johnnythefirst

He got a 3,5 year deal apparently, so it's only logical for him to move...

No we've been pumping them out since about 2005, when we had a lost generation (bar Kompany, who made it by his own sheer talent and willpower), threw away everything we knew about training kids and started all over again with a new system. Since then, other countries come visit our centres. Even the Dutch. There will not always be an exceptional player like Eden, but our level won't drop all the way down again, our base is solid now.

Well, you came over as offensive. ;-) I came here after they signed the guy in your profile pic, and stayed because it's a fun forum. I liked Chelsea in the Zola-days, I kind of disliked them in the first Abramovic years, now I like them again. I don't like the fact youngsters come to England to bury themselves though. If young players thought about experience in stead of money, Anderlecht would have Januzaj and Musonda Jr. in its starting lineup today. They'd start getting plenty of first team experience, plenty of CL matches and they could transfer to England or Spain or whatever when they're like 19-20-21 years old. For tons of cash instead of some copper coins. We don't keep pumping out these talents by accident. We know what we're doing apparently. Let us. For example, if Chelsea had bought Eden as a 17-year old, he probably wouldn't be the superstar he is today...

Oh I'm sorry, I didn't know I had to have a visa to get in here. I've explained myself several times in the past, I'm not going to do it again just for you. ;-)

I'm an Anderlecht fan. And I'm also a Belgian that is tired of 16-17 year old players being snatched away from our "Mickey Mouse League" just to waste 3-4 years on the bench of a foreign team that's far too big for them to start at.

Haha, when hell freezes over. He's going to sign a new contract. You'll have to bring the big bucks to snatch him away now.

Just read he can't play in Europe this season though, bummer.

I'm not completely sure since I haven't seen a lot of his matches for Wolfsburg, but isn't he playing as a playmaker in that team, not as a winger? That would have left him competing with Fabregas in stead of Willian and Schurrle, since I think he loves playing in the center of the team.

Muh, if he's fit, he'll play a lot of games. Anderlecht has a young, talented and offensive team and still plays the EL. They haven't done that bad providing the PL (amongst others) with decent players in the last few years.

But is he decent? Why has a guy with 16 caps for Germany played 6 matches in 4 seasons for Chelsea?

Is he good? I wonder why Anderlecht is getting an extra attacking midfielder. Do you guys have some spare central defenders in stead?

Well fuck me sideways.

Well, that was unexpected.

Didn't read up on him at all, didn't see any matches of him this year, but my gut feeling says he'll become Torres the sequel if you buy him now.

And then he'll come live in a gumdrop house on lollipop laaaaaaane...

His teammate, a very promising young Belgian defensive midfielder called Junior Malanda, just died in a traffic accident. Tragic news... :-(

Weird to me that he so suddenly "lost" it. I thought he'd be in the main team for sure after his WC.

He's like five levels below him, even as a natural LB. Every CB we have would be a better choice imo.

Nah, he's not. When he stays in position, we complain we have no attacking backs, when he leaves position we complain he leaves position. He's an important piece of the team and I think we actually lack a couple of dirtier players. Against Argentina for example, we showed way too much respect. No one dared touching Messi.

He simply shouldn't go anywhere else this season. Also, Bayern is an asshole team. They don't need him at all. The Bundesliga can't keep growing if they just buy every other team's best player every year.

Van Gaal is an absolute twat of a man (seriously, he consistently talks about himself in third person during interviews) but he's doing it again. Without even playing good football, Utd will easily get into the CL next year... That and the fact he got to the WC semi finals with about 3 good players and a bunch of nameless guys playing in the Dutch league. Not a bad coach I guess. ;-)

There's a good reason for this, since the richest clubs buy lots of players only to be loaned out for a couple of years later. It would give them yet another advantage compared to the smaller teams. The loanees are often their best players. If you loan a player out, he's not your player for that season. And that's that. Also, seriously? Are you afraid of big bad Torres? What are you, a bunch of fairies?

I wonder why they even give it a shot... Ok, he's one of their home-grown players, but come one, Atletico is far above his level by now...

In theory, they were good. If you saw them play you wouldn't say that. They were fucking shit on that tournament, and the only thing that got them to the finals was the genius of Zidane. He defeated Brazil practically by himself in the QF. They mostly sucked because their manager was a completely incompetent lunatic. Look what happened to them after he quit: group stage in 2008, group stage in 2010. They've only started recovering this year.

Well neither Ronaldo or Messi would score 58 goals in the PL I think, but I agree. At this moment, CR7 is slightly better, but I still enjoy watching Messi much more. I wonder what we'll make of them in 10 years from now. I have no doubt Messi will high be on every best of all time list, but I wonder where Ronaldo will end. His stats are out of this world but for some reason I rate players like Zidane, Ronaldinho and pre-injured actual Ronaldo much higher (and this only looking at players from the nineties and onward). Zidane was an awesome leader and big-game winner who took an absolutely horrible France to the WC finals in 2006. Ronaldo was probably the most complete striker ever in his prime, kept scoring big league goals for years as a fat out of shape couch potato and Ronaldinho could make football look like magic and invented several moves. CR7 has fantastic goal instinct and and awesome physique, but I wonder what would happen if he somehow lost his speed. He'll never be a leader as well. When he's playing in a non top-tier team like Portugal, he just goes down with the ship.