₦airaland Forum

Drogba! What a fuckin legend. I doff my hat

What's up with Gomez

Luckily for CR, it's free to dream.

Messi & Cronaldo La Liga 2011-2012

Goals:

Messi 50 (10 penalty)
Cronaldo 46 (12 penalty)

Accuracy:

Messi 5.5 shots/ goal
Cronaldo 6.9 shots/ goal

Individuality of goals:

Messi, 22/50 or 44% were directly assisted (no involvement in buildup play)
Cronaldo, 35/46 or 80% were directly assisted (no involvement in buildup play)

Assists:

Messi 16
Cronaldo 12

Creativity:

Messi 56 throughballs, 92 key passes (resulting in a shot)
Cronaldo 19 throughballs, 60 key passes (resulting in a shot)

Build up play:

Messi 176 dribbless
Cronaldo 73 dribbless

Lost posession:

Messi 96 dispossessed + 61 turnovers = 157 times
Cronaldo 79 dispossessed + 86 turnovers = 165 times

Messi owns him in every aspect.

Abeg, you guys should try not to bore us with your anti-football.

Nice feature on how Barca B have performed this season

http://www.barcelonafootballblog.com/14428/kids-hath-eusebio-wrought/#comments

^^Montoya would do just fine.

Meanwhile, I hope all these rumours about Drogba are just that - rumours.

We've been linked with a lot of strikers lately. From the look of things, it's like we intend on signing one. I don't see the need though. If we sign one it would be the third striker we are signing in four seasons. We are pretty stacked up front.

Clubs priorities this summer seems to be: CB, LB and one striker.

Congrats man. Infact, you be badt, sharp guy.

Abeyjide: wat do u mean by anti football?nobody is begging anyone to watch it.

Abeyjide: as an experience club,u dont play d same tactics wit all club .against napoli,benfica,was der anytin like dat?and moreover if actually dey defended againts barca,how come dey scored two goals?playin barca wit ten men means u ave to defend and convert any oppurtunty to goal.

If this is the evolution of football when one team attacks practically for the entire game(Barca) and the other just plays in their own half, continuosly defending, diving intermittently to disrupt the flow of the game, relying upon a couple of opportunistic attacks and luck(Chelsea), then it is terrible for the game, period!

Games of such nature are destructive for the sport. The anti-football of Chelsea is shameful and destructive for the game of football. It's even more disgraceful when you consider that Chelsea are supposed to be a big club. Abrahamovic has endlessly pumped money into this Chelsea project since taking over. This is a Chelsea side that was put together with hundreds of millions of £ and even has a £50 million signing on the bench and yet, the best they could come up with is this cynical, vulgar and vomit-inducing, anti-football, SMH. It's understandable when small clubs like QPR, Blackburn and Stoke play like this but Chelsea? Even those poor clubs in Spain that don't have up to 1/10 of Chelsea's budget don't indulge in such shameful act. I can't even imagine how any football fan would be proud of such display. If every team played like that, I'm pretty sure there won't be as many football fans in the world today.

Where exactly is the sympathy for us fans enduring those 180 minutes of repulsive, anti-football?

mukina2: packing double-decker bus infront of their goal, diving antics and rugby tackles

medjai you meant this right?

You're right on the money, ma'am

I'm not really enthustiatic about this match.

Chelsea would dull us with their anti-football.

chic2pimp: More Like £23M and dude was still overpriced at that amount.
Not even Anzhi and definitely not PSG would be willing to pay £40M for Alves.
Abeg only Strikers and Midfielders cost that much. Defenders and Keepers in most part don't. Only if you are once in a gen Keeper or Central Defender.

http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/en/dani-alves/transfers/spieler_15951.html

£40m for Alves would be a steal. How much do you think Madrid signed Coentrao for?

Wow! I just downloaded and watched Barca B's 2-1 win over Almeria at the weekend.

Deulofeu is ripping the Segunda apart. He scored one and made a fantastic assist for Sergi Roberto. Now I get why they say he's the best thing to come out of La Masia since Messi. The kid is a real beast and he's only 18.

I made a post earlier in the season about how he was struggling since he just got promoted from Juvenil A but he has really improved this 2nd half of the season. Got injured at some point but he's recovered and doing really well. He has been our best player this 2nd half of the season. He's the teams 2nd highest goal scorer with 7 goals and 6 assists in 1786 minutes(his 1st season playing pro football).
Meanwhile, I hope Eusebio gets sacked. The kids have not really improved. The likes of Rafinha, Roberto, Bartra, have all been below their best this season and the football has been terrible too. I heard his contract has been extended though, SMH.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbSWX5fB3Ds&feature=g-all-u

In other news, Bojan scored his 7th goal of the season for Roma over the weekend. Not bad really, he has had to come on as a sub in most of their matches.

There are rumours that Roma want us to sign him back. He is supposed to be there for two seasons.

Long live sour grapes

He has since been sold. There's another Nigerian(half Dutch) in Barca's Juvenil B team - Bobby Adekanye.

For those clamouring for a big, tall striker, did y'all see how City struggled against a parked QPR bus even with Dzeko up front. Yes, Dzeko scored from a corner in the 90th minute but on another QPR could have run away with a win.

It's very difficult to play against a parked bus. It's hard enough to score vs a back four, talk little of playing against a side that has every man behind the ball. Having 6 Peter Crouchs and 5 Jan Kollers doesn't guarantee you anything. The best way to break a parked bus is to not give them a reason to park the bus. That's why I fault our approach vs Chelsea at the Bridge. We had no business playing with a back 3. Chelsea's plan was to defend deep and hit us on the break and we played into their hands by playing 3-4-3 and going gung-ho. The shameless team were always gonna park the bus once they scored, hence, making a comeback difficult.

