good finish from Gabby 2-0 Villa West Brom look a little stunned I think the inital Honeymoon may be over for Clarkey as teams now play WBA on the counter instead of the other way round
Lukaku showing some great centre-forward play to set up Brunt's strike. His size and strength is overwhelming; if he continues learning how to channel it, he has a really bright future. Every game I see him play makes me more optimistic.
Been watching him too and also impressed with the strength and the footballing intelligence he shows (ie not a shoot on sight striker but someone who is positionally aware) - excellent attributes for a young player. He still suffers from a heavy touch at times and this prevents him pulling off what his brain tells him he can, but that will come with time. Bright future.
so impressed with Lukaku tonight doing a lot with a little as opposed to a certain Chelsea forward who does little with a lot
KDB on the wrong end of a thrashing, as an efficient Dortmund beat Bremen 5-0. He was okay, tired visibly near the end. Tough to impress in a match like that though.
I'm very excited about the prospect of Lukaku surrounded by Mata, Hazard, Moses, et al. after a couple more years of progression from them all. Although, watching him I can't help but think he and Lampard would be a perfect pairing. Lamps would be the ideal player to have running on to Lukaku's knock downs and lay offs. It's a real shame we may never get to see that partnership in action.
Fern, on the DDG issue, despite all the media criticism, there isn't any other prem keeper I would take over him.
They are going to be linked with every good young keeper in the world. Yesterday, it was that they want De Gea.
Not just potential, but even at present, the differences are marginal. There is no clear outstanding keeper in the league.
I'd definitely still have Cech as the #1. Obviously I'm biased, but for me he's worked his way back to somewhere near his best after a few dodgy seasons post-injury. A bit like VDS in that he's rarely spectacular because he positions himself so well. De Gea clearly has tremendous reflexes and excellent distribution, but I struggle to see how he's that close to Cech when he has such a well-known weakness. Ferguson doesn't even seem to trust him totally yet.
Not sure what games you have been watching but I think he has been terrible! Never in the right position and not doing the things expected of him. I mean, honestly, he is never where a right winger is supposed to be and contributing from that position. If only Clarke would have a talk with the boy and set him straight because thats a what a good coach does. Encourages the boy and plays him in the correct position.......
I can not blame you for being excited about him as he clearly has the potential to be one of the top keepers in the League, if not the World, some day. But he flaps far too often for my liking and imho is a huge reason why you have so many struggles at the back currently. Your defenders continue to drop deeper and deeper to provide cover for him and win headers that a confident keeper should be catching. As we saw with Cech when he completely lost his confidence- the defenders and keeper end up getting in each others' way leading to disasterous results. As for your comments I think being as fair as a I can I would easily take quite a few keepers over him atm, but that could easily change if he can be more confident with crosses as he is generally an excellent shot stopper and pretty damn good with the distribution as well.
and as with other positions the next best keeper in the World seems to come and go with each season Krul was one of the flavours of the year last season but not so much this season- despite him keeping things very respectable with the Bar Codes this season Begovic seems to be garnering some attention- and based on his play rightfully so. That is the thing about keepers- it is great to have a guy who is a clear #1 but how often does that really last. If you were to a take a sample size of the top keepers in the Prem over the past 5 seasons I would be willing to bet that Cech is easily in that list (obviously unfair to DeGea due to his smaller sample size) but the point is sometimes it is not about being the "best" keeper in the League but about consistently being one of the best keepers in the League. Still shake my head and laugh when people talk, or have talked about selling Cech. Madness, absolute madness.
I've been impressed with Joe Hart for the past 2 season. Excellent stopper and has a very good command of his area as well. Also has good distribution. Very good all-around.
He hasn't had a great season and has been rather poor for England. Still think he'll be better all around than De Gea when all is said and done. De Gea reminds me of Casillas, with the ridiculous reflexes and ability to keep almost any shot out of his net (remember that save on Mata's FK?). But his complete game still has a ways to go.
I liked seeing Lukaku, after Odemwingie scored WBA's equaliser, remind the scorer that there's a game to be won and to stop messing about and beating his chest. Nice smart assist, too. In the Liverpool game, there was a two-footed, scissor-action tackle from Gerrard that I'd like to see again, but of course there were no replays of it.