| De Guzman 15:41 - Jan 1 with 12534 views | andrew |
Absolutely horrific, and even more horrific is that he stayed on 90 minutes. |  |
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| De Guzman on 09:25 - Jan 3 with 924 views | JackSomething |
| De Guzman on 09:14 - Jan 3 by Dr_Winston |
Sometimes gales need to be spat into.
I can understand why he's not everyone's cup of tea, but some of the abuse/criticism (like the original OP) is so ridiculous it can't remain unchallenged, even if you're going against the herd. |
It's not like those of us who appreciate what he brings to the team are blind to his negatives. He is a luxury player, he offers little defensively and he definitely doesn't 'put his foot in'. Unfortunately these are the very deficiencies that seem to trigger rage in a large group of fans who can then never acknowledge the positives in his game.
We all agree we have a problem with crossing the ball accurately in the team right? De Guzman is as guilty of that at times as anyone, but I'll accept the over-hit corners as long as he also occasionally produces balls like the one for Bony's first, which was absolutely perfect (and about the only cross/striker movement which took Kompany out of the equation all game).
Like Hernandez, it's frustrating that these players only produce their best occasionally, but when their best is so good, it's worth the frustration. Players like Pablo and JDG will have a 5 out of 10 game or a 9 out of 10 game. The alternative is to pack the team with consistent 7 out of 10 players and never risk anything, but that's the type of approach that produces teams like Cardiff, West Ham and us under Sousa. Laudrup is trying to build a team with a blend of the two players and I'm all for it.
Of course this could all be completely wrong, but it's my opinion and I'm sticking to it. |  |
| You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocket ship underpants don't help. |
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| De Guzman on 09:37 - Jan 3 with 909 views | DJack |
| De Guzman on 09:25 - Jan 3 by JackSomething |
It's not like those of us who appreciate what he brings to the team are blind to his negatives. He is a luxury player, he offers little defensively and he definitely doesn't 'put his foot in'. Unfortunately these are the very deficiencies that seem to trigger rage in a large group of fans who can then never acknowledge the positives in his game.
We all agree we have a problem with crossing the ball accurately in the team right? De Guzman is as guilty of that at times as anyone, but I'll accept the over-hit corners as long as he also occasionally produces balls like the one for Bony's first, which was absolutely perfect (and about the only cross/striker movement which took Kompany out of the equation all game).
Like Hernandez, it's frustrating that these players only produce their best occasionally, but when their best is so good, it's worth the frustration. Players like Pablo and JDG will have a 5 out of 10 game or a 9 out of 10 game. The alternative is to pack the team with consistent 7 out of 10 players and never risk anything, but that's the type of approach that produces teams like Cardiff, West Ham and us under Sousa. Laudrup is trying to build a team with a blend of the two players and I'm all for it.
Of course this could all be completely wrong, but it's my opinion and I'm sticking to it. |
Spot on. If they were a lot more consistent we wouldn't have been able to get them in the first place. |  |
| It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. - Carl Sagan |
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| De Guzman on 09:37 - Jan 3 with 907 views | Dr_Winston |
| De Guzman on 09:25 - Jan 3 by JackSomething |
It's not like those of us who appreciate what he brings to the team are blind to his negatives. He is a luxury player, he offers little defensively and he definitely doesn't 'put his foot in'. Unfortunately these are the very deficiencies that seem to trigger rage in a large group of fans who can then never acknowledge the positives in his game.
We all agree we have a problem with crossing the ball accurately in the team right? De Guzman is as guilty of that at times as anyone, but I'll accept the over-hit corners as long as he also occasionally produces balls like the one for Bony's first, which was absolutely perfect (and about the only cross/striker movement which took Kompany out of the equation all game).
Like Hernandez, it's frustrating that these players only produce their best occasionally, but when their best is so good, it's worth the frustration. Players like Pablo and JDG will have a 5 out of 10 game or a 9 out of 10 game. The alternative is to pack the team with consistent 7 out of 10 players and never risk anything, but that's the type of approach that produces teams like Cardiff, West Ham and us under Sousa. Laudrup is trying to build a team with a blend of the two players and I'm all for it.
Of course this could all be completely wrong, but it's my opinion and I'm sticking to it. |
Tackles he can do. He went in with Yaya Toure a couple of times on Wed. I'd think twice about doing that and I'm bigger than him. 50/50's however are a dead loss.
Corners too, but that's more down to us as a team. Whoever takes over from him at corners generally plays them the same way. We don't work on them enough, attacking or defending. |  |
| Pain or damage don't end the world. Or despair, or f*cking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man... and give some back. |
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| De Guzman on 12:08 - Jan 3 with 828 views | karnataka |
| De Guzman on 09:25 - Jan 3 by JackSomething |
It's not like those of us who appreciate what he brings to the team are blind to his negatives. He is a luxury player, he offers little defensively and he definitely doesn't 'put his foot in'. Unfortunately these are the very deficiencies that seem to trigger rage in a large group of fans who can then never acknowledge the positives in his game.
We all agree we have a problem with crossing the ball accurately in the team right? De Guzman is as guilty of that at times as anyone, but I'll accept the over-hit corners as long as he also occasionally produces balls like the one for Bony's first, which was absolutely perfect (and about the only cross/striker movement which took Kompany out of the equation all game).
Like Hernandez, it's frustrating that these players only produce their best occasionally, but when their best is so good, it's worth the frustration. Players like Pablo and JDG will have a 5 out of 10 game or a 9 out of 10 game. The alternative is to pack the team with consistent 7 out of 10 players and never risk anything, but that's the type of approach that produces teams like Cardiff, West Ham and us under Sousa. Laudrup is trying to build a team with a blend of the two players and I'm all for it.
Of course this could all be completely wrong, but it's my opinion and I'm sticking to it. |
I was going to join this thread earlier but having read all the bile aimed @ JdG, I thought, what's the point, after all this time, there are still so many who just don't get what he brings to our team.
On the train on the way back from Villa, a few of us (which included 2 Villa fans BTW) were discussing the game and we were pretty much unanimous that JdG was MoM and totally controlled the midfield. It's probably not coincidence that we all still play 11-a-side football despite being mostly in our 50s and in my case 60s so we understand football. Then against ManC, for me deGuz was the oil in a very slick machine. He has an instinct (as does Leon) to get himself in a pocket of space to support the man with the ball to always give him an option (even if he doesn't get the ball) and it seems this goes unnoticed by many who only see what a player does in direct contact with the ball and not the massive amount of work some players do off the ball.
For a lot of the ManC game, we bossed the midfield with JdG at the centre of all we did right, to such an extent that as soon as they scored their 2nd, they took off a striker (Negredo) and put on another midfield player (Garcia) to try and wrest the midfield back from us and protect their lead and when that wasn't working, they brought on Milner instead of Nasri probably for the same reason.
Someone said JdG had 100+ touches which is more than 1 a minute and is an extraordinary statistic and shows just how involved he was.
A lot is made of JdG's lack of guts and battling qualities but you have to have other players in your team who do the ugly stuff and as JackSomething correctly points out, a team packed with 7 out of 10 players is not what we're about. I recall Lawrie MacMenemy saying his ideal team had 4 violinists and 7 dustmen. |  | | |
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