Viper22

Looking more and more like selling Salah and Schurrle to fund the signing of Reus/Sterling/Barkley and promoting Boga to the first team squad would be a good move in January....

Good nomination list. Iniesta, Yaya Toure and Kroos out for Vidal, Pirlo and Lewandwoski is the only changes i'd make. Ronaldo deserves to win this by such a distance. Messi, Bale, Schweinsteiger and Rodriguez in that order rounding off the top 5 for me.

Tbh with his display so far, would they want him?

Shrewsbury looking awesome atm. Their defence genuinely looks better than Man Utd. Worry not though, they'll tire i'm sure, we just have to keep stretching them to tire them quicker and defend well to not let them have a lead to defend. Ake proving just how much better he is than Mikel, even though he's not having his best game. Zouma and Christensen looking good. Schurrle and Salah don't have a football brain between them. Can you coach that? They both need to step it up.

IMO the Prem will finish something like this: Chelsea City Arsenal Man Utd Liverpool Southampton (probably get into Europa League as one of the cup winners will be in the top 5) Spurs Everton West Ham/Hull/Villa/Stoke/Swansea (safe in mid table in whatever order) West Brom/Sunderland/Newcastle/Palace (fighting relegation) Leicester/QPR (probably going down) Burnley (going down) Southampton and West Ham have started very well but like Villa have shown - wins can quickly turn to losses when you start taking on big boys and then all your momentum is gone and you lose to someone shit like QPR. I do reckon they'll still get Europe next season because Spurs and Everton are struggling with managers determined to prove their worth at their new clubs but with thin, weak squads and having to deal with European football. United will benefit from nothing but PL games until January (like Liverpool did last season) and Liverpool will be better once Sturridge comes back.

Ballack, Gudjohnsen, Sturridge & Bertrand. Last 2 because I feel like they weren't treated as well as they deserved to be, the first 3 because I feel like they still had something to offer the club when they left.

Fair enough. And yeah Dowd has to lose some weight, don't think anyone would disagree there. Would be a bit rich of me to tell someone else they should lose weight though .

Won't be a popular opinion on here for obvious reasons but I think Dowd is actually a decent ref. He was obviously terrible at the weekend though, i'm not debating that. Clattenburg is the worst. A terrible ref and biased towards Man Utd. Only other thing I can really say with any conviction is that Mike Dean LOVES handing out cards. Since the start of the 2005 season he's given out 891 yellow cards and 54 red cards in 259 games. He's given 31 yellows and 2 reds already this season in 7 games too.

Probably not. Cech needs the game time to stay sharp for when he leaves in January or next summer. Schwarzer is here only if there's an injury crisis I would imagine. Otherwise I think he knows he's not going to play.

Very true. I feel sorry for refs and linemen when they can only be proved wrong by a stop motion replay which has to be viewed 6/7 times. But then it seems like every other game has a glaring referee error recently. And by glaring I mean you're watching it and saying "How the hell did he not see that?". Case in point being Aguero not getting a ban for his stamp last weekend because Atkinson said he saw it. Which is bollocks, because if he did then Aguero had to get sent off. The quality of refereeing is frankly terrible (it may be better than in Italian and French football but that doesn't make it any better), and needs to be changed ASAP. Whether that's with the introduction of video challenges from managers, with referees being allowed to take decisions to a TMO, having some kind of review system for referees where they have to explain their decisions (right or wrong) and pledge to be consistent with their decisions in the future or with the better coaching of refs in the first place.

So it's looks like it's going to be something like: ------------------Cech------------------- -Zouma---Christensen---Cahill---Luis- ------------Ake---------Mikel------------ ---Salah-------Baker--------Schurrle--- ------------------Brown------------------

No problem. We come to these forums to debate with people who's opinions differ from our own. I don't see how you can say that Busquets is 10x the player that Matuidi is defensively. A quick search on whoscored.com had some stats for them. Since the start of the 2009/10 season (includes all competitive matches): Busquets makes 2.7 tackles, 2.2 interceptions, 1.1 clearances and 0.3 blocks per game. Matuidi makes 2.8 tackles, 2.3 interceptions, 0.9 clearances and 0.3 blocks per game. Seems pretty similar to me. If anything Matuidi's stats are better. Now I know they're just stats but it proves that Matuidi is just as effective if not more in defence than Busquets. And 2 of those 6 seasons were at St Etienne too.

