Viper22

My man Tibo is back!!!! Bego has been really good but will just feel great to have the big Belgian back between the sticks.

Like I said if the 4-2-3-1 is a must just stick RLC and Matic in the pivot and Fabregas at 10. With the way all 3 of them play it'll be essentially a 4-3-3 anyway.

Agree with most that RLC has to play. Agree with Stats aswell though that Fabregas should start this type of game also. Easy solution: drop Oscar. He hasn't shown anything to warrant a tarting place tbh. -----------------Bego----------------- --Ivan---Zouma---Terry---Azpi-- ----------------Matic----------------- --------Fabregas------RLC-------- -Willian---------------------Hazard- ----------------Costa*---------------- *Needs to show a massive improvement in attitude after last week, wouldn't be disappointed to see Pedro though but I think Costa deserves another chance. (Fabregas can be in the no.10 role if the 4-3-3 is unlikely, it's essentially the same with how deep Fabregas would drop to get space though).

Stop replying to me. I have you on ignore because you're impossible to talk to or debate with and just resort to childish insults, I would rather spend my time talking to people who don't deliberately wind people up and try to derail discussions.

Good performance, made the most in form team in the league (maybe joint with Leicester) look completely toothless. Wasn't overly happy with 1 point as it doesn't help our league position much but it's a clean sheet, a tough game out of the way, 2 games unbeaten and the performance itself was good. Hazard was outstanding and it took an absolute worldy save from Lloris to keep him out and he should have scored earlier in the game too. Willian was good once again, Fabregas was good too (really don't know why people are criticizing, that's the best he's played in ages, but I guess jumping on the bandwagon is easy), defence was solid (even Ivan, holy shit!) and Matic is back to his old marauding self. Costa is a child. But we all knew that already, what a horrible attitude to being dropped. Moaners are going to moan, regardless, and the whining in this thread was as predictable as it was hilarious but for me that was a decent performance and shows we're going in the right direction. There was only 1 team that were going to win that game and it wasn't the team in white. We had 2 glorious chances for Hazard I mentioned before and they were deffo the best chances of the game. Our next 5 games are Bournemouth (H), Porto (H), Leicester (A), Sunderland (H), Watford (H). Keep your chin up people, hopefully we can get 10 points or so out of our next 4 league games, beat Porto and then everything will be looking quite rosy. We'd qualify top of our CL group and would be in about 7th in the table going in to christmas. Hopefully the players can start bringing the finishing touches to their play.

I still stick by the fact that if you have a player whining and crying about wanting to leave rather than fight for his place then he doesn't have the mentality to play for a top team. Hence I can see a problem developing if he ever gets dropped by City as he has proved he has no desire to work for his place. You surely can't tell me if you were a manager of a top club and had proved yourself over many years with many different clubs in many different countries that when a 21 year old you'd just signed comes to you demanding to be played and crying that they want to leave if they aren't you would give into that childishness and play them, would you? Patience is a virtue far too many young players lack today and the only way to teach them is by not giving into their childish antics. I have no doubt that he would've become a good player for us had he stayed here and maybe even somewhere near as good as he is now but he didn't have the stomach for it, so I fully stand by the fact that it was right to let a player displaying the wrong attitude to leave. He might well turn out to be worth the money a long way down the line but he has nowhere near proved himself yet, especially seeing as he has only really turned up against the poor teams City have played this year (Newcastle, Bournemouth, Norwich, Sunderland, Palace, BMG) and been largely ineffectual in the big games (United, Juventus x2, Liverpool - he wasn't as great in this game as people seemed to make out, Sevilla away). He's been good, but hardly proved himself thus far. Know you're going to disagree but I just don't think it was a mistake to let someone with an attitude problem go and don't want to just jump on the already crowded Jose-bashing bandwagon whenever a player he let go scores or gets an assist. I also don't think De Bruyne has been much more than good this year (admittedly better than every Chelsea player bar Willian) but that's all opinion.

I am awaiting the backlash from angry Belgians but I hope they will come back with a logical debate rather than bile, fury and hatred that I dared question KDB.

