John1611

Azpilicueta taking a shower for the sake of it? Haha

He had a great post match interview with sky, and lot of posters on here could learn a lot from it. Especially the whiny ones complaining about performances, who can't understand the system Jose is trying to implement.

Wasn't it a brilliant interview. Absolutely loved it. Such a shame so many people on here cannot see that Jose is changing the system, and players have to adapt, hence the recent performances.

My verdict: woeful in the first half, superb in the second.

He doesn't score for 258 games, but when he does score, it's a beauty.

It was a stonewall penalty.

He was joking man.

He is hands down are best player for the right wing. He was head and shoulders above what we have in the Basel game.

Why is Willian not playing after a brilliant performance in the CL???

We'll still be above city and united though, who to me are the only realistic title contenders besides ourselves. But yeah, well spotted.

As things stand, if the Liverpool score stays the same, and United and City draw tomorrow, we'll be top of the league at the end of this week provided we see off Fulham. Crisis?

Noo...I know he's important for us, but I wanted to see how other players would do in his absence considering our midfield is loaded with quality. Imo he needs a rest. No point risking him.

Brilliant article, haven't read all of it, but rather slowly skimmed through it focusing on the main points. Hopefully will read the whole thing later.

''Yeah, as far as the world goes, I still think Bayern, Barca, and RM edge us but the gap is closing and our midfield still has potential to grow.As far as the EPL goes, I think that City and Chelsea are equivalent to us. I hope by the end of the year we'll be hands down better.''

Thankfully the PL rules do not allow loanees to play against their parent club: ''In the Premier League, players on loan are not permitted to play against the team which holds their registration (section 7.2 of rule M.6). This means that one of the 'big' clubs can loan out a promising young player to an opposing team in the Premiership but the loanee will not be allowed to play against his 'owning' club and his parent club will not be able to observe how he plays against a 'big' club. Loanees are, however, allowed to play against their 'owning' clubs in cup competitions, unless they have played for their owning club in that cup during that season.'' Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loan_(sports) It's a great rule imho. Promotes loyalty. Would hate to see Lukaku banging them in against us.

Many people can understand written English at a good level, and even write themselves, but if it came to the actual speaking of the language they would struggle a lot. It used to be like this with me for instance, and probably is similar with Eto'o. After learning English at school for 7-8 years you can basically write and understand most words, tenses, etc but speaking wise you can only string a few sentences together. A bit like mastering theory of football from textbooks but not being able to play the actual game. I think members whose first language isn't English, would probably agree with me.

It's official: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/23538218 £85 million, -> world record.

Nope. I don't want anymore strikers, and we're more than fine with the pivot. I will be relieved if we don't sign anyone tomorrow.

No, no. We have Eto'o. We don't need Benzema. Eto'o, Lukaku Torres is enough.

Not quite.

We could have had a go at them. Look at the no. of chances we created against Bayern. Don't tell me we couldn't have created them against United regardless of home or away, if we wanted to. It's just that we were very defensive from the start, letting them have most of the ball, despite having arguably a better midfield.

And to think we sat deep and defended against them, isntead of giving it a go and going at them.

Anyone have any good links please? This one is lagging on my laptop: http://cricfree.tv/sky-sports-1-live-stream-free.php

Probably 99/21

I hope our plan is not to start Lamps alongside Ramires again. That would be a nightmare. I feel it would give Bayern a free hand to do whatever they want in midfield. I'd like to see Essien/Mikel sitting deep and partner Ramires , which would allow him to roam forward and hit Bayern on the counter, like he did against Barcelona a year ago. Our counterattacks have much more spice with his acceleration, pace and dribbling. He just knows when to stick his leg out and move the ball away just before a challenge comes in. We want as many set pieces as we can, and with Ramires on the counter we're likely to get some.