Viper22

Quick side note, you do know Isco best (and by far his most played) role is CAM yeah? How would be wasting his talents putting him in his best position?

I said roughly the same age... Oscar is 2 years and 3 months older. I'll admit I thought Oscar was younger though. But you cannot possibly suggest that Barkley is as good a number 10 as Oscar? Oscar starts for Brazil, Barkley won't start for England for the foreseeable future (rightly or wrongly, it's just a fact), with Sterling and Rooney ahead of him. I really REALLY rate Barkley, I even think he's got more potential than Sterling, and he's the best young English player out there. If we were going to sign any English player i'd like it to be him. But he is NOT good enough (yet) to be playing 10 for a team which is the best in England and one of the top 4 in Europe. He has the potential to be good enough and I wouldn't be fussed if he did sign for us, but I just think that there are other players around who are more complete players currently (e.g. Reus) and players with more potential and are better already too (e.g. Isco). Btw, as a quick note, I know Reus can't play 10, but he can play RW, so we could sign him and either drop Willian or move him to CAM instead of Oscar. Either way our team would be much stronger. Dropping Oscar for Barkley would at best keep the quality in our team the same. Barkley is great on the ball and an excellent dribbler, but with Schurrle/Willian and Hazard on the wings we already have direct dribbling AMs, we need at 10 a creative/goalscoring player, and Oscar fits that bill much better than Barkley. You can't see Isco doing Oscar's role as a 10? You obviously neglected to watch him at Malaga then mate, he was absolute quality there for them, and has been very good for Madrid when he's actually been given a chance. In conclusion though, although I think Isco would be a better signing (not to mention cheaper) and Reus is one of the top 20 players in the world even if we'd have to shift either him or Hazard to accommodate him (and if the release clause story is true then much cheaper, unbelievably), i'd be happy for us to sign Barkley instead (he's English after all which is a big plus) providing the fee is at the very max £30million.

Good point about the injuries. But we'd have to let the medical department judge whether they were too injury prone, if not then keeping Ramires instead of MVG would be an option. Good point though. Ramires is a good player. But that's it, he offers a very good work rate and decent passion but in signing Pogba you've just got a player who is Ramires 3.0. I just don't feel like we'd need him then.

Next Summer we could have Khedira (free) and Pogba (around £50M say?) in and Mikel and Ramires sold to help make funds for those 2 transfers. Means we could play Cesc-Matic-Pogba in the midfield 3 with Khedira and MVG to come off of the bench. Scary stuff .

Very good player, but currently no better than what we have (Schurrle, Oscar, Willian) and he can't play very well on the wings and has to be down the middle. Willian and Oscar are probably better than him there too so it would be kind of an odd signing.

I reckon he is capable. BUT I reckon you could get Isco for around that money (maybe less) and he's already more of a complete player than Barkley.

I agree but as has been mentioned before, where would he play? He's probably best in the no.10 role but he's not as good as Oscar there and they're roughly the same age so that'd be pointless and if we were selling Oscar to get another AM in I would prefer it to be someone world class like Reus or Isco. He couldn't play in a 2 man midfield, he's nowhere near as good as Matic or Fabregas at their respective roles, so the only viable option would be converting to a 3 man CM partnership and having him as a B2B kind of player to replace Ramires (who he is already better than). I really like the kid but for the prices being bandied around then he's nowehere near worth it. I mean we could just promote MVG, Chalobah or RLC to the first team for free....

Key thing about that for me is the goals scored and conceded. We've averaged nearly 2 goals a game and concede under 1/2 a goal a game. So average over 2 results is 2-0 and 2-1. In what way is that negative? As a side note, LOVE how United aren't regarded as good enough to make the list of beatings any more xD

This kind of logic has no place here! People are too busy attacking Lampard and Mou for logic.

Anyone fancy raising their blood pressure by reading this crock of shit: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/29349740 Genuine quotes from that article: "Far from implementing a true financial fair play, this rule is in fact a prohibition to invest that prevents ambitious owners to develop their clubs" - MCFC Supporters Association "The FFP ruling will restrict the incomes of players and agents, reduce transfer activity and ensure that Europe's larger clubs remain dominant" - Jean-Louis Dupont Restrict the income of players? Is he having a fucking laugh? Over in the NW of England a fat granny shagging tool is earning 300k A WEEK. How you could you EVER restrict that kind of income? He could buy the fucking country within a few years. What an absolute toss-pot. As a side note, usually get on well with City fans and extremely disappointed that they've come out supporting this bender. The FFP rulings started at the start of the 13-14 season and they had been warned well in advance about these laws coming in. Why not dispute them then? Rather than falling foul of them then crying like little bitches and trying to get out of their (very lenient) punishment. As well as that, by the time the restrictions came in they arguably had the best squad in the damn league, it's not like they NEEDED to spend all of that money, they did it just because they could. If we can break even over the last 2/3 years then they can too. Jose is right, points need to be docked, otherwise they will not stop, and if they get away with it then what the hell is the point of any club following the rules if you can disobey them and just walk away scot-free?

