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Maybe, but the question was whether a team needs a target man. The answer is it doesn't, as long as there is good passing and movement. And I honestly think with the attacking quartet of Del Piero, Diego, Giovinco and Camoranesi, we have enough technique to make up for it.

You don't, just watch the Real-Barcelona game where Real got thrashed 2-6 at home with Messi playing as the lone striker.

One thing I noticed is how much De Ceglie improved after playing a couple of games. Still far from great, but he seems to be a reliable LB now, not the headless chicken he was before. I wonder how good Giovinco would be if he was given a couple of games...

Btw. News of the World (I have absolutely no idea how reliable they are) claims we are preparing an 8M pound bid for Skrtel.

That's the thing, why haven't we just kept him? He would get exactly the same experience (=0), but he would be available had two of our CBs got injured. He played some good games for us, we probably could use him (especially considering our injury list for the last two seasons).

Giovinco has played 491 minutes and we have scored 16 goals with him on the field in Serie A. We have scored 35 goals in 2070 minutes of Serie A. That's a goal for every 30.69 minutes Giovinco is on the pitch, one goal for every 59.14 minutes of Serie A football played, and one goal per 83.11...

Even if he didn't assist, we play so much better with him on the field. Simply put, when he plays, the opposition defense has one more thing to worry about. And that is a good enough reason for me to play him. Especially when we have two of Sissoko, Melo, Marchisio to cover for him defensively.

It doesn't seem right to me, either, but that seems to be the way. True, but then again, he never had the chance to interest anyone. And you can't really scout a player who rarely plays. The fact that despite his little playing time, teams like Udinese and Palermo are interested, is for me a...

:tup:

Let me try and refute those excellent points: Pato, Hernandez, Pastore and Paloschi were bought for big money by their resprective clubs, ergo, bought to play, as they are seen as developed players, not youngsters, not to sit on the bench (Paloschi, IIRC, very rarely played for his home club -...

It's not about Giovinco, it's the position he plays in. Playing Giovinco means we have to play the only formation that worked for us this season, the 4-2-3-1. And since Giovinco is the only one who can play on the left wing, then it simply comes down to "Giovinco = 4-2-3-1, no Giovinco =/= 4-2-3-1".

He never got the chance to become overrated.

It's true, he gave very little time to Gio & DC, but as you mentioned, he wasn't afraid to try the youngsters, and if they were good, they had a chance of playing. Which is something we haven't seen for a couple of years. The point is, we had a manager that was looking for talent both outside...

They are good buys, but so far on paper. Canna, as the season progresses, seems to be past it, but I still believe both Diego and Melo will step up. But as many people pointed out before, despite Melo being a good player, we needed players for other positions much more. But what's more...

They were successful result-wise. But as I wrote in the John Elkann thread, since Deschamps left, we haven't added one player to the team, that would be good enough (all our three youngsters were Deschamps' work, he even wanted us to sign Sissoko, which we eventually did). Therefore, in the last...

from football-italia.net

The thing that angers me the most is, that Deschamps really seemed to have a vision with the club. He knew exactly where we should be in 2,3,4 years, what we should play, which players we needed. With Deschamps, we had a manager, with Ranieri, we had a coach.

That's where our fall truly started, not during Calciopoli. When you even look at our "youngsters": Giovinco, Marchisio, De Ceglie, all three of them were introduced by Didier into the first team. Since he left, we didn't have a single player promoted from the primavera, nor had we bought any...

Because we are linked with them and they will cost quite a lot, methinks.

But they are scoring a lot as well. And as we can't score a goal from open play, I'm very skeptical about our chances. Unless we play both Giovinco and Diego, then we should be able to control the play, restrict their chances while exposing their weak defense.