That being said, we created a lot of chances. We were hard done by really poor finishing so the issue isn't about lacking physical presence up front or not having a Plan B.

chic2pimp: Never read so much rubbish in my life.
Wonder which club is willing to splash out 40M on a Full back who can not defend.

You've not heard of PSG or Anzhi. We signed him for £31m by the way.

AjanleKoko: Seconded on Alves.
As per your first comment . . . Vertonghen?
De Boer is trying hard to sell him to Barca.

I do think he's good enough for us. He's strong, excellent on the ball, he's not slow and he's versatile enough to play as a left back or a defensive midfielder, apart from central defender. He was the best player of the Eredivisie, though that's not much of an achievement. He would suit us, I think. He only lacks concentration at times, but that's not strange if you play in the Eredivisie. Some clubs don't even reach the Ajax goal, so it's understandable. He wouldn't be too expensive, because his contract expires in a year, so he might be relatively cheap too.

4llerbuntu: u see despite all ur 50 goal per season nonsense, days like today make it crystalclear the reason why the prem shats on ur rubbish league.

recreate a day like today and we will yarn.

When your league produces 5 of 8 European semi-finalists, then we can talk.

honeric01: YEYE TEAM, they were one of our stumbling blocks this season.

Well, in the end it didn't matter. We lost to Madrid.

Villarreal going down is really sad; a huge loss for Spanish football. They were Europa League s/finalists just last year and played in this year's CL.

I hope they get back up soon.

Some interesting fact here:
As a coach Miguel Angel Lotina has now been relegated with 4 clubs: Celta (2004),Sociedad (2007),Deportivo (2011),Villarreal (2012)[@infostradalive]

Villarreal relegated

IMO, what we need this summer is a solid, defensive LB, especially if he could play CB too. That's really all we need.

As per Alves, I wish we would keep him but if a good offer comes in(45-50 M) then I think we can sell.

Athletic play like Barcelona without Xavi, Iniesta and Messi plus the rest of the players having a shit game. Everytime Athletic tried to patiently build from the back, Atletico had already 10 men behind the ball, comfortably waiting for Athletic to lose the ball and quickly breaking through. Bielsa's men were never going to unlock them. This brand of football can only be pulled off successfully enough on a consistent basis if you have a squad full of world class players. Otherwise a 4-2-3-1 counterattacking setup will always kill a 4-3-3 possession setup. In this game a quick counterattack always resulted in Athletic being outnumbered at the back. While Athletic's patient possession game resulted mainly in sideway passing in non-dangerous midfield areas because Atletico kept 10 men behind the ball. Winning the possession battle != gaining space.

El Cholo has really transformed this Atleti team in just 5 months. It's hard to believe it's this same Atleti side that were knocked out by a Segunda B side in the CDR and looked plain abject and rudderless some months back.

Now they've won the Europa League - won 12 straight matches. Won all their knockout ties home and away. They're also on the brink of CL qualification. They'll qualify if they beat Villarreal and Malaga fails to win vs Sporting.

I really expect them to be a force in the league next season.

Falcao is just unstoppable

Congrats Juve. Well deserved victory.

Hmm! All these wish list.

Zubi has already ruled out making any marquee signings. He said we won't be splashing the clash.

If we are to buy then we'd have to sell.

AjanleKoko: A big striker just scored against us now, for Malaga. Rondon. I'd buy him over Llorente.
Also Guilherme Siquera who scored that cheeky penalty against us, for Granada. I like them, they have flair.

Rondon is the worst striker in LL. Infact, that goal he scored against us last night is his first in 6 or 7 games. He has very poor technique; his first touch is the crappiest I've seen in a while and he is a poor finisher.

At some point in the season, he had to be dropped in favour of a 35-year old RvN - that says a lot.

honeric01: Llorente is needed big time.

We don't need Llorente or any other striker for that matter. We have no problems in attack. This season has been our best in terms of goalscoring. Our strike force is fantastic and it will be even better once Villa is back and Pedro is firing on all cylinders.

Any further tinkering is unnecessary.

Messi

Sanchez
Pedro
Villa
Cuenca
Tello
Afellay

And even Iniesta and Fabregas can play there if needed.

We have the best player in the world in Messi, who can score 50/60 goals a season and create a lot too.

We have players who can compliment Messi perfectly, working hard to make space for him and scoring when chances are presented - Pedro, Villa and to a lesser extent Sanchez.

And pace merchants who can take advantage of tired defenses late in matches and be competent starters as well - Cuenca, Tello.

If needed, Villa can be played through the middle (if Messi is unavailable), and so can Fabregas.

We might have a few worries, firepower up front isn't one of them.

10 years,

Champions League Trophy Cabinet:

[img]http://avoidingthedrop.files./2011/02/empty_trophy_case.jpg[/img]

Finally, finally. Congratulations.

Tito to put you back in your place next season.

coogar: he's the best young player in the league. it's a shame he plays for a shitty team
where his performances have been conveniently ignored.

victor moses is another star. i hope that troglodyte called keshi is
keeping an eye on moses. if we don't win the nations cup next year i would
personally hunt keshi down with my .50 rifle!

Moses has debuted for Nigeria already

AjanleKoko: Even Madrid doesnt have a big tall left back. Why all the complaints?

Madrid have Pepe and Ramos, both are 6+ft and Arbeloa, who isn't bad physically.

Pique aside, our defence is made up of midgets. Imagine a back four of Alves-Masch-Puyol-Alba. We'd be murdered aerially.