Jari coming off the bench? That is an insult.
can U imagine Barca telling Rivaldo,"Chap, you will be a supersub, we will need you when Alfonso and Dani can't score in 85 mins." or Roma telling Totti,"Del Vecchio is my first choice, U sit on the bench." Or Real Madrid telling Raul that Munitis would be first choice.
Same qn, if you were a Man U fan, would you prefer Cantona and Giggs to sit on the bench and let work horses play? Or do you want 9 work horses and Cantona and Giggs.
Same for Arsenal, at their title winning year, could they have done without Bergkamp, same kind of player as Jari, he won't sprint past 5 players in 5 seconds like Anelka, but his vision and technique is world class.
That was how Man U have a wide gap year after year and Arsenal won the title deservedly a few years back. It is only to the introduction of Bergkamp that they managed to race back into title contention. This year, there is a death of winners like the above two. Veron had failed to convince that he is one, Kanu suffers from the Smicer syndrome and Kewell is still way short of fitness. And LIVERPOOL is HANDED a once in a lifetime chance to win the EPL, Chances like this dun come every year, that was why Newcastle is making a push for the title, Bobby Robson knows it, John Gregory knows it and the board fails him by refusing to cough up money for this chance.
But we dun seem to know it, Le Boss is still playing as if we are still an Under 21 team and played conservatively. Match Winners like Litmanen and Fowler are disregarded and we do not play to win in confidence and style in half our matches and the mentality keep sinking in till the bubble burst. From past experience for every top team there will by 10-15 matches when they have face 8 men defences or have bad luck and this is where the likes of Cantona and Litmanen comes in, imagine if he would be the match winner in 7-8 of these matches, Cantona would have got 15 points a season. If Man U have Cantona instead of Scholes early this season, God knows how many points would they have gotton in moments of Eric Magic.
With regard to the comment that we lack bottles. Which is preferable? having less possession and players full of bottles and defending for 60 mins out of 90 or having possession and control and not needing that extra player with bottle cos we do not need to defend as much and in this case the playmaker/Winner comes in.
Of cos we can talk about teams like Fulham or last year Barcalona, who can control the entire match but can't score. Of cos possession is important, but we have clinical finishers and the better cutting edge in midfield in Gerrard, Berger, Murphy and Barmby. We dun have to be like Barca who just stroke around in midfield without Overmars and Enrique as of last season.
About Steve_C commentry about the match where he say that the ball pass Litmanen often etc etc, yes it does, its soccer, you can't expect the odd playmaker to play from box to box. The ball passed Cantona, Totti, Zidane, Bergkamp as well, lots of time, you won't hear fans saying ,"Eric or Francesco is a bloody waste of time, what have he got to contribute to the defence? Bench him!"
For every 10 balls which pass these so called wasteful players, with a good defensive and tactics almost all of them will result in the defensive players and the goalie dealing with it. This is a team game damn it, the team have to score and keep the score against them down.
While teams have played boring football and won, which team in recent memory actually win titles while benching a winner? Leeds? Yes they play long and direct style, but they bought Cantona and he made the difference. Blackburn? HOw long did their successes last? Deportivo? Real Madrid? Roma? Nantes? Lazio? geez I can't think of any.