by bigmick » Mon Dec 22, 2008 8:13 pm
Turned into a good thread in the end this one. Copped a bit of abuse, the old means of earning a living reared it's head, my attitude f.ucking stank and all that but there you go. We did a bit a twoing and frowing about the definition of "ambition", and about the "willingness to lose" thing, and there were a couple of "I can't believe we're even talking about this's given we've done this or that"s, but between and betwixt all of that there were some good points.
For my part, perhaps "adventure" would probably have been a better word as someone suggested, equally it might have been better to talk of "willingness to RISK losing". "Ambition" though is the term which is always used in the last twenty minutes of football matches, "do such and such have the ambition to go on and win it etc etc". What commentators and pundits mean when they say this is are they prepared to really go for it, to sling men forward, to press the game, to push the fullbacks on, to leave strikers on, to possibly increase the number of strikers. That's what I meant too, although it is correct to point out that grammatically it doesn't really stack up. Most people got it though and it was a decent discussion.
To briefly go back to it (the discussion part), I worry about this tendency to bring Keane off all the time. I think most people would agree that he is almost certainly a better player as one of two rather than up on his own, so surely if we are pressing the game/showing "adventure" it would be an idea to introduce an extra striker alongside him and give him the opportunity to play as a two. If we are going to move Kuyt inside to "hold the ball up", why not leave Keane on and bring El Zahr on? Keane had definately quitened down in the second half, but that was mainly because (as someone mentioned in an excellent post earlier and I can't remember just now who it was) Arsenal sat a lot deeper once the sending off happened. He wasn't getting the space to work in behind like he had to good effect in the first half. He could though have played off Kuyt, and surely it must have been worth a stab for 15 miutes or so?
Going for such a move would almost certainly have meant taking Lucas off, which by definition would have slightly increased the risk of us losing I think. Worth the gamble though? I think it would be and was yes. Apart from anything else, it would at least have had the effect of allowing Keane to stay on the pitch for the full 90 minutes. We really are at some stage going to have to invest some thought at least into how we are going to man-manage him and rebuild his confidence.
Last edited by
bigmick on Mon Dec 22, 2008 8:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"se e in una bottigla ed e bianco, e latte".
