scholes in their prime!

ibime, give up - you have been sonned!
a player that copped 84 key passes in a season has done his fair share of creativity, it's up to his teammates to convert those into goals....in comparison, tonio valencia made 65 key passes in the league last season that were converted to 13 assists!

Ngozi Nwaneri: Is it hygienic for a lady to accommodate and feed her hubby in her house? Please i need answers.

hygienic?
are you married to a pig?

hygenic?? i laugh in odunnu

deols: crying over spilled milk. Your friend must have known not to sell such a drug. That is why he is a pharmacist

nearly all the drug stores in nigeria would be out of business if prescription notes from the doctors are compulsory. let's be realistic here and stop chasing ghosts. most pharmacy stores don't ask for anything but the name of the drug you want to purchase in nigeria.....

Ibime: One good game in 3 and guys are already ejaculatng over the thread. How can he lose. Anything is acceptable from Torres even output that almost any decent striker can post with this team

ibime - 90% of his criticisms are not justified - you [color=#000000]r[/color]etards just jump on his back at any given opportunity even when he fails to convert half-chances!
one thing is clear - chelsea must play to get the best out of torres - it's a travesty that the fat spanish waiter(benitez) has more managerial nous than the entire chelsea technical team!

Dede1: Cynthia Osokogu was the biggest fool in the circumstance that led her death. In addition, the Cynthia’s death is a damning indictment on the manner in which she was raised by her parents.

It is quit unfathomable a young lady will depart from home and travel more than 500 mile to meet with a male counterpart she has not met before this journey to a hotel of all places. What has happened to our social life as mandated by our culture and tradition?

this is ridiculous!
the murder victim was a fool for trusting people she met via online for a business discussion? let me guess - she tattooed "i am available to be [color=#000000]r[/color]aped and murdered" on her forehead! i am deeply disappointed in some nigerians - some of you are animals with no bone of compassion in your body - which explains why this incident even occurred anyway.....the victim has no blame in this and if the society is so screwed up that we cannot meet strangers again in a public place then nigeria as a country is doomed!

Ibime: Oya lets set cazorla 20 goal output for this season and measure up in May. I hope some peeps won't tell us he played behind diaby and Arteta by then

perhaps his teammates should tighten their belts and utilize the chances santi carzola lays on the plate for them. eden hazard has made 8 key passes in 3 apps this season that translated to 4 assists! impressive, isn't it? well, not so impressive because carzola has made 9 key passes in only 2 appearances that translated to 0 assist....all those key passes were wasted by poldi and giroud!

now, if carzola has quality strikers ahead of him like hazard does, the output(goals + assists) stats would read differently! that is the problem ibime has failed to see. carzola made 84 key passes last season in la liga. in a team like barcelona/madrid, at least 25% of those key passes would assist a goal and your theory about his low output wouldn't even be a topic of discussion!

debosky: Back to the original sin of Ibime (calling Cazorla a Hleb type of player), this is what Opta Joe provided:

Santi Cazorla created 84 goalscoring chances in La Liga last season, only 3 players created more (Ozil, Messi & Navas).

Definitely no challenging Ibime in the race for the biggest dunce cap.

ibime is an [color=#000000]i[/color]mbecile of the highest grade....santi carzola copped 10 man of the match awards in la liga last season...only messi(24) and ronaldo(15) had more in spain last season!

i have given up on ibime.....he's a twit!
cazorla was the 4th best player in la liga last season - he actually made opta's la liga team of the season so i dunno what ibime is on about with his earlier arguments that cazorla's purchase was more hleb than cesc when he actually outperformed cesc in la liga last season(according to opta stats)!!!

Ibime: At least 50% of Messi's goals show some self reliance, strength, balance or skill.
But it seems Torres teammates would always be blamed for not giving him tap-ins.

which begs the question - why did chelsea sign this dud when it's obvious he has no strength, balance or self reliance?? and again - how did rafa benitez get the best out of torres with a squad poorer than chelsea's? no matter how you look at it, the fault lies with chelsea - not with torres!!

Oh, I thought you said its because Chelsea weren't spoon-feeding him easy tap-ins. He was "out-of-form, confidence and injured" - thats simply it - not the silly nonsense you fed us with last year about no one laying it on a plate for him.

don't be daft - torres joined chelsea in january 2011. he was injured, out of form and badly managed in that 2nd half of the penultimate season. last season, he was up for it and then you signed villas-boas who was so idiotic to play mata on the left in a 4-3-3 formation! lampard being an idiotic midfielder who is currently out of his depth failed to supply the ammo torres needed to score goals!

