Klaus wrote:

Pogba's still too Hollywood for me but yeah, he's got monster potential. What he has shown this season, imo, is that he should just give up any illusion he'll have of ever running a midfield. He's a power player if I've ever seen one. He'll never be able to do what Marchisio does but he could dominate on the ball if he only worked harder. He needs to fill Vidal's shoes this season. That's the guy he should model himself after. He's got enough talent to be one of the defining players of his generation if he puts himself about more.

Vidal is too basic, albeit great at what he does, for Pogba to aspire to be. You're spot on about everything else and it it tough to envision who Pogba "should be" or aspire to be. 

For me he's actually a throw back player to past decades when you wanted your talent on the ball as much as possible and played them as a 10, or some mutant version of a ten. 

In an odd way he reminds me Kaka in that he's not a forward but not a midfielder. But you want him on the ball so he can drive you forward. There's very very few players of that quality and style left...actually can't think of one in the Premier League. 

Barkley, potentially. Not in terms of current level but I think he'd get the most out of his talent in that role.

7 days later

Higuain's bossing it up among Europe's elite: https://www.whoscored.com/Articles/b_poln3zzkscxyin5pvdma/Show/Player-Focus-The-Race-to-Finish-Top-Goalscorer-in-Europes-Top-5-Leagues

12 months left on his contract in the summer and refuses to renew. He'll win Napoli the league, repeating what no one has done since Maradona, and then he'll leave for a bigger club.

We need to be ready. This is probably going to be our only opportunity to pick up a top class striker in the next couple of years.

He has 12 months left? We should be all over this.

My bad, his current one is ending in 2018. He's got 2 years left in the summer. He doesn't want to sign an extension though. He's well aware that the next one will be his last huge deal, and Napoli just doesn't have the money to compete with the top tier clubs.

He's gotta force a move then. If he lets Napoli run down his contract he will be 31 by then. Hardly any top club will be in for an old striker unless his name is Zlatan.

I reckon there is a chance Wenger will go for him this summer. He was interested in him previously and he has signed someone as old as Arshavin before so it's not impossible. That said, he's not someone special and needs a functional team behind him. We are still looking for that someone special since Henry left. Could and should have been Suarez for us.

I still don't understand why we didn't get him from Madrid...

Too expensive. Madrid raised the price all of a sudden when we already agreed to a much lower fee previously.

Shevchenko was never this good to be honest. He's one of the least deserved ballon d'or winners ever. He wasn't even the best player in his own team at the time. Higuain this season is better than Sheva ever was.

That's not to say Shevchenko shouldn't have been prolific in England considering his talent, but he was past 30 and Chelsea were ill-suited to the attributes that made him successful in Milan. There's less risk of that happening with Higuain imo, who's two years younger and a quicker player, better on the dribble.

Sure he wasn't that good in the season they gifted him the ballon d'or but he was the best player in, at least, one of his first 3 seasons at Milan.
He had big boots to fill coming after Weah and he definitely impressed me by top scoring in multiple seasons.
I may be wrong but i considered his dribbling as one of his strong points then.
BTW i hated AC Milan, because of Berlusconi, and wanted Inter to win the Scudetto at the time.

Mello wrote:

I still don't understand why we didn't get him from Madrid...

Cos we got Suarez instead, he had a clause it was a no brainer.

What an interception by Bonucci. Superb piece of defending to stop Higuain from scoring.

And then now Buffon with a really good save for Albiol.

Zamparini just re-hired Beppe Iachini three months after sacking him. 😆

It's Palermo's 5th managerial change in 3 months:

Palermo have incredibly announced the re-hiring of Beppe Iachini as Coach, three months after he was fired.

The Rosanero have been having a ridiculous season of changes on the bench and Goivanni Bosi has been replaced after only one game in charge.

Iachini was originally sacked on November 10 to be replaced by Davide Ballardini, who was then fired on January 11.

Guillermo Barros Schelotto was brought in but didn’t have the right paperwork, so Bosi and then Giovanni Tedesco filled in on the bench.

Schelotto then left on February 9 after having his paperwork refused by UEFA and Bosi was appointed a day later.

However, a 3-1 defeat to Torino at home in Bosi’s first game has led the fiery Palermo owner Maurizio Zamparini to bring back Iachini.

“Palermo announces that Giuseppe Iachini has been reinstated as Coach of the first team with all his staff,” read a statement on the club’s official website.

“The club thanks head of the youth sector Dario Baccin and Primavera Coach Giovanni Bosi for their availability shown in this difficult moment of transition.”

He's as mad as a bag full of bats.

It's not that incredible in Italy, happens every now and then that managers are rehired couple of months after being sacked. Zamparini tried to resign Iachini just five or six weeks after sacking him by the way, took him another six weeks to convince him to return.

I'd be seething to have a man like Zamparini run the club I support but as a neutral I like reading about the antics guys like him or Becali at Steaua Bucharest are responsible for. They all seem to follow the same pattern, serious delusions of grandeur, absolutely classless behaviour in public combined with genuine but somewhat twisted love for the clubs their own

He'll probably try to hire Guidolin again soon. I think Zamparini has sacked the poor sod four times at this point, including twice in one season back in 2007. 😆

6 days later

Couple of youngsters to keep an eye on in the coming seasons in Serie A.

Mattia De Sciglio: 23 year old Italian full back. Most will know of him, hit the ground running 2012/13, since then each season has been hindered by injuries.