KDB better hope that when Silva comes back none of City's other AMs (Navs, Nasri etc.) hit form because he's behind Sterling in the pecking order and Silva is twice the player he is and he's not playing well so there's every chance he could be dropped if one of the others hit form. And we all know how Mr KDB reacts to being dropped and not an automatic starter don't we? 0 goals and 2 assists in the league since 3rd October and seeing as Costa gets absolutely slated by people on this forum (sometimes rightly) for his 2 goals and 1 assist in the league in the same time period that should mean he should be getting slated even worse (especially because he's playing for a brilliant team in great form), but of course in this weird world people who are allegedly fans of this club run down our own players viciously and build up others to be like gods who can tell? He needs to step up massively to even begin to pay off his huge price tag and make it look anything except a good idea for Mou to let him go.

That's horrific tbh. Christ knows why I've called it 3 point lane in the last few years, looks like it has been anything but!

Wouldn't mind seeing Costa start if (and only if) he starts as 1 of 2 strikers. I just don't think he's got enough of a killer instinct to be playing up top by himself as he just drifts fucking anywhere but where he needs to be when the ball comes in. If he's playing up top with Remy/Falcao/Bamford who are literally told to be in the box at all times and poach it wouldn't matter so much if he was sometimes drifting away from the box to the wings or deep. And with the way Fabregas and Oscar are playing ATM i'm not sure we need to be playing a CAM. Something like this would be interesting and throw Pochettino off his game: ------------------Begovic------------------- ---Azpi----Cahill*----Zouma----Baba--- *Possibly JT if he is fit ----------Matic------Fabregas**---------- **Ramires for sure if he is fit, maybe even RLC -Willian----------------------------Hazard- ***Falcao is Remy's wife decides to be selfish and have a baby before/during a football match ------------Costa-------Remy***----------

Would be hilarious if we beat them, considering we've only beaten them at their place once since 2006 with far better teams in far better form than we have now.

Holy shit man that's cool!!! Remember when you were jealous of me meeting Cech? Well now i'm very jealous of you .

Drop the 4-2-3-1. It's had it's time and it's beyond useless now in this cyclic way that formations go. I'd go for a 4-3-3 but a 4-4-2 or maybe even 3-5-2 or a 3-4-3 would still be preferable if Mou is feeling particularly bold. With a 4-3-3 play a formation like: Subs: Courtois Begovic Azpilicueta Terry Zouma Baba Cahill Matic Ramires, Fabregas Oscar RLC Kenedy, Hazard Pedro Willian Remy Costa In January a new mobile CM and a new top class CB are vital acquisitions. Witsel/Pogba/Gundogan and Stones/Marquinhos/Hummels are some suggestions but tbh the name doesn't matter, it's just the quality of what they'll offer us that is the most important now. They'd replace Oscar/RLC and JT in the above formation. If Roman is feeling so generous with his money that we have money left over then Higuain or Cavani would be great signings but i'm willing to give Costa more time due to his obvious ability, even though he's really not playing brilliantly ATM. We need to try and realise we have serious shortcoming and stop ignoring them. JT is far to slow to play a high defensive line any more, Cahill backs off his man far far too often, Zouma is still raw positionally, Ivanovic makes all LWs look like Ronaldo and Baba isn't the greatest defending LB in the world. Accept this, play a low block system and have Matic and RLC sweep up in front of the back 4 in the defensive phases. Don't allow them to cross the damn ball so easily and don't allow them to pass through us. Make it so if they're going to score it'll have to be by a bit of magic or a worldie from 25+ yards. In the attacking phases someone needs to put an electric collar on Costa in training that sends 800 volts through him if he drifts wide more than once every 10mins as he's never fucking there when the balls are played into the damn box. Pedro and Willian should play very wide roles and not coming drifting into the already cramped centre of the field and actually give us consistent width. Oscar can provide the playmaking from a deeper position than he's used to but he has to be deeper to make up for our defensive frailties. When they have the ball in their own half press them as a team. Costa and Willian do it but Pedro and Oscar need to join in too and maybe RLC. Mark the easy get out balls and force the defenders of the opposing team to either panic and give the ball away or have to play a hopeful long ball forward that our defenders and Matic can deal with. It's not the perfect set of tactics and there's definitely holes in there and it won't be the most exciting brand of football but tbh ATM I couldn't care less. We need the players to play with the same passion we fans in the crowd feel. If they aren't up for the fight then drop them to the U21s and sell them at the first opportunity, we can't have passengers at our club. Oh and call back Bamford ffs. We should never have let him go in the first place and seeing as he's not playing at Palace he might as well be on our bench instead. at least the guy will show some damn passion!!! Finally Mourinho needs to stop saying anything to the press at all, win or lose. Send Stevey Holland, stop giving the vultures the soundbites that they're after.