What time is team news due? I'm leaving the house at 6.30 and off to watch Spurs vs Forest with my mate who's a Forest fan. Is it likely i'll get Chelsea's team news before I go? The anticipation of Baker/Boga/Zouma getting some minutes is killing me .

---------------Cech----------------- -Azpi---Zouma----Cahill--Luis- --------Mikel--------Baker-------- Boga-------Oscar------Schurrle ---------------Remy---------------- Subs - Mark, Ake, Christensen, Ramires, Salah, Willian, Drogba. That'd be perfect for me. Salah and Boga switching I wouldn't mind either.

Doubt very much there will be an upset, Forest look unstoppable ATM and I just can't see them losing in an upset to the useless shits in white.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/sep/22/ugandan-footballer-dies-manchester-city-chelsea Great, on top of it all now Lamps has killed someone. I think we all knew it was a matter of time, what a judas eh? Also, I blame him for Putin's warmongering, Nick Clegg's ineptitude and both world wars. Now I feel like I fit in with most of the people on this forum.

You can't go into every game demanding a win, that's spoiled in the extreme. It was the hardest game of the year for us, away to the champions. We lost there and won there last year once each. We have to afford them some respect. If we'd attacked them believing we could win we may well have won. But more likely we'd have been beaten, maybe badly, and then the whole complexion of the league would change, they'd only be 3 points back and we wouldn't be in as strong a position as we are now. We didn't HAVE to win the game, we just had to not lose the game to keep as ahead of them as we are. We obviously wanted all 3 points or we wouldn't have attacked to score the goal we did and come within a metric Lampard of winning the damn game. But demanding that we go in with the same attitude away to city as we did at home to Swansea (especially when we're leaking goals) is just plain stupid. Seems like you'd only be happy if we kept our 100% record the whole damn season and maybe for the next 10-15 years. A point at the Etihad is a decent result, and means we're still well on top in the title race at such an early stage.

Jose went into the game wanting a point. We nearly came out of it with 3 thanks to Zabaleta being a moron, but 1 point we did get. He did what was needed, and got under Pellegrino's skin into the bargain too ;P. At the bridge we'll be far more adventurous, and even away against everyone else but possibly Arsenal we won't play like this again til the latter stages of the CL possibly. My only 2 problems with Jose after that performance was 1) Why keep Willian on so long when he was so obviously struggling and 2) Why bring Drogba on not Remy?

Calling us a small club and saying we play like a small club like Stoke (you know, the team that beat them at home).

Pellegrini talking smack about us again. Jose making him his bitch is becoming a habit here....

Courtois - 6 - Didn't have much to do all game and got beaten at the near post for the goal (although a hard shot) but did well to collect dangerous balls in all game. Azpilicueta - 7 - Thought he had a decent game tbh, looked solid at the back and made a few key tackles. Cahill - 6 - Solid, uneventful game for Gaz. JT - 6 - Same as Cahill. Ivanovic - 6 - Solid game, went forwards well sometimes, but a lot of the attacks came down his flank, including the one for the goal.... Matic - 7 - Made a fair few decent challenges and hounded the City midfield a lot of the time well. Not as good as Feb though. Ramires - 6 - Good energy but made his customary stupid fouls and lost the ball a bit too often. Fabregas - 6 - For anyone else a good performance, for someone of his quality and average one. Some decent balls, some decent tackles, didn't find much space thanks to Fernandinho. Hazard - 7 - Our best player but still not at his best, good runs to put the city defence under the only pressure they suffered all game and great ball for the goal. Willian - 3 - Awful performance before being (thankfully) hauled off. Some good ideas is the only saving grace but execution was non-existent today, misplaced so many easy passes. Costa - 7 - Only had scraps to feed on, and unlucky not to score when he hit the post. Did well winding up their defence resulting in Zaba being sent off. Don't know why he was booked. Mikel (sub) - 5 - Didn't give us any stability like I hoped he would and lost the ball too much when he had it too easily. Schurrle (sub) - 5 - Great run and finish for the goal but once again didn't track back and lost Milner for the assist to the goal. Poor from Andre. Drogba (sub) - N/A - Not giving him a rating for 4/5mins of hardly touching the ball. Why wasn't Remy brought on? Not his fault though I guess..

Everyone is going to freak out but to me, and the travelling Chelsea fans at least, Lamps is still a legend, 1 goal does not cancel out the 250 odd he scored for us. On the match - a draw is good enough, would have taken it before the game and will take it now. So will most others when they calm down.

Milner MOTM easily. Might not be popular but he's been really good today.

Drogba winner would be hilarious right about now.