How big is your network of Belgian football watching 'tards?
Man Utd interested in Witsel? | Fergie rumoured to have watched him v Chelsea
- Thread starter Hellboy
- Start date
How big is your network of Belgian football watching 'tards?
Clearly on a very limited amount of evidence you've come to that conclusion. Now of course you may well be right that others also don't rate him as highly as Anderson but equally so you could be wrong.
I pointed out the possible lack of youtube clips and tribal articles to ridicule the idea that those two factors have any bearing whatsoever on how highly rated a player is by real ''football people''*, justifiably so I would say.
* You aren't one of them btw, you're just a gimp from the internet.
Another reason may be that Axel Witsel is in fact not as good as Anderson was at this age and has not yet shown the same potential.
Cant see it to be honest.
Tevez is a completely different player to Campbell. Tevez plays off teh forward and works incredibly hard. Campbell is a typical striker - and we haven't played with one of those for a while.
I thin he'll leave and thw only way we won't buy Tevez is if Fergie has his eye on another signing to fill the gap.
Could be so, could be so. It still doesn't hide the fact that your opinion is based on the square root of diddly squat, other than the rather odd assumption that he can't be as highly rated as Anderson was because you hadn't seen him on youtube.
Hopefully Mr Witsel joins our club for £20m and shows Ando up for the fraud that he is.
Interesting logic. How about the fact that a player from Brazil may not acclimatise to the weather, the physicality of the game or the type of football played in the Europe. Its a big call to say a young player from Brazil is a better prospect - loads of players are dubbed teh new hwoever and leave brazil and do nothing.
Some may suggest that a player from one of the other European Leagues will have an advantage over a brazilian on that basis.
I'm not sure why its sucj=h a shock to expect three players from one team to do well either. What about Becks, Giggs, Phil and Gary Neville, Butt and Scholes? Or the Ajax tean that won the European Cup in the 90's? - pretty much all of those made it to top European clubs.
I don't know whether this lad is any good, or indeed even if we are interested in buying him, but the fact that he's from Belgium doesn't make him any more a risk than anyone from any where else.
Well I'm Belgian but I have never seen a full game from the Belgian First Division. Crap it is.
The pieces I do watch are usually the highlights of the Liège match. My cousin is a fan and they play good football at times... so I saw some things from Witsel and like I said in the other threads about him: he's a good player, good technique, good passing, always very comfortable on the ball and he can play anywhere in midfield.
Still I would never rate him at £18 million
But like I said before and like has been said in this thread, Standard are trying to get as much as they can, certainly after Everton payed that much for Fellaini. With selling Fellaini and in the next year maybe Witsel and Defour, they can be the richest club in Belgium. Can't blame them for asking such a price, there's always someone willing to pay it, like has been demonstrated by Everton.
About good prospects from Belgium, well we aren't known for our world class youngsters but anything can happen. We have a good batch of young players the moment, Witsel, Fellaini, Defour but also Van den Borre, Dembele and Kompany. It's a good generation of players but I had never thought they would end up in England for that amount of money. They are breaking into the national team last year and this year after the terrible results in the run-up to euro 2008. We ditched the oldies and just started using the young players after they showed their skill in the Olympics and the -21 championships.
Well I'm Belgian but I have never seen a full game from the Belgian First Division. Crap it is.
The pieces I do watch are usually the highlights of the Liège match. My cousin is a fan and they play good football at times... so I saw some things from Witsel and like I said in the other threads about him: he's a good player, good technique, good passing, always very comfortable on the ball and he can play anywhere in midfield.
Still I would never rate him at £18 million
With selling Fellaini and in the next year maybe Witsel and Defour, they can be the richest club in Belgium. Can't blame them for asking such a price, there's always someone willing to pay it, like has been demonstrated by Everton.
About good prospects from Belgium, well we aren't known for our world class youngsters but anything can happen. We have a good batch of young players the moment, Witsel, Fellaini, Defour but also Van den Borre, Dembele and Kompany. It's a good generation of players but I had never thought they would end up in England for that amount of money. They are breaking into the national team last year and this year after the terrible results in the run-up to euro 2008. We ditched the oldies and just started using the young players after they showed their skill in the Olympics and the -21 championships.
No doubt you have some promising youngsters coming through. Fellaini looks like a really good player, vanden Borre hasn't really lived up to expectations since leaving Belgium but he still has plenty of time and things will be better at Genoa than they were at Fiorentina. I haven't seen much of Defour and Witsel but they are supposed to be really decent. We cannot forget about Kompany who's just a couple of years older than these players and is already an established player of proven quality.
The current generation of footballers in Belgium is easily a class above the previous one.
Anyway, do you rate Witsel as one of the best or most talented midfielders in Europe?
erm..... I think you forgot to wink after the word 'brilliant'. You have to be careful with these things on here
I don't know why you're making such a big deal out of this. Anderson was widely considered to be the best young player in the world not already at a top club. Or certainly in the top two or three.
Whereas people aren't sure whether this guy's name is Alex or Axel.
They all do something, else they dont get the tag in the first place.
Of course. But I never said anything about adapting to the premier league, just that if a big fuss about a young player breaking through into the first team happens in Brazil they have a better yard stick to measure - its happened lots of times before at several different clubs and some of them have gone on to become some of the best players in the world.
