And hopefully that means that'll it'll still be the ESPN2 game next week. Gotta give my man Sylv some credit - he gets the cross in, Henry flicks it on, and Ashley goes airborne and sticks it in the back of the net. That's the Arsenal spirit, baby!
CL on ESPN2 When is the next CL match? We can only hope that ESPN2 will show the game. That's making the bold assumption that ManUre or Real Madrid, the love children of ESPN soccer, aren't playing a match at the same time. Speaking of ESPN and "soccer", does anyone else think it's a nice change of pace that Sportscenter actually shows highlights of soccer matches in their "top plays" part of the show? (They showed 2 clips of the RM and Chelski matches). I know they're pretty anti-soccer in general for ESPN, but I say every little bit of exposure on a large-scale to a typically non-soccer watching audience helps soccer in the US for the long-run. But that's a whole other can of worms. At least we can beat the damn Ukranians at home. (No offense to anyone of Ukranian origin reading this).
ok, dan, now back to my suggestion about the midfield. wiltord did well on the right when he replaced ljungberg. i think wiltord on the right, ljungberg on the left, pires attacking/roaming from the center and vieira defending/roaming from the center would be the right option. i still think pires would be incredible feeding the ball up to henry with ljungberg and wiltord making penetrating runs. as i said, ljungberg plays 10x better on the left than the right. i don't really see how people are comparing him to his form two years ago when he's not even in the same position. then we just put aliadiere in at right striker, and henry on the left and we've got ourselves a nice attack
You really like the Pires through the middle idea don't you? As I said on the other thread, we tried it a couple of seasons ago and it didn't work. We tried it a couple of weeks ago away to Kiev and it didn't work. It doesn't seem to work! The overall setup of the midfield you've mentioned looks great going forward, but what happens when the opposition have the ball? Wiltord and Ljungberg get caught up front too often and Pires couldn't tackle his way out of a wet paper bag. It's a lot of work to put on Vieira's shoulders. As for the game last night, great result, the striking was poor. Bergkamp and Pires should definitely have scored in the second half before Cole finally bagged the winner. Profligacy in front of goal has been a bugbear of mine for ages, it will catch up with us again unless the manager does something about it.
yeh, i really do like that idea. it's true that it would put a lot of weight on vieira, but we could give it a try. i woud play pires more in a totti position is what i'm talking about. not quite a striker, but not quite a midfielder. and yes, it would also require our wingers to get their asses back and help defend, but it would still be worth a try. we may be becoming too predictable, especially in europe. it's like we play in an invisible bubble that ends about 20m outside of the opponent's goal, and we need that one extra little push to get the ball in the net. from what i could figure out from last night, we basically went from a 4-4-2 to a 3-2-5 with henry, DB10, wiltord, kanu and finally cole up top for the attack. and given that it was the end of the game and we had kiev pinned back, but if gilberto can hold his own in midfield, then vieira could as well. granted this is also something i would try when vieira gets back into good health because he is probably the only player i would really trust to single-handedly run the midfield. my idea has it's drawbacks, but it also has its benefits. i would just like to see it tried in both the premiership and in europe, just to see if it is affective in either