Very thoughtful posts, from both of you, weed and rollie!
As Rollie, atm the right course of action would have been to buy at least two quality defenders, rather than two forwards, are board is planning to get...
We should consider that the one who pays get to decide, regardless if its right or wrong, let alone optimal. Our owners want Cassano, they always wanted him and they will get, no matter our priorities!
Now, as of who those two defenders should be replaced. It is a more complicated matter than it appears to...
When i started bashing Molinaro, i have foreseen, that eventually, a time will come, when he will became, less harmful, inevitable, than he was last year. Mostly because we had to endure such an incompetent player in our squad and because of the enormous of match time Moli had, we have now reached that level tolerance.
This is the best an extremely limited player, like Molinaro can ever offer to this team.
Molinaro will never be able to become any better than that, no matter how hard he is going to try, sad but true. Some times hard work, is just not enough. Moli was never meant to be a part, of such a good team like Juve, simple as that.
He will never contribute to our improval as a team from here on,
he is far too limited for that.
I did not bash him for his performances this year, despite having his ups and down. This year, his efforts actually have a meaning.
What saddens me the most, though is, that we were supposed to improve and start building a competitive team! Such a team cannot be built with half witted players, like Moli though, he is a step to the wrong direction. I ve sensed that lack of ambition and lack of vision from behalf on our board, since last year. And that was an extra reason i was a Molinaro hater all along. Because i knew that they wanted him to be a part of our long term plans. I really saw that coming and presented this threat extensively. Our current situation actually reflects that threat.
I remember arguing with Osman about this many times.
CR words and faith/favor were particularly aimed at this. It was not a natural cause of things. Molinaro didnt earn his place in our team and long term plans.
He was forced in!! Thats why i saw him as a threat. Because he will remain, no matter if he is helpful or not. No matter if his promising or not.
We ought to seek out the most promising and gifted players, to create a competitive team.
Players that would not only improve their teamwork by the year, but also their very own skills. If we tolerate that kind of weaklings here and there,
we will never build a competitive first eleven squad. Because players like Molinaro, will never improve enough to reach the highest levels!
And i ask you here, Molinaro lovers, what exactly are you expecting from Molinaro in the future? What else can he give to our future team? He wont be able to defend or attack any better than that, because he doesnt have the necessary skills to do so. Time will come that we are going to need the full potential of all of our eleven players on the field, to fight against the most competitive teams out there, for titles.
Every small detail will be essential to make the difference at the highest levels.
Why would we insist with limited players that would hold us back??
Because they are cheap, young and Italian...
CR has clearly demonstrated that he doesnt calculate DC, or any other player for the LB position, no matter how much than Moli they are. He loved Molinaro with a great passion, even when he was consistently, by far, our worst player in the pitch, making of him, our worst starter in our recent history. I dont know if he is having a personal "affair" with him, or its just that Moli's agent pays him a tribute, but as long as we keep CR, Moli will haunt us, because CR actually meant every word he said about him, by the end of last season. Despite Moli being a no way out, we have to accept him as a burden we will have to carry on our back. I can only hope that this wont become a trend and we wont expand it to other positions too. We will have to consider that we will try to develop and compete with the best, carrying this handicap. Think of him as the favorite son of our board...
Then, we should really make up our minds with the roles of some players.
Esp with DC, Giovinco and Criscito. One of DC or Criscito will be used ad Moli's the great subs. That will happen after we decide if DC is a LM or LB and Criscito is a CB or a LB. Honestly, i dont see Criscito of having the pace of being a LB.
And the younger that Moli the great DC will most likely serve as his back up.
Chiellini will be a our first choice CB and Criscito(instead of Knezevic) + Mellberg will be his sub. Mellberg will also help with the RB position. Hopefully Criscito will be proved more reliable.
Now two of or 4 players are covered by default.
