bigmick wrote:maguskwt wrote:bigmick wrote:I think it's fairly clear though that if he is ever going to make a footballer (and it's by no means a certainty that he will) it will be as an out and out front player. We haven't in all honesty given him "enough chances" there, infact we've barely given him an opportunity at all.
Many posters say we should just sell him, and aside from the fact nobody wants to buy him I broadly agree. If and when someone does stump up a few million to take him off our hands though, where does anyone think they'll play him? They'll obviously bung him up top and see what they've got on their hands. If he from there finds a way to utilise his undoubted pace, good shot, ability to beat a man etc and scores regularly, we will end up looking a bit daft. Similarly, if and when Torres gets a tweak or a strain and we suddenly realise "feck me, we haven't got anybody else who can play there" we might then look at Babel and think we might have been better advised giving him a go a bit earlier.
Before anyone starts foaming at the mouth, I am simply making the point that as we haven't got anybody else who's any good we might as well try him out. At least he has pace (none of the others do), at least he can beat a man (none of the others can) and at least he has a decent shot from range (only one of the others, Kuyt, has). Kuyt has more awareness marginally, and probably a similar level of control, but we could do with him playing on the right and worrying about putting in a decent performance there right now.
If Torres gets injured it's Voronin, Egg Nog, Babel or Kuyt (who we need on the right) . That is the painful reality, and for me it's an absolute no brainer that for all his faults we've got to at some stage between now and then, give Babel a decent go up top.
you might have a point there bigmick, he's quite decent as a forward in Winning Eleven 09... in there he's just like what you described him... has pace, power and ability to beat a man... and a good shot on goal...
That's where I got it from mate, I'm a bit of a winning eleven 2009 devotee or at least I was of the slightly older versions. I've got all three full albums of stickers, I think a company called Panini used to manufacture them. Curiously, about one sticker in every twenty seemingly was Colin Bell back in my day.
He wasn't a bad player if truth be known but his "swap value" was negligable given the proliferation of stickers with him in his Man City black and red striped kit, supply and demand you see. Looking back it must have been a fault with the print run, perhaps they let some apprentice loose and he got carried away. Pointless throwing them away after that I suppose, they figured they could just feed em back into the system and nobody would notice. It failed miserably as a policy though, everyone was onto it and you couldn't give him away, a bit like a latter day Dossena.
I'm glad to hear their still doing them though. Hopefully Ryan is a bit rarer than Colin Bell was.
where's the smack your forehead smiley when you need one?
i couldn't agree more with brian Reade on that part especially. it's all about attitude an desire, & understanding what a privalidge it is to play for LFC. Babel needs to get this into his head once an for all. for me he is in the last chance saloon end of.
