ParNolio7

No that's not what I'm saying. Hazard and Willian are just excellent players to hold on to a ball & kill time. Give Hazard the ball in the 90th minute, he will make a run towards the corner flag and he'll end up getting a foul in our favour, a throw in in our favour or a corner in our favour. Willian is pretty much capable of the same thing. But take those players off, replace 'm by purely defensive players and what you do is you allow Man United to go look for that foul, that throw in, that corner ... You automatically put yourself on the back foot, and that is deadly in a tight match like that. Nope, the Oscar substitution I can indeed understand. It's the Hazard & Willlian replacement that I'm concerned about. Fabregas would've made a lot more sense, there was no added value for him in that final phase.

Err, in which minute did we take the goal? Everyone knows that the dying minutes are often the most crucial ones when there's just a one goal difference. Definitely in the EPL. And most definitely against Man United, who have a particular reputation in that respect.

Hazard only took his yellow seven minutes from the end, he was never going to catch a second one. If anything, a United player might have had a yellow or red taking down a Hazard on the break in the dying seconds, should he been kept on the pitch. Anyway, I agree with Stats, that a Fabregas substitution would've made a lot more sense, he had a very tough match (credit to UTD) and was clearly tired, he was never going to do a major contribution in the final minutes. A fresh pair of lungs in his place would've made perfect sense.

absolutely that would've been the only substitution to make any sense.

On another note, just imagine what the score would've been like with Costa in our ranks. His presence or absence already has such an enormous impact. With Hazard on current form, he would've put two or three past De Gea I'm quite sure.

We shared the ball when Oscar, Hazard & Willian were on the pitch. I'm not claiming we were dominating like some here do. But if you replace Oscar by Mikel, Hazard by Schürrle & Willian by Zouma you just surrender and hope to avoid the deathblow.

For f*** sake, stop whining about the referee & the FA. Yes, we could've and maybe should've had a penalty, but you know as well as I do that the wrestling situations at corners are hardly ever given. The 2nd yellow for Iva was seconds from the end, that shouldn't have had any impact. But it did. Just lousy defending from our part with the free kick. If there's one guy you need to defend, it's Fellaini. He was standing there free as a bird ... Great stop from Courtois nontheless. Anyway, we owe this one to ourselves (to our coach if I'm honest), should've stuck to our game plan rather than taking off all our good players (Oscar, Hazard, Willian) and allowing United to have the ball. I really can't make any sense out of these substitutions. I seriously feel Mourinho has let us down this time. All organization in midfield gone because of the coach. United could just do what they felt like in those dying minutes. Really, can't understand it, utterly disappointed.

Anyone else thinks it's no coincedence that we take a goal for the second league match in a row just moments after Hazard's been replaced? Because I don't ... No better player to hold up play in the dying minutes of a match where you need to hold on to a lead ... Really don't understand why you'd take him off. Neither do I get why you'd want to replace a midfielder by an extra defender (Willian > Zouma). That's basically saying: "Here you go United, please take the ball and try to score. We'll just lie in front of our goal and keep our fingers crossed ..." So I'm blaming these two points we lose on Mourinho, sorry in advance to all the José-lovers out there.

Anyone else thinks it's no coincedence that we take a goal for the second league match in a row just moments after Hazard's been replaced? Because I don't ... No better player to hold up play in the dying minutes of a match where you need to hold on to a lead ... Really don't understand why you'd take him off. Neither do I get why you'd want to replace a midfielder by an extra defender (Willian > Zouma). That's basically saying: "Here you go United, please take the ball and try to score. We'll just lie in front of our goal and keep our fingers crossed ..." So I'm blaming these two points we lose on Mourinho, sorry in advance to all the José-lovers out there.

That's okay, you lost all credibility with every single comment you made on Wilmots.

