To Barcelona.
http://www.sport.es/es/noticias/barca/fichaje-song-puede-cerrarse-horas-2177538
According to this the deal could be completed in 48 hours.
Santiago Cazorla
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) are here to discuss Amad saving our blushes in a win against Southampton as well as our now annual loss at home to Brighton. They discuss Amorim's post-match comments, revisit how mid-table we may or may not be, and discuss some transfer news.
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To Barcelona.
http://www.sport.es/es/noticias/barca/fichaje-song-puede-cerrarse-horas-2177538
According to this the deal could be completed in 48 hours.
Arshavin was arguably someone who played in the hole before Arsenal. Cazorla is also an attacking midfielder just the same. Only Spanish clubs chose to use him out wide the same as Arsenal did with Arshavin. He has also played behind a striker
Mata isnt a midfielder. He was a second striker, then a left winger, then played in the hole.
He'd be a massive loss to Arsenal. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if he's trying to catch them at the right time for a new contract. I don't see why Barca need him, tbh.
So you'd rather have Lampard than Iniesta in your team. Fair enough. Frankly spoken though, that's just the English mentality. "Midfielders have to score goals or they are shit." The best 2 attacking midfielders in the world right now are Iniesta and Özil. Özil has scored 4, Iniesta has scored 2 goals last season. Van der Vaart has scored 11 ...
Jeebus. Not only are they losing RvP they're losing the bloke who created most of his goals. That has to hurt.
Ozil's one of the best two attacking midfielder in the world now? Oh dear.
I'm sorry, I forgot Fabregas. Make that top 3.
David Silva is better than Ozil.
Hang on, when did I say that? In fact, look at the bit I bolded in my comment. I didn't say anything like that.
So you can be as arrogant and condescending as you want, but given that you don't seem capable of reading what I wrote I'm not sure that it's not misplaced.
I'm not arrogant.
I disagree with this part though:
It's a completely irrelevant statistic for a midfielder, even for an attacking one. Out of the 2000+ passes midfielders usually play in a season the handful into the net shouldn't be any deciding factor. The difference between 0 and 10 goals is irrelevant if you don't factor in the fruitfulness of the other 1990 passes.
I disagree with this part though:
It's a completely irrelevant statistic for a midfielder, even for an attacking one. Out of the 2000+ passes midfielders usually play in a season the handful into the net shouldn't be any deciding factor. The difference between 0 and 10 goals is irrelevant if you don't factor in the fruitfulness of the other 1990 passes.
A good back up that most surely will spent most of the time in the bench (maybe a replacement for Keita). On the other side it would be a terrible loss for Arsenal. I think that he's the only competent defensive/box to box midfielder of them. But if this is true then this are very bad news for Arsenal after this good signing of them.
We are not losing Song.
Anyways, this Malaga thingy makes me realise that not only Arsenal invest a lot on scouting, they semm to also involve in lot of research in other clubs' finances.
Good thing as very few i guess, saw this coming before summer.
Anyways, this Malaga thingy makes me realise that not only Arsenal invest a lot on scouting, they semm to also involve in lot of research in other clubs' finances.
Good thing as very few i guess, saw this coming before summer.
Song's not going anywhere and neither is RvP at the moment.
Of course it isn't irrelevant, most teams play with 1 striker who might get 25-30 goals. The attacking midfielders need to get some too.
I'll sound like a broken record but:
Silva: 6 goals
Özil: 4 goals
Iniesta: 2 goals
That's the ammount of goals 3 of the best attacking midfielders in the world for 3 of the best teams of the world have scored last season. Most of those goals have probably not even decided a game. Doesn't really look like goals would be relevant for attacking midfielders.
Statistics are so useless in football most of the time. If Mata taps in from 5 yards and scores he has 1 goal on his tally. If Iniesta plays a complicated throughball through the entire defense to Dani Alves who then crosses it to Messi who taps it in, Iniesta is left with 0 goals and 0 assists on his tally, despite basically creating the goal.
Stats are relevant up to a certain point.
Silva is picked "wide", Iniesta in a 3 man midfield in the same team as Messi, and although Ozil is just behind a striker he sets up about one goal a game for Ronaldo
Yeah, goal statistics for strikers are relevant. Although even they don't tell the whole story. Otherwise Gomez is the best centreforward in the world by a margin.
Likewise, assists for players playing in behind the striker obviously are relevant.
Yes but they're not the only AMs on the team are they?
Nope. For instance if a team plays through the wings the player behind the striker might pass the ball out wide most of the time with the wingers delivering the final passes (assists) to the centreforward. Neither assists, nor goals will ever tell you the story about the quality of a midfielder.
I am not understanding this Iniesta logic. To me he is not an attacking midfielder (at-least not like obvious ones as Ozil, Fabregas, Silva, Lampard, Gerrard etc). I think that he is more a central midfielder than an AMF, and for this his goal/assists stats are much poorer than others.
I always said that stats tell only half of the story so obviously goal/assists stats are an important factor of attacking midfielder's game although their game is depended also from many other things and is depended from the system which their club plays.