IMO Legro never had the potential to a starter in a competitive Juve, this year has been inconsistent and we need a quality defender to partner Chiellini, in order to form a much more solid defense and to survive with better chances in the matches, we are going to lack Chiellini. Our board will not approve that though, unless it becomes so painfully obvious, even a monkey could see that.
Realistically, i dont see us being a new expensive defender, until Legro start making terrible blunders, like Iuliano's last days with us...
Our board will support Legro's hopes on reaching the NT and his starting place is guaranteed for another year.
That would only leave the RB position. Again a position we should fix.
And thats a persistent problem. We should replace Zebina, even before calciopoli.
Zebina then, like Molinaro now, managed to become a non harmful presence, but with the difference that he was a non harmful presence within a world class defense. This is indeed a respectful task/performance and his loyalty and the fact that he kept earning his salary while we were in serie b, binds us with him.
Although we know that his development has been hold, so his competitiveness and his fitness status will never be the same again. We ought to forget them, for his services.
He is far too injury proned to be considered, as a reliable substitute,
however we will indefintly keep paying tribute to his services, considering Secco's inability to sell him to the EPL team, they were interested on him.
That would already mean one and a half (Mellberg) salary paid for the RB position, for no good reason.
And no matter what we do, we wont be able to fix that, at least with this board.
And then we have Grygera, Grygera was only good right after he lost his tooth,
since then he has failed to make an impact and has no confirmed that he is almost as limited as Molinaro, but even less consistent...
Fact is that he has to no real cover in front him, as Marchionni has been by far our worst player this year. But we have seen enough to tell, that he cant be a part of a future competitive team either. Ajax's board was wise to offload him...
Our board doesnt have the balls to off load him, because that would mean that bringing him at the first place was a mistake. And that would also mean that we should reallocate some of the money meant to fund Cassano's acquisition, for our defense. Thats unlikely to happen, since a defender cannot dribble and if a defender cannot dribble, he cannot create any spectacle. If he cannot create any spectacle, he wont bring any new fans to our new stadium.
Thats why our board in unlikely to fund the acquisition of a new quality RB.
We can only hope though, that Eboue, who has played in CR favorite league, can be impressive enough, if he join us for the usual sum we pay for our defenders (0$). Not to mention the fact, that he can as well cover the CB position, in case Criscito sux (again, esp against Totti)
With this board and coach we have no realistic chances to fix our issues in the defense. For the reason stated above and their views on the matter.
Unless the Elkann or someone else decisively step in with a large sum and the will to buy big names in our defense, (to create a hype mostly and improve our overall quality in the process) , i expect us to repeat the sames mistakes, once again.
With our priority, the defense been issued, we can go on spending on Cassano
and then if we have the time, we will sign an unwanted but relatively known LM to replace Nedved. The sum needed for our forward line, does not allows us to sign both a Neddy and a Marchionni replacement.
From there we have two options, we either preach BS that we trust Giovinco, despite the fact that CR doesnt and we will use him as our starter LM and DC as his sub (and salih too). Or we will ask from Neddy to stay for one more year, supposedly to chase the CL dream. That would help us to avoid spending any more money on LBs and LMs. Moli+DC Giovinco+Neddy+Salih. So we can spend more money to acquire Cassano.
Otherwise, we would be forced to spend the left overs of our summer transfer budget, after we seal the Cassano deal, on someone like Downing...
I dont see our boar willing to spend on someone expensive as Diego, i dont see Secco able to get a target like Silva, when more teams chase him and his attention is diverted elsewhere (Cassano)
I expect us to spend 25mil on Cassano, bring back Criscito and another defender for free, or almost free. Bring one more youngster like Ekdall to add depth and impress the fans, that our boards has a plan for the future.
And then spend a fee around 15mil on Neddy's replacement, not because of our tactical needs, but because the fans would want someone to believe in, when he retires. If Neddy doesnt retires, expect to our boards puppet to say crap, that he supposedly trust our youth and that this year we are building a new stadium and we cant spend that much. We already brought a great champion (Cassano)
And our fans should show patience and faith to our five decade plan...
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