Just showed the two goals at halftime of Dort-Schalke on FSW. Didn't look like Sanneh was marking Ballack on the goal, and Jarolim was offside when he won the PK for FCN.
Just saw the highlights during halftime of the Bundesliga match on FSW. Sanneh involved in both goals. On the Bayern goal, he lost his mark on the header. On the Nurnberg goal, he played a nice ball from deep on the right flank, back to the top of the box, which was then put through into the box to draw the penalty.
Scoey, you thought Sanneh was marking Ballack? Didn't seem like it to me, but then again, I caught it a second late on the first (Bayern) goal.
Yes, I did, but it was such a short clip, I could be wrong. It looked to me like he was the nearest guy to him.
It was Sanneh's task to mark Ballack in the standard situations. According to the TV station Nürnberg switched from their usual 4 defender system to libero plus two central defenders, and Sanneh was none of them. Don't know his position though, he was much more in the offence than usual.
I saw the highlights on German TV last night and Tony is nowhere near the 'World Cup-esque' player of two months ago. To me he looked quite lethargic and disinterested while missing some assignments that led to goals. I guess this is the erratic and ineffective pre-World Cup Tony that we all know and love ... I sure hope Arena doesn't plan to build his defense around him as he has alluded to after the cup ...
Sanneh is rated 4.5 as defensive mid. http://www.kicker.de/content/spielp...02/03&spieltag=5&spielpaarung=572193&turnier=
Well it appears that I am the only one here who actually saw this game. Sanneh was playing on the right -- whether as a right back or a right mid in a 3-5-2 was difficult to say. Sanneh was marking Ballack on the first goal. Ballack beat him. Contrary to what some other poster said, this is very "World Cup-esque" as the same thing happened then. Of course, you could fill a city with Ballack's victims in the air, On the second goal, Sanneh got caught upfield and was not back to help. It wasn't his fault directly as he was not one of the Nurenberg defenders who were toasted on the give and go, but it would have been nice if Nurenberg had another defender back there on an attack that originated on Sanneh's side. On the other hand, it would have been nice if the ball was not turned-over like that. Overall, I thought Sanneh played OK. I would rate him a 4 on the Kicker scale. I didn't see bad play but just a couple of mistakes that in this case hurt the team. And it should be noted that he is not playing the same system or, at the moment, with a team working as well as the USMNT did last June.
I must agree with Martin Fischer's comments. Ballack beat Sanneh on the first goal through superior positioning. I was at the game on Saturday at Frankenstadion. Sanneh actually started at right midfield and then slid back to right back. The biggest problem I see is that Nuernberg's young midfielders and defenders get too aggressive going forward (too often centrally) and get burned by their opponents. They misread the run of play (lack experience at this level) and get beaten on garden variety give and go attacks. When they do gain possession, they seldom provide enough support for the ball and leave the holder standed. In short, they don't play well as a team. In the midst of the conundrum, Sanneh tries to cover the neglected space in the back and he goes forward even less than before since the youngsters dash forward but fail to track back. His performance Saturday was OK but you won't see him in WC form again until he plays for a club which plays as a team. I'll say it right now - Klaus Augenthaler needs to go. He is making the same coaching mistakes he made last year and the team is not playing together. FCN looks like a pickup team on most weekends and their sideline demanor indicates they do not respect Augenthaler much less each other. When 11 men play like strangers, there is a problem at the top. They have the talent on hand to stay up this year but so long as Augenthaleer continues to tinker along, they'll remain in the cellar.
CJ strikes back Sweper Petkovic 28, Defenders Kos 28, Nikl 26, midfielders with main defence tasks Sanneh 31, Frey 30, Larsen 29, Müller 26. Where do you see young players? Jarolim 23 and Cacau 21 are the young players, but their main task is the offence. And I don't want to disappoint you, but Sanneh is the one who is standing for the easy and avoidable mistakes. Actually I had the impression that Sanneh was much more in the offence than usually - at least in the game summary he was there whenever they showed an offence play of Nürnberg. I agree that we won't see him in WC form again though, but the reason is that in Asia he was performing above his real level. I don't agree. Nürnberg is a low budget team, you cannot expect them to reach much more than staying in the league. In fact they owe Augenthaler quite a lot as otherwise they'd probably still be in D2. I think firing Augenthaler would hurt the club much more than it would hurt him - we'd see Augenthaler back in business very soon, but I don't know whether there's much more possible for a new coach in Nürnberg.
Olaf, I never said Sanneh was faultless - you took the wrong impression from my statement. Its not the age but the level of experience in 1BL football. For example, Dieter Frey may be 30 but he is no 1BL player. If you had actually watched the games you would see the same things. Extrapolation from highlight shows only goes so far. Augenthaler is a the problem here since FCN has enough talent to do much better. Either Bruce Arena or Bob Bradley would have this group somewhere around mid-table.
True and not true. Nürnberg surely has some players I wouldn't sign for a BL1 team. The question is just whether their budget allows better players. Experience isn't everything, e.g. look at Stuttgart's young players who play fairly good without making too many mistakes. The problem I see with Augenthaler is that he's demanding more than his team can fulfill. He played all his career for Bayern Munich, was one of the most successful Bundesliga players of all times - and as coach he has to cope with players who probably are worse than all his former team mates. The only one who's missing and according to my opionion could really improve the team is Jacek Krzynowek (Wolf, Kügler or Stehle are talents, but I don't know if you do them a favour to put them in a not well working team) - in general there's probably only Cottbus, Bielefeld and Bochum with a worse roster.
No, little on what I was arguing with CJ had to do with this special game (indeed only the second quote of the first reply on CJ), which I was seeing in an about ten to fifteen minutes summary. My opinion on the general matters (which was everything else) bases on following Nürnberg during many years.
Guys, look at my statements. 1. age check - do I need to watch the whole game for it? No, this is something you can't even know by watching the game. 2. my opinion on the Sanneh performance - do I need to watch the whole game for it? Yes and No. For a complete opinion on his performance I need to, that's why already made a restriction in my post; for getting an impression this surely isn't necessary and many summaries also give a valid opinion on his performance over the whole season [and I can just confess Captain 10 who said that he looked lethargic and disinterested in many game summaries I saw in this season] 3. contra opinion on Augenthaler - do I need to watch the whole game for it? Surely not, especially you can't have a real opinion by watching just a single game. You rather gotta follow what's happening behind the scenes, that's much more important (besides that success of course is essential). 4. experience - do I need to watch the whole game for it? No, that's common soccer knowledge. 5. Augenthaler again, same answer. So, what's your point? For one of my five statements I admit that you have a better opinion when watching the whole game, but for everything else you're not having one little bit of advantage if you're seeing the game. Rather concentrate on the statement itself and not how it comes to exist.
So the answer is "Yes and Yes," not "Yes and no." That's all I wanted to clarify as my comments related solely to Sanneh's performance in this game. Though extrapolating to other games, actually seeing Sanneh play and comparing that to the uninformed opinions here regarding how he played, does cast doubt on relying on other "sources" as so many here do in assessing the play of Yanks Abroad.