Lia v Smith

Thought this needed its own epic thread perhaps?

How underrated is Lia? How overrated is Smith?

Does anyone have their Pro-evo stats so we can compare?

Stats dammit, stats.

Smith for mine.

Lia has 3 letters, Smith 5....SMITH WINS!

Can't argue with that

Lia coud win this if it were to fall on a Triple Word Score and Smith wasnt but this is a highly unlikely scenario

 this thread needs a reboot. If it was ever a needed thread in the first place.

 In before 3 pages of trolls

In a fist fight?  Lia definitely.  Greco Roman wrestling?  Definitely Smith.  WWF style in a cage?  I'd say Lia in an unannounced tag team with Ferrante sneaking in late with a cheap shot with a ladder

On the serious side I don't think we should count Lia out too early - in theory Smith shoudl score more goals but in a 2 man midfield I can't see him getting forward that often.  So maybe Lia could be a valid option as another stopper.  And his long-passing game is actually ok

Away from home, I think we will see a 3 man centre midfield with Lia joining Muscat & Smith.

Lia needs to be more suttle with the physical defensive manouvors

Lia is terrible. I prefer Smith. He seems much more dynamic and gives mmore options than Lia does

Lia is more attractive. thus he wins.

Manny.

Every. time.

 They were both shit last week.

wow- it got serius.

ok well stats I was thinking of were things like completed short passes, completed long passes, tackles made, headers won, metres run in a game, burst speed, goals conceded while on the park, goals scored, games won while playing, assists, players beaten, what Mr Cross thinks, amount of opposing midfielders who completely drop their bundle when they see the team sheet and etc.

Smith for me shading Lia at the moment on the basis I think he is a better short passer of the ball and more likely to beat a player, probably with a bit better vision. Suspect Lia of being a better tackler on the basis his gets more visibily grumpy and gets more cards. Smith at the moment, but Lia was really one of the first names on the team sheet for a long long time, so I suspect he will get game time.

Smith was shit today

I think Smith needs to sit a little higher up the park and pick up the 2nd ball after an attack.

We seem to be lacking in that area

Neither of them is good enough.  Sign a new midfielder.

I'm not sure the midfielders have enough support and do a bloody good job. Most sides are playing either 3 central midfielders or a narrower midfield quartet, and our wingers are all natural attackers rather than defenders, so its always gonna be hard for us. Especially against the most energetic midfield in the league

This. I was watching Smith quite a bit on Sunday, and he was doing a lot of covering down the flanks for wingers/fbs who were stuck upfield, whereas Manny tended to stay more central.

I think you'd miss him a bit more than most people obviously think if he wasn't there.

I think we should be playing a 3 man midfield, with Sanchez in front of manny and smith, and the form 3 of ifill, Huysegems, Fenton, Brockie, Totori. 

The main fault that I feel we have had playing this way is our central striker is often very isolated. However I think Sanchez did link well last year and could potentially sit even further forward than where smith is currently

My main issue is that we play too wide when we don't have the ball. Our back four are so often covering just one player. I think our wide midfielders are too wide (although Fenton does come in a bit) leaving far too much space for the two central players. I thought our central midfield pairing was very good against Sydney so want to give them more time. It didn't work well against Brisbane but it is a team effort and we were very much in a holding pattern for the entire second half. We just gave them far too much possession and when we did mount an attack it was always off f**king side. You just can't surrender that much and expect to win.

Sanchez plus Huysegems could be a real winner. Needs to be tried anyway. Not sure how you best arrange the other attacking options around this.

Sanchez failed to inspire last year, and yet everyone is saying his name like he's the new messiah here to save us.

Admittedly he played outwide last year, so was not in his favoured position, but he showed very little there to really suggest he could make an impact playing more centrally.

Push Ifil up top (until his fitness improves) and drop Brockie back a little. With Brockie and Fenton you have two wide players capable of defending and getting forward. This will help release the pressure on the two CM.

Addiding another AM into the equation who doesn't defend (can't recall Sanchez ever making a tackle) won't help us keep possession.

Yeah cos excellent close control and short passing never helps keep possession...
Nobody thinks he's Broich or Flores, he's just our best option for AM in a three man midfield.
Personally I'd love to see Ifill in a more central position atm. 

http://americansoccernow.com/articles/American-Finding-His-Way-Down-Under 

I'm sure if Sanchez played in goal he wouldn't have been in much form either. He is MUCH better in the middle of the park. I'm not claiming him as any messiah,just that I was really looking forward to him pushing for a regular role in central midfield. With smith also going for that role,I thought we'd have a definite improvement on the old tim brown starting every game rubbish. 

Healthy competition for starting spots between players can only be a good thing, they will constantly be pushing each other for that elusive starting spot. I was hoping that would be happening between Pasty and Moss this season, but it looks like Pasty will have the starting spot until he gets injured.

There was that month last year when we actually played Sanchez as an attacking midfielder and he looked awesome! Coincided with that run Daniel had in the team where he was back to his old ways and we were banging them in.

I'm excited to see Dani get a chance this year, not sure where or how he will fit into current structure but if we use him properly it will be another attacking dimension to an already healthy looking attack.