Good game
@Skizzo and
@Pat_Mustard. I knew the voters would look at Ronaldo/Vertonghen and it would be game over. But 90% of the fun is in the discussion rather than the voting per se so we wanted to thrash it out nevertheless. On the whole I don't feel we could have drafted or argued much better. At the start of the draft, looking ahead to your perfect Premier League XI, the front three will inevitably be Henry, Shearer and Ronaldo. Alongside that there is a pool of world-class central midfielders but a reduction in the same quality behind the striker (after Bergkamp really). Therefore it made sense to go 4-3-3, build it around those great CMs and hopefully get the right upgrades. The only exception would've been snapping up Henry when we had the chance, albeit it would've meant picking up a second-tier CM on the way back down, rather than end up with two final-ready players in Vieira and Vidic as we did. The order of the snake reinforcement almost had us shafted with the pre-semi-final picks, but thankfully 'MJJ/Crappy went for Bergkamp rather than Shearer (when Diarm was full of Arsenal and he didn't fit us).
I think that's fair. But it was the same with Kompany - he was clearly world class between 2010 and 2012, then dropped a level or two after that - so it was really about introducing some balance into the Kompany-bashing (and Bridge-bashing and Vertonghen-bashing). Funnily enough some of Desailly's issues at Chelsea were due to the lackadaisical Lebeouf while Kompany's were due to the lackadaisical Toure, so context is everything.
. I really, really wanted to avoid playing you on account of that powerhouse midfield, but the 4-4-2 vs 4-3-3 stuff made for some good discussion, and I've now discovered the term 'interiore' that I'll probably use relentlesly now.