As much as I hate to say this....we might need a revolution....everywhere except at CB (IMG:
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I'll start with the forward line since it's the easiest.....ALL of our strikers are flawed:
Zlatan : 1)Slow 2)positionally 1 dimensional (iBra ball or bust) 3) Bad tempered 4)Too arrogant to try anything else
Pato: FOREVER INJURED
Robinho: Horrific composure in front of goal
Cassano: When he's not giving heart attacks due to his utter insanity he's getting them (IMG:
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Stephan: NOT READY
Maxi: Average...hard worker and spirit will only get you this far.
Solutions: Ideally I'd like to sell Ibra. He's hands down our best attacker but we've have had to adapt too much to him and like Raiola said you don't drive your ferarri like a Volkswagen. The thing is it mightn't always be practical to drive your ferarri to the convenience store or worse on terribly paved roads. It co$t a lot to keep running ($alary for those not following the analogy) and when it goes down it's an utter disaster (cards, BIG game disappearance). Oh and he's 30
I love Pato to death but THIS is the last season I'll give him. If we sold him this summer I can't be too upset either.
I'd actually keep Robinho because despite his obviously frustrating problem(s) he keeps our attack ticking. It was his exploits in the main that got us past Arsenal and ideally a well worked Pato-Robinho partnership is a potential solution.
In the ultra unlikely senario that we sold Ibra (who's probably fuming that B&G didn't buy him the world class midfield as promised) I'd like any money we made fron the sale of EITHER him or Pato go go in getting an ACTUAL QUALITY CREATIVE midfielder. Therein lies a tale because Zlatan is clueless with other attacking quality around as he was in Barca and with Ronaldinho. More haemorraging of talent would be an utter shame.....this is another reason why I'd rather gamble with Pato than play iBraball again when it's clear that the results won't change.
In the very possible event that Pato doesn't deliver, there are only three players I can see who can do what he's supposed to do....Tevez, Neymar and Balotelli.
Finally our issues at fullback have been beaten into the ground so I won't continue to repeat the obvious.
As for names....we need a GOOD PASSER with VISION who is DYNAMIC as well. Again a player that is a combination of these qualities will not do well with Ibra simply because Ibra is a STRIKER with a MIDFIELDER's mentality. Even worse he's piss poor at doing any of the off the ball work and runs other than hold up the ball and be an aerial target.
So I'd put forward Ganso (least favourite choice), Gotze, Munain and Kagawa.