craig

If played properly though the one man up front becomes 3 men up front as long as your wide men have the engine to track back then you have plenty of attacking options. He may start with the same formation but it still allows many variations, as Frankie said in his earlier thread about the formation. I know what you are saying though as WS to me seems to be more cautious in his approach than he should be. I guess we will find out after Xmas - being in Europe after Xmas is enough for me right now !

Yes I do Pete. Do you think it was negative when we played the same formation away to Lyon ? We had the same/similar formation that night and it worked very well and I didn't see too many complaints. Let's not be kidded, Barcelona are a far superior team to us in pretty much every department. A touch of realism needs to be considered here - WS's team has been together for about 3 months and still haven't gelled AND they were up against one of, if not the, best club side in the world.

It will no doubt be a different scenario in a knockout situation.

I am not so sure about Barcelona taking "at least" a point off Lyon Wija - they have qualified so will rest key players, of that there is no doubt. They now have nothing to play for in the group as they are pretty much guaranteed 1st place. They obviously have the quality to win that game but Lyon will have more to play for. I am by no means saying we should simply accept 3rd place - but to know that we will be no worse than that and get the parachute into the UEFA even if we lose our last 2 games should hopefully allow the players to play with less pressure (to some extent). If Barcelona do happen to take at least a point off Lyon then I think the final game could end up being a formality - as I believe we can go to Stuttgart and win, they now have nothing to play for other than pride.

I guess one good thing to come out of tonight is that we are at least guaranteed to finish no worse than 3rd in the group. Whilst we obviously would love to finish 2nd and go through with Barcelona we have to remember that when the draw was made we were given NO CHANCE of finishing any higher than LAST. At least we have secured European football after the group stages - now we just need the Gers to beat Lyon to ensure it is the CL. But no matter what, IMO the fact we will finish at least 3rd is already a SUCCESSFUL campaign in Europe. Disappointed about tonight - but proud that we have still competed against illustrious opposition and remain in Europe.

Someone set the offices on fire buba ? Seriusly, that sucks man, good luck in the job search !

hear hear calscot. Funnily enough, I saw the voting and saw hot it correlated to your own personal probabilities, found it unerring ! I think we have an opportunity to win (and definitely get a draw - I am getting more optomistic as the day draws on ) tonight but we have to not concede early and keep it tight for the first 20 minutes ala Lyon. COME ON THE GERS

I guess the truwe percentages should be 33.33/33.33/33.33 but probabilities would reduce the chance of a win as we are away from home. Not convinced that a draw and loss should carry the same probability, but am happy to go with your numbers cal, and hope you are right too ! I voted lose but if we defend as stoutly as we did at Ibrox and don't concede early then I can even see us sneaking a goal tonight as Barca will be attacking a great deal, hopefully leaving themselves open to a quick counter attack.

From the gobshite Boruc himself.... unbelievable !! Celtic goalkeeper Artur Boruc believes Aiden McGeady has the potential to be better than Cristiano Ronaldo. McGeady grabbed the only goal of the game on Tuesday night to hand Celtic a crucial win over Benfica in the Champions League. And Boruc insisted: "Aiden was really unbelievable. He made so many great runs and was so important for our team. "I think he can be better than Cristiano Ronaldo. That's my opinion. Aiden is still young and can only get better. "I've played a few games against Ronaldo now and, while it's hard to compare the two players, Aiden has the ability to be better."

Aye, come on Gribz - get with thw program ! :fish:

What wija said....

I don't disagree that in the last 5-10 year the top clubs have broken away but when Sir Alex took that job on they weren't even close to being contenders. I would never take anything away from our achievement of 9IAR but I honestly cannot see how that is a better record than what Sir Alex has done over the last 15-20 years there.

I like Hemdani's quality and he oozes class most times he is on the pitch. He is reassuring, breaks up play, rarely misses a pass, so he would be missed. But 3M for a player of his age who we also got on a Bosman is a shrewd piece of business. As has been said, he is struggling to make the SPL team so to keep a player who is struggling to get a game when you have been offered 3M is a difficult choice to make. The other thing to consider though is would SDM stump up the 3M proceeds for a new player ? Because if he doesn't and either KT or BF get an injury we could very well be looking at playing Amdy Faye in the centre of midfield (sorry..... didnt want you all to break out in a cold sweat !). We need a replacement for Hemdani, although I would prefer an attacking mid with some creativity.

And given that they only train for half a shift they should ALL be staying back IMO to work on their game. eg, those taking set pieces should be practicing set pieces, and mixing them up. Those expected to be challenging for corners should be practicing making the proper runs at the proper time, they should be practicing some imaginative set pieces too. With our aerial threat we should be making better use of it with better balls into the danger areas, this can be worked on after training and with little effort - good for Charlie Adam to want to stay behind !

Utter pish IMO. Our 9 IAR was a very impressive feat, VERY impressive. But IMO what Sir Alex Ferguson did with Man U is beyond comparison. He took a sleeping giant who were a poor team at best and turned them into a conveyor belt of talent, constantly challenging and, in fact, until the last 4 or 5 years, a dynasty in the EPL. Other teams won the odd title but Man U were always there or thereabouts. The big difference between our 9IAR and their dynasty is that in England there were more teams that could compete - in Scotland for a few of the 9IAR years we were being challenged by Motherwell and Aberdeen whilst our biggest rivals (and who should have been our main challengers) were almost going out of business. To win 9IAR is a great feat no matter what but I feel that Sir Alex with his 15 years of unparallelled success domestically (and I am not even including the CWC, CL and Euro super Cup wind) make his feat better. But the original point from Gav was not about Sir Alex Ferguson's record but about how close he came to getting the sack (the Jim Leighton horror show) and how he turned that whole club and business around because he was given time !

What I don't get is that we should WANT him to fail just because he failed (not ALL down to him) with Rangers. Once he has left us why should we care - look to the future, not the past. I wish him well to be honest.

Ian, that is exactly what I was sayin.... you and Pete think we can get a result (I am not saying I don't think we can, just that there is no pressure on us to get one in this game).

We all know that we will go out in a 4-5-1 formation on Wednesday night but I am with you buba - we really have nothing to lose in this game so I would like to see WS start JCD and Cousin in a 4-4-2 and see how they get on. We aren't expected to take anything from the game and most Gers fans (Ian and Pete aside :fish: ) also don't expect us to get a result - so I would rather we went out trying to compete (which we will do no matter the formation) and be more attack-minded.

Anyone else think Hargreaves talks shite ? He reckons Man U play the beuatiful game and that Arsenal's goals were LUCKY and SCRAPPY, whilst Man U's were 2 "beautitful goals". I just watched the rerun of Man U's first goal and Arsenal's first goal and there is NO DOUBT that Arsenal's was a better worked goal !

Draw was fair, don't think either team deserved to lose. Great finish from Gallas and he probably deserved it for how unlucky he was at the Man U first goal.

What a finish - the Gunners deserved the draw !

GAME ON. Come on you Gooners !!

Looks like all 3 of us could be screwed already - what a fluky goal !

Cheeky wee double so far today. Arsenal v Man U Middlesborough v Spurs Tenner returns 56 quid.

You could be right Calscot, Bain said yesterday that it is based on the last 5 years domestic record which is why Celtic got in and we didnt.