"Lack of experience" is not a shortcoming in itself, it could be the cause of a shortcoming. Given the incredible run of results, there's no reason to assume that the lack of experience has lead to major shortcomings. "Tactical flexibilty" although true is debatable as a shortcoming. For every person that says flexibility is important to deal with different kinds of opponents, there's another one who says it's important to always start from your own strengths and impose your own game. It's up to the opponent to adapt. In club team football I wouldn't prefer one opinion over the other, but in national team football, given the fact that the players only meet once every few months, one may argue (like Wilmots does) that it's more important to build routine than try to create tactical flexibility. In fact if you look at the major national football teams, you will actually notice that most of them stick to the same tactics and line-up. It's usually the smaller teams that chose to adapt to the tactics of their stronger opponent. If you take Holland as a recent example of a major national team that does adapt their tactics under Guud Hiddink, switching between 3-5-2 and 4-3-3, you can see that it's not a success. Van Gaal with exactly the same players & sticking stubbornly to the 3-5-2, in spite of all the Dutch critics begging to switch to 4-3-3 against weaker opponents, made it 3rd in the recent World Cup. So, like Wilmots tactics or hate them, I think it's wise to stick to them as much as possible. He has tried some different tactics in friendlies, like playing two strikers up front (Lukaku-Benteke against USA & Colombia) but he evaluated it negatively and stuck to the 4-2-3-1. Again, purely judging on the results, which is still the only objective way to evaluate a coach, that was a wise decision. "Poor decision making" is purely a subjective judgement from your side. You're probably bored of me repeating this, but again based on the results one could more objectively argue that his decision making has not been that poor at all. Rather the contrary. It's okay to throw the towel by now.

To take a 26/30 for granted like you do is just ridiculous. If even Germany drops points at home vs Ireland ... Hasn't prove himself ... please don't let me repeat the incredible results that he achieved. -- you're quote on no cohesive team etc. -- No cohesive team? WTF? Is this the same Belgium we're talking about? On a personal level they are one big group of friends, never any incidents whatsover. On a tactical level, they've been playing the same 4-3-3 variant ever since the beginning & the key players in the central ax have been the same since the beginning. Can't have more cohesion than that. "People who know what they're talking about" ... you mean that small naive group of Belgian fans who sheepishly thought that we were going to win the World Cup eyes closed without breaking a sweat & got frustrated when the reality check came? There are more (AND BETTER) teams out there ... Germany, Argentina ... Only thing you can objectively evaluate a coach on are his results. All the blabla about this should be the lineup, or that should be the tactics, everybody thinks they're a manager, everybody thinks they would put together the best possible team ... stop dreaming, you can argue about that endlessly without ever knowing. Only thing objective is results. And 14 wins, 3 draws & 1 defeat out of 18 matches is pretty f-cking impressive. BTW, Leekens already had an excellent Vincent Kompany, Axel Witsel, Marouane Fellaine, Steven Defour, Jan Vertonghen, Thomas Vermaelen, Nicolas Lombaerts, Dries Mertens ... at his disposition. Obviously they still improved. But you can't defend the terrible results he got with that team. In conclusion, you can rant on about Wilmots all you like, and I will say it again, I'm not a fan either, but in the end, as long as he keeps piling up the incredible results the way he does & keeps on getting the respect of all players, there's absolutely nothing objective you can put in against him. But I'm sure you'll try to come up with a couple of clever lines.

@iseah100, We could've played better football perhaps. Don't even know if that's Wilmots fault or lack of form from the players. But to lose QF against Argentina is going to happen 3 out of 4. As "golden" as our generation may be, we are still underdogs to a team like Argentina or Germany.

What is this based on?

His first months were 26 out of 30 in a wc qualifying group with Croatia, Serbia & Scotland ... difficult to do much better than that. In terms of football, I know we had a bit of dissapointing world cup. We were expecting to show the world how great we were and just crush all oponents, but instead we had really tight matches every time. Still we managed to reach the QF stage and losing 1-0 to Argentina is never a shame, certainly not for Belgium. So in spite of the mediocre football, Wilmots still got the result we expected.With Lukaku bang out of form, Hazard tired as hell, and most other players looking shaky and nervous, that was about the best we could expect. Everybody agreed however that there was massive improvement against Andorra, okay it's pretty much a non-existent opponent, but for the first time we actually dominated throughout & created chance after chance and scoring goals easily. We started off well against Bosnia, but didn't manage to score from 4 clear cut chances in the opening fifteen matches. Playing away against a team like Bosnia you just know things are going to get tough then. To go 1-0 behind and in the end obtain the 1-1 draw is still pretty good then. If we would've scored one or two in the opening fifteen, we would've had another easy win and everybody would've applauded Wilmots. Now it doesn't really turn out exactly how we wanted it, and everybody just turns their back against Wilmost? You know what the Royal Antwerp supporters would sing right: "Belgium, your support is shit!"