Ibime: You showed us the graphic yourself - he played 12 games in the centre (DM, CM or AM) last season. (BTW, we're not dumb, you ask anyone where those 12 games were played and most people will tell you 70% were in AM position. Only Debo and Coogar can twist well-known axioms for silly argument.

you still won't give up? 70%? ibime, how do you manage to pluck these figures from the stratosphere considering you weigh more than 50 bags of rice? do you levitate to col these figures or a figment of your idiotic imaginations?

So, even if Im benevolent enough to assume that all 12 games were in DM, there is no way he makes 7.1 tackles per game there. No, this is a player who tackles all over.

even if i am benevolent enough to assume cazorla tackles everywhere, he commits little foul to suggest he's a kevin davies, wayne rooney or david villa - but i would let you off the hook cos coogar is a good samaritan!

If you were not a fool, you would see the futility of your own argument.
So in 12 games (out of 42) he played in the centre (lets assume DM), he made so many blocks and interceptions that he outperformed defensive midfielders who played 42 games there?

quite possible if he's a master of his arts! from all indications, it's quite clear cazorla was not doing the cesc fabregas role for his former club, he was played defensively more often than not!

Sauron, please scan your matriculation documents, lets see if its one of those "Nigerian senator" degrees you hold.

unlike you, i went to a top school and i learnt to make deductive reasoning from simple statistics. cazorla's stats in comparison to other arsenal midfielders last season show he was mainly a defensive player....i don't care how many games your extrapolation said he must have played!

He can easily make interceptions in the opposition half in a high-pressing system like they play.As for blocked shots, he can do that easily being the man on the line from corner kicks or any other such oddities.

more interceptions in the advanced role more than alex song in the defensive role? ibime, even if you were paid to be deliberately obtuse, you are doing far more than the payment you received!

being a man on the line? the short cazorla being a man on the line made more blocked shots from set-pieces than the entire arsenal midfielders made in a full season? ibime - this is a new low - you have plumbed new depths of idiocy........

for bleeps' sake - how can the number of cazorla's blocked shots(set pieces only)outweigh all the shots blocked by arsenal midfielders in one season(set piece + open play)?
somebody should bookmark this page!

how do you solve a problem like ibime?
he's the most [color=#000000]r[/color]etarded football pundit in this section...how he comes up with his mumbo-jumbo should be critically looked into to cure future autistic savants in the future. how can ibime opine cazorla was blocking shots 80 yards away from his goal? cazorla must be one helluva player to be doing that!!!

Ibime: Very silly extrapolation.
Its obvious the money spent on your education was a waste.
How many tackles did Makelele make per game?

idiotic comparison - claude makelele is a specialist - cazorla is a makeshift defensive midfielder....there's a universe of difference between the two!

How many times was Cazorla dribbled past there? That should give you a real indication of his position. Niggas can tackle as many times as they want in any position. Ask Rooney, Kevin Davies, Ramires or Gerrard. It doesnt mean they are playing DM.

niggas can block shots anywhere on the pitch too, can't they?
ibime, you have traded your common sense for a plate of yellow pap!

If Alex Song and such are dribbled past 1.5 times to 2 times in a game, it means they are in a position to be dribbled past. Cazorla is dribbled 0.5 times in a game cos no need to dribble him - he is an attacking position.

attacking position and he made more interceptions and blocked more shots than alex song? if you took a lie detector test, the device would explode!!!

But simple Mathematics proves why your education was a waste.
If we know that Cazorla played in AM, CM or DM, 12 times out of 42, we should be able to extrapolate his normal tackling rate by property of distributivity.

the last time you tried to extrapolate in the modric vs lampard debate, you were disgraced by coogar - don't even try to run this nonsense near my dwelling! football unfortunately, does not follow a linear pattern! a player can score 3 goals in a match and go on a drought for the next 20 games! extrapolate that you homoerotic nuisance!!!

If he played 30 times in an attacking position and made 0.8 tackles per game like Ramsey (according to your thesis that he should only make more tackles in DM), then how many tackles per game should he make in DM to average 2.6 tackles per game, then he would need:

(12x + 30*0./42 = 2.6

12x + 24 = 109.2

12x = 85.2

x = 7.1 tackles per game.

