by LFC2007 » Sun Jul 12, 2009 1:30 am
Calling it quits would leave us on the thin side for cover up top so we'll surely sign someone - even if they're in the £5m-£10m range rather than 'big, big money'. We don't want to be heading into a season of such opportunity relying on what we already have as cover - the difference was clear enough last season when a bit of extra cutting edge might well have seen us clear. That, for me, was the fundamental difference between us winning and the Manc's winning, the extra quality twinned with experience of the likes of Tevez, Ronaldo, Giggs and Scholes nudged them ahead - the number of times they scraped past opponents having played a mediocre game, either through moments of individual brilliance or moments that demanded experience was f'ucking frustrating. They had more than their fair share of luck too, but that squares with having more of those types of players; if you have the ability as well as the experience (in responding to the pressure) those players have, then you inevitably end up enhancing the conditions you need to get the flukey deflection, the flick-on, the pressured mistake from the defender that gifts a close-range shot...i.e. the conditions for luck that - if taken - allow you to convert a seemingly guaranteed defeat or at best draw, into a three points. These scenarios - and I'm thinking Villa and Spurs especially - were monumentally important to their title aspirations last season. I simplify the point for clarity, but you could throw in a series of other similar results where quality and experience told when seemingly on the precipice of a gutting result that probably would have thrown the race wide open again.
You could make good argument from the fact that we challenged last season without any extra cover (Keane, ok, but he had little effect) adding in that the Manc's have lost Tevez and Ronaldo - two players who made crucial if relatively limited contributions last season. But, even though I feel we're now more or less even in team-terms, I still don't have quite enough confidence in Kuyt, Babel and Ngog to fill the boots of Gerrard and/or Torres should (god forbid) they sustain injuries. We obviously have to work on the assumption that the two might well get injured, and for that reason we ought to sign at least one more capable, consistent and ideally experienced player. Any other scenario would potentially leave us exposed to the highs and lows of Kuyt's game or worse still Babel's or Ngog's, and in truth that's too big a risk given the stakes. If these are the conditions we face in regards to funds, then I'd be in for Gudjohnsen as I think he ticks all of the boxes you could tick for the kind of money he ought to cost.
I agree with what Mick says re defensive cover, and think Johnson is a superb addition, if a touch expensive. Best right back in the country and will improve us no end.