I always said that stats tell only half of the story so obviously goal/assists stats are an important factor of attacking midfielder's game although their game is depended also from many other things and is depended from the system which their club plays.
Alex Song would be a good signing for United, ah-tell-ye-what
He'd be good signing for anybody in the world but Barca. But he's contracted til 2015 and is going nowhere.
It's an indicator of performance like any other. Iniesta is regarded so highly despite only scoring two goals last season. If he were to score a further ten goals per season, common consensus would catapult him ahead of Ronaldo in the best player in the world standings. It was clear that last year Barcelona became too reliant on Messi's goals and, when the great man had an off-day - such as against Chelsea - there was nobody to step up to the plate and make the difference.
It's similar to the debates around Zidane and his standing amongst the best players of all time. Everyone rates him amongst the top three of his generation, but not many amongst the top three of all time. Because for all his unparalleled elegance, touch and balance, he had too many seasons averaging five goals a season and was not as frequent a game-changer as the likes of Ronaldo and Rivaldo.
No, but if a player gets 25 assists in a season, chances are he's been quite heavily involved in creating chanches for his team, you spacker. It's not like every assist is a piece of genius, much like it's not like every goal is a great piece of work. But if you score 40 goals, chances are you're doing something right - and the same is true of assists.
Jesus christ, what a retarded opinion to have. Goals "irrelevant" to an attacking midfielder..
Jamie Sanderson @YoungGunsBlog 16m Santi Cazorla at the Arsenal training ground
this morning to complete move. Met the
players. Medical done. Virtually done now.
Unless this is some massive massive windup, there is no way this deal will fail to happen now.
this morning to complete move. Met the
players. Medical done. Virtually done now.
Unless this is some massive massive windup, there is no way this deal will fail to happen now.
If a midfielder doesn't get 25 assists though it doesn't automatically mean that he hasn't been heavily involved in creating chances for his team. A might imply B but B doesn't necessarily imply A, therefore A (assisting goals) and B (involvement in creating chances) aren't equivalent and therefore assist numbers don't tell you the whole story. Which is the essence of my argument.
I strongly disagree and Xavi is the best example. Xavi broke his own goalscoring record last season, scoring 14 (!) goals in all competitions. And yet no one in his right mind would claim that Xavi played one of his better seasons. In fact the example of Xavi further confirms my point that stats are often meaningless. "If Iniesta scored more goals than Ronaldo he'd be regarded as the better player" is just an opinion. Mine is that he already is the better footballer as it stands without needing a couple more goals to his tally. Why would he need more goals to be better? It's a random criteria you just made up.
I think Zidane isn't regarded as one of the top 3 players of all time because he simply isn't, not because he had seasons where he scored only 5 goals.
Xavi's not an attacking midfielder though. The further away from goal you go the less relevant the statistic becomes in judging the player. But regarding it as irrelevant for all but one player on the park is extremist.
For what it's worth, that wasn't Kaka's worst season of his career.
For what it's worth, that wasn't Kaka's worst season of his career.
Anyways, it seems Cazorla is 5th in list of players with top pass completion in final third.
with Podolski, Giroud & Walcott upfront, that stat doesn't make me worry about chance creation or capitalisation.
with Podolski, Giroud & Walcott upfront, that stat doesn't make me worry about chance creation or capitalisation.
The only random criterion that's just been made up is your's on goals not being important. What I'm expressing is a common view:
Nah not for me, i don't find any real relevance in them at all. To me they are interesting points of discussion, nothing more. Too many people try to use them as strong evidence to support a point of view one way or the other.
I just think a players overall level of performance can not be judged on a few statistics. AS Homeophorbic rightly states, a player can be involved in the vast majority of his team's goals and chance creations, but the deliverer of the final pass and the finish will take all the statistical glory. So the fact stats can sometimes be deceiving casts doubt in their ability to be used as an accurate barometer for judgement imo.
As i said they are interesting but without further study they are not the definitive evidence many seem to believe them to be.
Well, then Lampard is quite comfortably a superior midfielder to Iniesta.
Lampard: 126 goals in 374 appearances
Iniesta: 27 goals in 271 appearances
It's just that simple then.
You're quite fond of straw men, aren't you? Someone says that goals aren't completely irrelevant, and you act as if they've said it's the only thing that matters.
Lampard is 4 times as prolific as Iniesta. If people think that goals are "relevant" but also want to play the "relevant but not the only relevant thing" game so they can escape the "Iniesta-Lampard" mysery, it begs the question which degree of relevance the goal stat can actually have if someone 4 times as prolific is regarded 10 times the inferior player. Not very relevant then, I'd say.
I'm ending this discussion here since I'm only repeating myself anyway.
His goals are one of the things that compensate for Lampard's other shortcomings
Really I am not understanding your logic at all and also many of your examples.
First of all, no-one can say that stats are completely useless. Of course that goal/assists stats are an important factor for attacking midfielders. Secondly, I said above that Iniesta is not a classic attacking midfielder and doesn't play as high as most of attacking midfielders. Also, no chance in hell that he is better than Ronaldo and it is/was 10 times superior to Lampard (both of them at their best). If nothing else, I think that in their best there is nothing much to separate from them, although they are completely different types of players.
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