So even if we assume that he played all 12 games in DM, he would have to make 7.1 tackles per game to get his current tackle record.

you don't know that, you are only guessing and even if he played 12 games in the dm position, common sense should tell you those games were not consecutive games and some of them would have sub appearances. in other words, no mathematical theory can explain how and what cazorla did but common sense can!!!

In other words, he tackles lot wherever he plays on the pitch, and claiming that high no of tackles indicates his position on the pitch is poor mathematical extrapolation as even a maximum 12 games cannot possibly increase his weighted average to 2.6.
No, obviously, this is a player who tackles a lot in attacking positions.
Sauron and Debo, I hope you didnt get your degrees by correspondence!!!

so ibime, was cazorla also blocking shots in the attacking midfielder position? making interceptions from this same position? why you decided to ignore interceptions and blocked shots in your long epistle already shows you are arguing against logic! from what i have shown in the stats, cazorla played most games in the defensive position - while any player can tackle everywhere on the pitch, i doubt you can block shots in the advanced position - this is common sense, ibime!!!

[quote author=tpia@]you're either unbelievably s.tupid or a fake i.diotic poster.
so, are you saying it's my fault you dont know your s.perm donor? [/quote]excellent post!

debosky: ^^
Don't mind the phat fisherman - his response will be that Cazorla is a 'snappy type of player'.

snappy? and he's blocking shots from the am position? making interceptions from the am position? okay o - me thinks ibime's adipose cells are clogging his central nervous system! one thing this argument has exposed is - ibime has never seen cazorla's games on tv! he likes to delude himself he knows every player in europe but the fat charlatan just loves to talk a good game.....

Ibime: How about the one year before that when he didnt score a single goal for his national team.

he was injured, out of form and spain over-relied on tiki-taka which does not suit nando torres by any means! david villa's injury forced del bosque's hand to mix it a bit with pragmatism and play on a quick break when necessary!

Coogar, you better go start deleting all your posts about "Xavi and Iniesta play too slowly for Torres" before I expose you here!

they did before euro 2012 - every football fan and his dog would testify to that but del bosque knew that pure tiki-taka would not work without torres. go and watch spain's games in euro 2012 again....the tactics changed each time torres was on the pitch!

So you mean that back-heel is the reason he scored with 4 defenders ahead of him. Silly me, I thought it was the deflection off Coloccini!

the back heel found torres, torres took the shot(on target)! whatever happened to the ball after that is out of nando's hand to control! the key moves here are torres' movement, hazard's disguise pass and nando's toe-poked shot!

Is it only Torres that would be happy with such service and such options as we have this season? Even Michael Owen will back himself with such players behind him. What are we paying Torres for?

oh mi gosh!
what is barcelona paying messi for with the best midfielders(cesc, xavi, iniesta, busquets, thiago, etc) playing behind messi? you look foolish when you come up with these ridiculous theories....

ibime on a roll.....getting battered left, right and centre!

Ibime: ^^You graphic does not prove anything except that Cazorla played 12 games in the centre (AM, CM or DM) of which one or two coulda been defensive midfield out of his 42 games, which does not excuse such poor output!

you are troglodyte!!
1 or 2 times played as a defensive midfielder? how do you know he wasn't played there 8 or 9 times like debosky said? then you mentioned poor output? poor in relative to which other midfielder in europe? lemme expose your idiocy so the whole world can see why you are the fattest nigerian charlatan!

[img]http://164.177.157.12/img/graphics/30.png[/img]

the above is the defensive stats comparison of carzola with other arsenal midfielders including nuri sahin.....if carzola played 90% of his games in the advanced role, are you sure his stats would be better defensively than the other arsenal midfielders including alex song?

checkmate, ibime!!!!

Ibime: What won't we hear from shekpe keeper cockboys. A player with movement so good no one was on his wavelength for two years not even his Spanish teammates.

and he won the golden boot for spain despite playing the fewest minutes of all the great strikers in the tournament. torres finished ahead of ronaldo, gomez, klose, balotelli, etc. so from whose delivery did he cop those goals? his opponents?

