QUOTE (Fillipo Simone @ Mar 26 2014, 10:55 PM)
New poll. Good game, finally.
Best player is hard to tell. Muntari did almost everything right, Bonera and Mexes looked solid or good, Balo showed some nice stuff. De Jong had his usual good work rate. Even Taarabt showed some sense for passing and circulating the ball. MoM goes to Mexes, even if he made one (almost crucial) mistake with covering Matri that may have changed the outcome.
Flop goes to Honda for me once again. I think he's a failed investment. Maybe he's a bit better centrally, but he's slow (while not being a veteran), he's almost clueless when it comes to counter-attack buildup's, he lacks determination and precision. I don't think these things can substantially change, even if he plays a centrally positioned role.
Agreed on Mexes.
But for Honda, I thought he was good. Worked his @ss off to recover the ball and most of the get-aways on counters were down to his quick feet and thinking.
I think where he failed was in releasing the ball quicker when he was on the counter, but as I said to x-off in the match thread in 50% of those counters he was the one furthest ahead with no one to pass to and due to is lack of pace he was caught quickly
But other than that I thought his involvement in build-ups, tracking back and helping out Bonera and quick passing to transition the plays was very good, definitely no where near flop of the match for me
Personally for me, Constant takes the cake on that. Seriously bad defending on a couple of occasions. Constant niggling fouls, even after being yellowed, and just generally stupid plays from him earn him the title of flop for me
Oh and seriously, how can Honda EVER be a bad investment? He came for free and is most likely making us millions in the Asian market as we speak.
Even if he doesn't turn out into what we hoped for and he struggles to adapt, he's still a great investment for the team
And I seriously do think that 85% of his problems lie in the fact that he's playing so wide when he does his best work in the centre. I've seen him in the CL against top teams for CSKA and he was simply amazing, his touches and passing are second to none, but so far being stuck wide, he hasn't really had much of an opportunity to show this aside from that Coppa game where he played a lot more centrally in a xmas tree