Alessio Romagnoli: 21 year old Italian Centre back playing for Milan. He was purchase from Roma in the summer for a tidy sum of €25m. Massive potential.

Manuel Locatelli: 19 year old Italian central midfielder. He has been penciled in as the man who'll finally resurrect the Milan midfield post Pirlo era. Some of his passing ability is pretty tidy. Starved of creativity and missing that drive to win the ball back, the Rossoneri midfielders have been caught trying to fulfill both roles; largely unsuccessfully. Definitely one to watch.

Gianluigi Donnarumma: Milan's new GK at the ripe old age of... 16! yes 16. While mos of us were picking spots and worrying about GCSE's, aged 16, Gianluigi is now Milan's starting keeper.

Daniele Rugani: Juve young CB. With Juve's current trio of CB's not getting any younger, Juve invested heavily in the Empoli CB who has been touted as one for the future.

Domenico Berardi: 21 year old Sassuolo Striker. A quick and hardworking left-footed player with an eye for goal, Berardi is capable of being deployed in several offensive positions on either side of the pitch. Goals have somewhat dried up in 15/16.

Berardi's the one to watch in my opinion. He did this today against Empoli:

He had a nice assist for Defrel's first goal too.

Riccardo Saponara was really good again in the Empoli side. He's such a clever player. He kept running things even when they were down to ten men. I wonder where he'll play next year.

Berardi somehow reminds me of Quagliarella. Scorer of good goals but don't score enough.

Anybody saw Dzeko's miss yesterday? Probably worse than Giroud's miss of the season contender.

Meanwhile, Salah scored a Kanu-esque goal with an incredibly clumsy first touch. Such a shit goal 😆

That chest control. 😆

Awesome finish though. He's lucky that football is mostly played with your feet.

Clrnc wrote:

Berardi somehow reminds me of Quagliarella. Scorer of good goals but don't score enough.

That's because he's playing on the flank.

He's still not scoring at a top rate tbf, but goals are hard to come by at Sassuolo. He's more active in the buildup this season from what I can tell, playing half as a winger and half as some sort of auxiliary midfielder. It's widely accepted that he'll end up as a centreforward at some point, but how many strikers show that kind of range deeper in the field? I think he's a really interesting talent.

Milan were incredibly stupid to sell him last season, he's leagues better than Montolivo and what other jokers start in midfield for them. Mihajlovic is doing better than his predecessors but they still can't control games, Bacca alone keeps them in contention for Europe next season.

It's amazing how they sold both Saponara and El Shaarawy within 6 months of eachother. Their transfer policy is so random. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. There's no discernible pattern.

It's been like that ever since they fired their chief scout whose name I've forgotten couple years back. Apparently Galliani thought it would be a good idea to get rid of the guy who scouted the likes of Thiago Silva or Kaka, now it seems like he's doing the scouting himself.

I wish we brought Bacca here, he's underrated.

5 days later
Klaus wrote:

It's amazing how they sold both Saponara and El Shaarawy within 6 months of eachother. Their transfer policy is so random. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. There's no discernible pattern.

he's back.

Yeah, there's clearly no one out there to get better than Ox.

I love that bloke.

I like Spalletti's setup of playing a 4-3-3 with three wingers and no striker. All of Salah, Perotti and El Shaarawy have very good pace and interchange positions fluidly. Not an easy formation to play but with wide forwards who score enough like Salah or El Shaarawy it can be pulled off.

jones wrote:

I like Spalletti's setup of playing a 4-3-3 with three wingers and no striker. All of Salah, Perotti and El Shaarawy have very good pace and interchange positions fluidly. Not an easy formation to play but with wide forwards who score enough like Salah or El Shaarawy it can be pulled off.

he must've changed it after that epic miss and epic Maicon reaction!

Even the Palermo defenders were confused.

I've little love for Dzeko, peaked at around 23 and ruined his subsequent career by going to City. Got a bit too bigheaded and selfish there too, far cry from the humble bloke he was at Wolfsburg.

6 days later

We've torn into them already on this page, but... Milan. 😆

El Shaarawy with another goal and assist as Roma trashed Fiorentina tonight. 5 goals and 2 assists in his first 7 games for the club now. Roma will be laughing all their way to the bank in a few months when they pay those €13 million to make the transfer permanent. They got the biggest Italian forward talent of his generation for the kind of money you spend on bang average fullbacks to flesh out the squad.

Roma is flying having won 7 straight league games with a total score of 25-6

Prove how bad Rudi Garcia was.

Really weird Monaco refuse to use El Shaarawy. All credit to Spalletti really, underrated manager.

Just watching Napoli- lot of good good players there. Ghoulam, Hamsik, Higuain, Insigne, jorginho would be good signings for us

Don't forget Koulibaly. Been immense this season. Best defender in Serie A alongside Bonnuci for me.

Pogba playing poorly and blaming everyone else...

Dybala looks amazing.

Berardi looked class against Milan today. He didn't score against them for once but he assisted both of Sassuolo's goals instead and completely ripped Milan's defence apart. Hit the bar once too. They must hate him so much over there. He has scored 8 and assisted 3 in his last 4 games against them now. 😆

Serie A having a little resurgence?

Seems like there's more to it this season than the last few. Partly done to Juventus' slow start but also some good players coming through across an array of teams.