Some are easily appeased after two years of abject failure and use sparse good performance from shekpe keeper to bleat every now and then. Let's just thank god for deflection off colocinni and hope shekpe keeper can sustain his play over long period to start to repay even 20million of what we spent on him cos there are boys in our squad that would have established themselves of great renoun if given half the opportunities that shekpe keeper has received. Needless to say if not for the crazy amount spent on shekpe keeper, he woulda been playing on loan at Wigan by now. So please save the adulation till shekpe produces some good returns cos many of us still feel severely shortchanged by that guy. Whilst some are ranting about a 50milla striker just getting by, I'm watching lukakus blistering 20 minute cameo appearances and counting the opportunity cost of Torres.

just admit you are a fat fool......
with elusive footballers like hazard, mata and oscar now in the chelsea team, torres is flourishing. last season, lampard wouldn't have had the intelligence or athleticism to back heel the ball like hazard did for torres goal against newcastle!

debosky: . . . because that is all your decrepit neurones can process. If you can't even get the basics right, why delve into deeper details? I don't want to cause your mental breakdown - Mrs Ibime still needs you.

How many games did Camacho play last season? In actual fact, Camacho often played WITH Toulalan, not replacing him. Admit it Ibime, you are a fat charlatan. If you come here spewing rubbish like Isco playing DM expect to be found out.



You watched Revista but only after I pointed out your folly did you go google Camacho eh? Admit it Ibime, you are a phat phool!



What you've done is the classic strawman argument - if you don't know how many games SC played in the 'advanced midfield position' you cannot make any conclusions.

It's like saying 'whilst one cannot rule out that Ibime was once a size 32 waist 9/10 years ago, how does him being a size 50 waist for the past 8 years justify Mrs Ibime buying skinny jeans for him on his 40th birthday?'

well done, debosky......sometimes i really think you can be a genius
cazorla played several games as a defensive midfielder as shown in the graphics below!
[img]http://164.177.157.12/img/graphics/15.jpg[/img]

coded guy: I dont think any United fan would reject signing Dembele after his perfomance against us. But where does he play really, midfield or support striker as he did against us. We already have enough personel there and if we are talking about DM then we really need him.

he would be a back up for michael carrick or can play with carrick in a double pivot especially @ difficult away grounds where we would need to avoid defeat at all costs. if carrick gets crocked, we are in trouble!

anderson/cleverley have a weakness when we don't have possession....it's a tricky way to line up in europe especially away from home. carrick is a superb holding midfielder but he's not a physical beast - he relies on his excellent reading of the game, he does not tackle a lot! we need a battler in the middlle of the park - no hargreaves and no fletcher has made us softer in the middle like trebor!

His signing will throw up more competition in the midfield, his physicality makes him a big YEs signing cos it seems the likes Chelsea and CITY are really up for the title this term.
All in all, i think we should sign him.

we just need a solution to stop yaya toure, fellaini, tiote, de jong, etc!

norrisman: Why are there so many people taliking about prescription in Nigeria? I lived in Nigeria for 25 years and I have never seen a prescription note before. I have bought every drug you can imagine under the sun and not once have I been asked for a prescription note. I have had top doctors in top hospitals write down medication for me to buy on a plain piece of paper just so I can remeber the name not as a prescription.

In the UK and other developed countries I would imagine, apart from paracetamol, ibruprofen and some cough mixtures, every other drug requires a prescription. I would imagine this is the same way it should be in Nigeria but if any slowpoke can tell me they have never bought a drug in Nigeria apart from the 3 I listed without a prescription, then they are only fooling themselves.

Imagine turnig up at a pharmacy (popularly called chemist) in Nigeria to buy some malaria medication and you are turned away by the attendant because you do not have a prescription. Now that would be laughbale!

and this is exactly why i said the pharmacist's case is a bit complicated. we all know nigerian pharmacists sell everything under the sun to anyone. most of them are not even qualified pharmacists so they are not breaking any ethic code of the beloved profession!

the pharmacist should get a good lawyer and argue his case. i also hope some of the victims of these murderers who were lucky to survive their ordeal should be interrogated to see if the pharmacist has ever been involved in this heinous crime....

dr. kit's meltdown is always a nice read!

bobblue: I am very well acquainted with Maduakor Chukwunonso(one of the pharmacists) and his family, we were next door neighbors for over 5yrs. I know his dad, mum and siblings. The Nonso I know would not be involved in this sort of gruesome murder, I guess his crime was selling the drug without prescription without the knowledge or intent to participate in the homicide

he would be set free if he's not guilty - he needs a good lawyer though! one thing i am struggling with is why he was charged to court in the first place. in saner climes, he must have had a hand in the crimes committed before the prosecutors charged him to court but in nigeria, anything goes......