Same reply as to Iseah above. Wake the fuck up. Belgium is good, but we're not the greatest team in world history!! You honestly think that it's just normal to get the 26 out of 30 with teams like Croatia, Serbia & Scotland in our qualifying group? You think our team is THAT exceptional? Be serious mate! If any coach could've done it, then why did well proven coaches like Advocaat & Leekens who for 90% worked with the same players, couldn't even win two games in a row? Really cheap by the way to refer to his period at St Truiden, which was really just a shit ass team at that time. Yes, he had little to none experience, but he's proven himself. The results he obtained are just too incredible to say that any coach could've pulled it off. To say it in the words of the late Kurt Cobain: Experience ain't a thing you need & I'll keep fighting jealousy until it's fucking gone. Again, coming from a guy who's not at all a Wilmots fan himself. But the things you guys say are just plain stupid.

My word, the amount of people here that just follow your rant and click "like" without even thinking. I mean, I'm not a fan of Wilmots either, but how on earth can you claim that he is "clearly not capable" of being Belgium's head coach when: 1. He got Belgium into the World Cup for the first time since 2002. 2. We reached the QF of that World Cup for only the second time in our history. 3. He achieved a historical 26 out of 30 (8 wins 2 draws) in the WC qualifiers. Not a single loss. 4. He brought Belgium to the 4th (!!) position in the FIFA rakning, which is just absurd for a small ass country like Belgium. 5. He started off with a decent 4 out of 6 in the EC qualifiers. Yes, drawing away against Bosnia is a NORMAL result. 6. He has only lost 1 (one!!!) competitive match with Belgium so far, QF World Cup against Argentina. I'll tell you now, not many coaches can show you results like that! I understand that you have personal problems with Wilmost, but really to claim he's uncapable of the job with that kind of merit, is just insanely stupid. Insanely! Or is all of your frustration built on the away draw against Bosnia? You really thought we'd crush them Andorra style? Grow up! Belgium has a decent national team, but we're not exactly the NBA Dream Team if you know what I mean.

I don't really see why. The players respect him. He brings fighting spirit. Public & press from all sides of our country in general respect him. His football brain is perhaps not the biggest, but with mature players like Kompany, Witsel & De Bruye in our ranks, they can sort out a lot of issues themselves. There's just a few players he urgently needs to stop selecting, Laurent Ciman to name the most obvious one. One of the worst defenders in the Belgian Jupiler League, let alone on an international level! Honestly, I wonder what kind of dark, filthy secret Ciman knows about Wilmots that he got into this squad ... And he should also stop giving chances to Lukaku now. For the rest, I don't see why another coach would be better.

Strange thing is that in his last matches it's not only the technique that's missing. He doesn't even put his immense power to good use anymore. Against Bosnia he lost just about every duel, air our ground. So easily pushed away. A friend of mine suggested that maybe he wants to prove his technicality so badly that he deliberately stops using his strong body & raw power ... which evidently leaves him with nothing. Personally I think it's just a typical striker confidence issue. He can do better than what he's showing today. But not a lot.

You summoned a Belgium fan? ;-) Origi basically outplays Lukaku in every department. There's not a doubt in anyone's mind in Belgium that Origi is to be preferred over Lukaku. He has great technique, pace, control, and so on. Liverpool have done a fantastic deal with this player. Will be great to see him in action in the EPL next year, as replacement for Balotelli Benteke is different question. Benteke in top form may still get the upperhand on Origi, we'll have to see. One thing's for sure though, Lukaku has dropped to 3rd position already. He will need massive improvement to work his way up again, but people in Belgium have serious doubts this is ever going to happen. Still a good player if your team plays kick & rush counter football though, but not many teams doing that anymore.

Of course, I said that as well, but in the long run you never know. I do think he's got the talent, but there's much to develop.

Not anymore after Mertens' dreadful performance last night I reckon. Hazard had some fantastic moments, too bad he couldn't top it of with a goal or assist.

Hazard will play. Could be a good game tonight, Bosnia vs Belgium. I hope Eden will have a convincing performance or he may have Napoli's Dries Mertens breathing down his neck for the rest of the campaign.

Mind you that you are replying to a post of September 3rd. Oscar was not the undebated player then that he is now, and you know that, so a bit of a cheapish reaction from you. We all know that in just a couple of weeks time Oscar has really fought his way into this team mainly because of the massive and unseen workrate for a player in his position. He's become a vital component of our team, so no I would not replace him. That's Obvious. Also, I'm clearly speaking about the long run as Thorgan Hazard is at least two or three seasons away from becoming true Chelsea potential. God knows who'll be playing at The Bridge in 2017-2018. Oscar might be at Real Madrid for all we know.

Yes, I was at the stadium, De Bruyne deservedly got the MOTM award. Not only because of the two goals and the assist but he was just all over the pitch, constant threat, incredible work rate, engine & brains of this Belgian NT. Origi indeed fantastic too. Nainggolan impressive as well. Completes my top three.