First game since Villa where we're playing a team that's playing as badly as us. Before their fortunate 1-0 win against a woefully out of form Swansea they hadn't won in the league since 12th September, and their only 2 wins in the league had come against Bournemouth and Sunderland. This HAS to be 3 points, and tbh I think it will be. No matter how out of form we are the players should surely be good enough to beat such a poor team. Surely? Surely....

Not going to debate the rest of it cos I cba but come on, really? Dortmund, on February 6th 2015 had a record of played 19, won 4, drew 4, lost 11. Their 4 wins were against Augsburg, Freiburg, BMG and Hoffenheim, 3 were at home and 3 were by 1 goal. They were bottom of the table on 16 points from a possible 57 and were in genuine danger of going down with only 15 games to go. Talk about an over-exaggeration, we're in trouble but we're in nowhere near as much trouble as Dortmund were last season. Good god.

For me the only guaranteed starters atm are Begovic, Zouma, Azpi and Willian. Think Matic and Baba have shown enough over the last few weeks to start too (as well as being far better than the other options in their respective positions) and Pedro should start also due to good performances before the injury and it's just then fitting the rest in around them. Terry is better than Cahill atm for me although they're both looking dodgy, Fabregas or Oscar at 10, RLC should be in the pivot but if Mou doesn't trust him then Ramires will have to do even though his passing is worse than mine and Costa is off form and drifting out wide far too often but Remy has his own problems with being permanently offside are even more damaging. So it's really a toss up between the two. I'd likely plump for Costa as we know what he can do. Begovic, Azpi, Terry, Zouma, Baba, Matic, RLC or Ramires, Willian, Fabregas or Oscar, Pedro, Costa would likely be my choice, with the two not picked joining Amelia, Cahill, Kenedy, Hazard and Remy on the bench.

We're not playing well no, I agree (although Liverpool are just as bad today). But you take away the referring error and those 2 huge deflections and it's 1-0. The lack of luck is making it even worse.

Lol when it rains it fucking monsoons. Playing badly but refereeing and luck screw us out yet again.

Pretty confident about this one for some odd reason. Feel we'll walk it like we did against Arsenal at home. Sit deep, counter. Play Klopp at his own game, he hasn't settled at Liverpool yet and they're confident about winning so will be complacent so this is a great time to play them. 2-0 for me.

Heard murmurings from some in the know Chelsea fans that we're apparently in advanced talks with him and his agent and he actually wants to come here and would be interested in forcing a transfer through in January. Personally I find that extremely far fetched but the people who mentioned it have been reliable in the past. Can anyone collaborate this or it just a rumour going around to build ours hopes up before dashing them viciously again?

:tophat: Perfect post.

Came on here to post my ratings but you pretty much nailed it there. Only things I would disagree with is that I thought Cahill was average and made a few mistakes so would have given him 6 or 7 and that Costa shouldn't have had such a low rating because while you're right about everything you said I feel like if any of his fellow attackers bar Willian bothered to close down with him he'd have contributed to us winning the ball back numerous more times as he really worked hard.

I know you said it wasn't at me specifically but I feel like I need to qualify it: I do it for 2 reasons: 1) Because i'm bored and it gives me something to do and 2) I like to see other people's opinions compared to my own in who the vast majority thinks has earned the right to play from the fan's perspective so I like seeing other people post their teams. We post our teams for the same reason we all post our opinions: because we're bored, passionate and opinionated!!

Goal. Scoring. Machine.

Time to try something new after the shitstorm that has been happening recently. Play your in form players in their best positions and work everything around that, so Willian at RW is a must and Zouma has to come back in at CB. Think trying Oscar at CM should be an aim as he's our best creative replacement for Cesc and would work well in a 3 man CM partnership IMO. Convert to a 4-3-3, we have the players for it and the 4-2-3-1 is just not working. This is a tactical issue as well as a personnel one. In an ideal world i'd like to see Mourinho finally lose it with the 'untouchables' and drop all 3 of them from the squad entirely (Cesc, Hazard and Ivanovic) and play this team: --------------------Begovic-------------------- ---Azpi-----Terry------Zouma-----Baba--- ---------------------Matic---------------------- ------------RLC------------Oscar------------- -Willian------------------------------Kenedy- --------------------Costa----------------------- Subs: Blackman, Aina, Clarke-Salter, Ramires, Pedro, Remy, Falcao. Would be so happy with that that, not that it'll ever happen. Tbh i'd be happy enough if he just dropped Ivanovic, just once.