It hasnt happened so much in Belgium, so it'd be easier for the young player to impress.
Now, you have a valid point about adapting to our league - but who is to say a young brazilian has to come to our league to fulfill his potential? Perhaps he goes to Spain or Italy instead.
The difference being they came from countries and clubs with huge reputations for producing good football players and Ajax and United were very successful clubs. Liege didnt get past the qualifying rounds in the champions league. Almost, but not quite and even if they did it surely wouldnt compare.
Its highly unlikely Defour, Witsel and Fellaini will all become among the best in the world in their position. One of them certainly might, two of them could but all 3 is expecting too much.
I never said it did. But I say again, young players coming through and looking the business in Brazil is something different to young players coming through and looking the business in the jupiler league.
Well I would certainly not rate him higher than Anderson or Nani. Then again you can't really be sure until Witsel has played in a higher league because like we all know, the Belgian league isn't that great. He's great here but I wouldn't put him in a team with the best, most talented young players in the world at the moment. He hasn't proven enough imo.
Brazilian players seem to be surrounded by some sort of mythology, that because they have a great footballing reputation all young players will be worldbeaters when that 's clearly not the case. Just because they are from Brazil doesn't mean there is any better "yard stick" especially when you consider how many players from South amreica are labelled the new whoever as soon as some dodgy agent sniffs the chance to make a few quid from a transfer to europe.
Country and club are imprtant in the development of a player but thats not to say a player from elsewhere can't make it to the top - plenty have done so in the past.
At no point did I suggest any of the Liege players mentioned would be "world class" (whatever that actually means) but you seem to be suggesting that a player, just because they are from Brazil would be a better investment because of nationality, despite the fact that players who have perfomred well in other European Leagues traditionally adjust to the PL much more easily.
£17 mill bid rejected by standard's vice-president!!!! seems it must be us and we must be serious.
http://http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11661_4577236,00.html
http://http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11661_4577236,00.html
Why must it be us? Can't see us paying for Tosic and the other serb, as well as bidding 17m for this guy.
Reckon it's only City who would be spending that kind of cash at the moment.
17m? Crazy money for a player who has yet to prove himself. What next, a 25m bid?
We paid £19 mill for anderson and he had only had a handful of games and was coming back from a very bad leg break! so why is a £17 mill bid less believeable.?
I've seen a bit of his play, not enough to make a qualified judgement, but I don't see that much too special about him. However, in Fergie we trust and since recently he hasn't made any absolutely shit buys he could have the potential to become semi-decent.
£17 mill+ for semi decent?....No thanks.
Haha, probably the shittiest compilation I've ever seen. Two shit goals, and loads of pictures.
I was thinking that myself.
All things considered this lad sounds like he's a bit average.
We want him according to the Times. How good is he for the portuguese league followers ?
I remember being impressed with him when Liege played Everton and Liverpool a few years back. However, he went to Benfica for just £7m last summer and we were not interested then, despite apparent interest before. Can't see there being anything to this rumour - especially as they are saying we are now fine with paying €20m for him (even though he apparently has a €40 million buyout clause).
How much did Berbatov go to spurs for?
Carrick to Spurs?
Bebe to...whoever it was?
I know what you're saying.
Well to be fair, you're right, we have got form for not taking a player for a low fee only to come in for them after their value has doubled/tripled/quadrupled.
Have edited the title.
Can people please take moment to think whether the best way to bring up a piece of news is to bump an ancient thread with a misleading title?
Can people please take moment to think whether the best way to bring up a piece of news is to bump an ancient thread with a misleading title?
Which is to be expected when a player proves he can cut it at a much higher level than his previous club, which makes the signing much less of a gamble.
Berbatov might disprove that. Bebe does too.
I did say less of a gamble. Every signing carries an element of risk.
him and Defour we were always linked too. I think Defour is a good player
Yep. My little heart went pitter patter when I read that.
Witsel looked even better from what I saw of him for Belgium. He's certainly got the frame for the English game too. Bit of a dirty bastard though, apparently.
Why not Axel Foley?
Actually, Axel is a cool enough name to warrant the signing anyway.
Axel.
Actually, Axel is a cool enough name to warrant the signing anyway.
Axel.
Watched the Chelsea game yesterday and didn't see anything impressive about him - especially against a relatively static Chelsea midfield. Can't see him being the answer to our midfield woes really.
You can't judge him on one game. He was very good against Zenit it the last CL game. I bet that most people that write off these players have barely even watched them. Few on here want Gaitan and I bet that is based on nothing they have seen and only because they've heard of another player.
we hardly have 'woes' in midfield. we just need an urgent reinvention of it. Being top of the PL caanot be achived with having 'midfield woes!!!'
Darren Can mentioned our interest before last nights game, by all accounts there were rumours Fergie was in attendance last night
Indeed. It was tongue in cheek.
Better than Javi Garcia. Dude has composure and ball control and puts in a good effort. He can play in a midfield two or in front of them and has a good height.
Can't say how good he is though. I liked him in the CL this season. Didn't notice Gaitan but I noticed Witsel.
Can't say how good he is though. I liked him in the CL this season. Didn't notice Gaitan but I noticed Witsel.