I'll politely disagree. All 4 are anchormen. Firstly, if you don't count them as anchormen then there are very few in the world good or bad. Matuidi isn't a box2box midfielder. Ramires and Pogba are B2B players. Matuidi hangs back a lot of the time during PSG's attacks to provide stability and breaks up attacks very well. That's an anchorman all over - protecting the back 4. Schweinsteiger I can see how people would think he's a B2B but that's only because he's so damn good that he managed to shield and protect the back 4 as good as anyone else and get forward to get involved up the other end too. He's primarily an anchorman for me though. As for Pirlo and Xabi Alonso, they're classic examples of anchormen. They protect the back 4 but have great passing visions on top of that. Pirlo is probably the best long passer in the world still, doesn't change the fact that they're still anchormen and their primary job is protection of the back 4. Busquets is very good at a short, quick passing game in and around the oppositions box and Matic has a great long through ball on him. They're both very good passers of the ball too but likewise they're both still anchormen primarily. It's all about the primary role. In today's game the top players (like the ones I mentioned) have to be very good at their primary role and also offer elsewhere around the park whether it's incisive/intelligent passing or goal scoring.

I said an argument could be made for the bender brothers. Probably not Sven. Doesn't mean they're better, just that it could be debated. Matuidi is a really solid player, I rate him very much. Worse on the ball than Busquets admittedly but I rate solidity and defensive abilities higher in holding midfielders and Matuidi beats Busquets in those aspects for me.

Literally the last player on the planet i'd want at this club. Xabi Alonso, Pirlo, Matuidi, De Rossi, Mascherano, Matic and (obviously) Schweinsteiger are all better pure anchor DMs. An argument could be made for Lars Bender (and maybe Sven) being better too. On top of that he has the professionalism and temperament of a child. Just... no.

Went to the Southampton vs Stoke game on Saturday (my missus is living in Southampton and got cheap tickets through the uni she's doing her PhD with) and got to meet some players outside the stadium. They signed everything for everyone waiting and had pictures with everyone who wanted. Not just 1 or 2 of the lesser know players either, Clyne, Tadic, Bertrand, Fonte, Davies, Wanyama, Cork, Yoshida and Forster. More might have come too but I had to leave. Very classy of them in my opinion, and I got the distinct impression that they do it every week. Quality stadium too by the way. A few of the pictures here for anyone that's interested. Excuse my fat face, I like food too much.

Just saying what i'd play.

If he's not fit then i'd drop Baker back to his position, then Willian on at CAM. Bring Boga onto the bench if Ramires isn't even fit enough for that.

Really hoping to see him at least make the bench tomorrow. With both our RBs suspended he's our next most senior RB. Zouma can play there and probably will but would be nice to see him on the bench, he looked decent at Blackburn last season.

Really hoping to see Todd Kane at least make the bench tomorrow. With both our RBs suspended he's our next most senior RB. Zouma can play there and probably will but would be nice to see him on the bench, he looked decent at Blackburn last season.

------------------Cech-------------------- -Zouma--Cahill--Christensen--Luis- ----------Ake---------Ramires---------- -Salah--------Baker---------Schurrle- ----------------Solanke------------------ Bench: Schwarzer, Kane, Mikel, RLC, Willian, Brown, Drogba. Mix of youth and experience starting, mix of youth and experience on the bench.

Tbh this is probably going to be a good appointment in the long run. He's being hired purely to get sponsorship money in and get us better deals than we have been getting previously (Turkish Airlines >.<). He's only a businessman and only getting involved with the business side of the club, so it's more than irrelevant that he's ex-Liverpool. Kinda hope it's not too late and nothing has been signed yet and he's been brought in soon enough to sort our shirt sponsor out for next season, so we don't have to have Turkish Airlines for comparative peanuts compared to our rivals.

Nomnomnom. How does that humble pie taste?

In a way we should probably be glad Costa isn't fit. If he was, along with Liverpool dropping points and City and Spurs losing everything would be going TOO perfectly . I'd be starting to worry.

Big worry for me here is no striker on the bench :/. Schurrle obviously the back up. But I'm concerned at the lack of Solanke or Brown...