Viper22

Diego Costa has a chronic condition where he has to score.... But other than that, no .

In thinking that he can't do even better .

It was one of the best passes I have ever seen. But.... You underestimate the Cesc.

He really isn't. He's average atm but that's because his growth has been stunted by lack of positional consistency as Spike said. He showed tons of potential at Blackburn and it's a popular opinion that he could've developed into a top player with a decent CB role model (like JT, not the drug toting racist cunt Ferdinand).

If I had my way i'd have Cahill, Kalas and Zouma as 3 of our 4 CBs next year and buy a young top quality Englishman as the 4th. Phil Jones (if the fee is low, doubt it) or more likely Stones as people have mentioned would be a great choice. Then we could start Cahill with whichever of Kalas/Zouma/Stones was the most impressive in pre season, with the other 2 knowing they can fight for their place. And remember Cahill isn't young so when he goes we still have 3 top quality CBs hopefully coming into their prime.

Lets not get ahead of ourselves. Fabregas has another 40+ games to play. He could do literally anything in that time.

You're right in every way, but in reference to the Kalas thing: would you rather him be kept at the club this season? JT and Cahill have been pretty good and neither have been even slightly injured. If Kalas had stayed then he would have probably been 4th/5th choice CB (depends on Ivan) and he wouldn't have got much game time... I don't think that would've been good for him or us. Now whether we should have signed Zouma and instead given his spot to Kalas is another debate entirely... I don't think anyone is happy with our youth system or the way we go about integrating youth into our first team, but I do feel like it is STARTING to change for the better. With Jose hopefully (this part is vital) staying for at least another 3/4 years then we will have the managerial stability like you said. And I do feel like as players like JT, Mikel, Luis, Ramires & Drogba leave we will replace them with youth players such as Kalas, Chalobah, Ake, Baker & Bamford. If at least 2/3 of them aren't integrated in the next 2/3 years then Mourinho will have failed. It's a big ask but something we need to start doing. I guess i'm saying that i'm hopeful that Ake and Baker training with the first team is a good step and I hope to see Kalas, Chalobah and maybe Bamford return from their current loans and get incorporated into the first team also. Next 2 summers will be key for us.

Then this is for you my friend. Watch what the man did on his debut. All bow to the Cesc.

Are you sure Real Madrid have a better record than we do? Seeing as you seem to only be referring to home grown non-bought talent then Notable graduates from Real Madrid's youth academy in the last 15 years are: Roberto Soldado (16 games for Real before being sold to Getafe for just €4M), Juanfran (6 games for Real before being released to Osasuna on a free), Juan Mata (0 games for Real before being released to Valencia on a free), Jese Rodriguez (19 senior games in 3 years), Javi Garcia (18 games for Real before being sold to Osasuna for €2.5M), Jose Callejon (0 games for Real in first stint with club before being released to Espanyol on a free), Deigo Lopez (2 games for Real in first stint with club before being sold to Villareal for €6M), Dani Carvajal (36 appearances for Real), Alvaro Morata (37 games for Real before being sold to Juventus for €20M) & Alvaro Arbeloa (2 games for Real in first stint with club before being sold to Deportivo for €1.4M). Lots of great players there that they either sold on the cheap or released. I'd hardly say that's more successful than us. Only Carvajal and Morata can really be seen as successes, so 2 in the last 15 years. The others could be genuinely seen as pretty big failures considering how good most of them are now.

I almost feel sorry for Nike. At least he's trying to argue his side of the point... And tbh I think he's doing a good job considering the complete lack of evidence available suggesting that Thiago>Cesc...

Right, try these (no cheating!). From which club did we sign the following players who are in our 100 club: (Answers in the spoilers). Let me know how many of the 10 you got (honestly!). Florent Malouda Alex John Obi Mikel Paulo Ferreira Geremi Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink Jesper Gronkjaer Salomon Kalou Jody Morris and Albert Ferrer

This is all slightly depressing. I'm really hoping that either someone at Turkish Airlines was having a laugh or (preferably) the £25M report is low, and it's more like £30-£35M. Worst case scenario and we can't get any more than £25M and it has to come from Turkish Airlines then i'm just hoping for a short (2-3 year) contract length.

You said Reus would be a good piece to United. That's what I was replying to. You cannot say for sure that Mata will be sold, just like no-one can say for sure if Falcao will stay past his loan. At the present time they don't need Reus at all. And if you mean United should sign Gundogan then... While Gundogan IS better than all their CMs yeah, (I wouldn't say by far cos I highly rate Blind but still better) I highly doubt they'd sign him either. They can only play 2 in the midfield with their current crop of attacking players and they wouldn't drop Herrera after signing him for so much money (would be stupid) and you couldn't play Gundogan & Herrera or you'd get raped on the counter. Quick note for you, I rate Gundogan very very highly too mate, not criticising him at all. I truly believe that there aren't many CMs in the world better than him.

I am one of Gundogan's biggest fans. But just... no. Hell no. And Utd already have Di Maria, Rooney, RVP, Falcao, Mata and Herrera for like 4/5 positions, they definitely don't need another attacking player.

Just a quick side note for everyone suggesting that he couldn't play RW - Willian and Schurrle were both pure LWs when they joined the club. They've both converted to LW without losing much if any of their quality. And they're just good/very good players. Reus is one of the top 10/15 players in the world. And then think of the best players in the world for playing on the counter like we do? He's probably one of the best of the lot. We can "not need him" as much as we want, but if he's available for £20M then we HAVE to at least bid for him. Even if he gets worse he'll still be a much better RW than Willian and Schurrle, and that's not a dig at either of them because I rate them both. If Reus goes to Man City or (god forbid) Liverpool or Arsenal for £20M then we would be in a massive amount of trouble, letting them get such a quality player for such a small amount of money.

Hmm I guess. But the guy's over-riding feelings (it seemed to me from reading it) were that Arsenal and Wenger had done nothing wrong and that the shove (which is classed as assault in a court of law btw), the smoke bombs and flares being let off and Welbeck's challenge were all blown out of proportion and there was nothing wrong with any of them and Chelsea fans were exaggerating them all.

T-Bone will be back. He's going to play during the international break so barring another injury he'll be fine. EDIT: Agree with the rest of the squad though.

Costa could celebrate by punching by grandma in the face and frankly I wouldn't care, as long as he's scoring.

Jimmy Carr there scouting for his next tour methinks. I guess it was a successful trip, there were 11 jokes on the field in red and 1 on the touchline yesterday.

Exactly. She has a degree in medicine and a masters in sports medicine. I doubt very much she would have let him continue if she didn't know for sure he was ok. The fact that he obviously deteriorated soon after the incident is something she couldn't have predicted and criticising her is frankly asinine.

Agree. When Wenger came for seconds I was 100% sure I was going to see a thumb to the eye. Credit to Jose for not doing that. He's a bigger man than me, I couldn't be that calm being touched by a disgusting French voyeur.

I know, I just wanted to enthuse about him and let you know that I at least (others may have too) have rated him very highly for a while. I agree he can get a fair bit better though. Ball retention and his passing mainly. (but then he has Cesc beside him for passing doesn't he? ). His heading and positional play are good enough IMO, he's very rarely caught out of position and he wins most of the headers he competes for. Well Fernandinho is the only one in the same league as Matic.

I predicted a 1-1 draw, that make you feel better at all? Even put money on it.

I find myself consistently shouting this at the TV. I'm actually starting to threaten Willian and Schurrle with physical harm if they get in the way of Cesc many more times.