MrBlueGuy

Best striker in Serie A ftw naaa in all seriousness think he is better than Drogba now but his confidence has been destroyed otherwise he will get around 10 goals easily every season

With CR7 and maybe Ancelotti joining MU, damn that would really be written in the star Saying that CR7 scored another couple today, already on 11 goals LOL

Depends on what is called a chance tbf and that is very objective. For example a Hazard shot that is saved by GK quite comfortably might count as a chance when in reality it is not really.

Has he actually ever been injured for a long period during his 4 years here? I can't ever remember him declared as not available due to injury, maybe a couple of game but that is as far as it goes, never more than a week. Suspension on the other hand...

The debate finishes when you are using Pulis as a role model for football.

It feel good when you are mugging 3 other clubs(MU,PSG and Everton) in the same year. We are usually on the receiving end of this stuff...

Imagine Valencia team with Mata and Negredo up front with the likes of Rodrigo...etc around. Wouldn't surprise me if they did a Atletico themselves in a couple of years if they show their ambition and make the right signings.

Would be nice if you decide to not be sarcastic.

OK lets say for the sake of this debate Jose did what he had to yesterday, lets give some expectations about the future. Away at Arsenal- will you be happy with the style last season? Not for me, I want us to go at them on the counter and not doing more of this, we ARE clearly a better team Away at Spurs- terrible team, I mean even Liverpool fucked them 3-0 and not even threatened once. Again I expect us to try humiliate them Away at MU- a game where Jose will probably park it looking at their attacking players, even though it will be there to be won. I expect good ATTACKING DOMINANT FOOTBALL Away at Liverpool- maybe more of this is fair enough but still should be a bit more adventurous, again can see him setting up to get a point There are the 4 tough away games left. What do you guys expect then? Apart from Liverpool game I want us to ATTACK all the other 3 and not doing more bus parking. I expect us to do more of this against Arsenal, MU and Liverpool though with Spurs maybe again happy with a point for Jose. Which for me is clearly not enough.

OK for the sake of argument lets compare defensive and attacking football of recent CL winners: 2006-Barcelona good football 2007-Milan defensive football with good attacking players 2008-MU good football 2009-Barcelona good 2010-Defensive 2011-Good 2012-Defensive 2013-good 2014-good As you can see in most cases the winners are always playing good football, occasionally great defensive football give you a win every 3-4 years but in general it is always good that dominate.

You put it yourself...unlucky to lose. Arsenal at home against 10 men for like 60 mins, Liverpool after a great 1st half in the 2nd half we were on the defensive again. I want us for once play a dominant from start to finish aka Bayern 4-0 Barca style game. Is that not possible?

So...attractive enough for you guys so far?

Completely agree, been repeated many many times over and over again. IT IS NOT THE RESULT BUT THE MANNER OF IT. Also LOL did anyone seriously complain that we couldn't do it because our CB were bad? WTF does people want, Varane+ Benatia in defence? Cahill and Terry are the best CB pair in England atm.

'Philosophy' as you put it perfectly then, he will always stick by his philosophy and sometime that is not good enough for the fans. You don't need to be tiki-taka to play domination football. Yesterday he clearly didn't though which is an issue for many people here. Of course we can, I think what most people wanted is for the players to adapt to a more dominant controlling game against City as we clearly got the players to do so.

Ok guys lets say Jose got it right, what kind of starting 11 is required to DOMINATE away from home against a top team? world 11? Courtois Lahm Silva Godin Filipe Vidal Matic Robben Iniesta CR7 Messi If we had a team like this do you think Jose will try to dominate City? Considering he had a squad nearly as good at Madrid with the likes of Di Maria, Ramos...etc and he still parked it against Barca, Dortmund I very much doubt it. Will we ever see us doing a 4-0 overall on Bayern/Barca if we got the chance? Again I very much doubt it because for example last year semi final away, if this is anything to go by he would have decided to stop it at 1-0 to Real and most likely tell them to do as us yesterday. Or is this still 'a work in progress' as many here like to put it? and we will get there one day? Maybe it is Jose, he just never tell his team to go out and DOMINATE against a big team away from home. Maybe the cold hard truth is he can't? nothing wrong with it as we can see his record is immaculate against top teams and at home we actually try to be a bit more attacking.

That is not the point, my point is that we can pretty much only improve this squad with top 5 players in the world now in their position because most of our are already top 10, just showing how good of a team we can be. What you think about Robben is your opinion but right now he is considered by pretty much everyone to be top 3 wingers in the world, arguably behind only CR7 atm. If we can't play dominating football against a top team with a starting 11, when can we? I mean Bayern and Dortmund in 12/13 and 13/14 bossed City at Etihad with players considered at the time much worse than the ones we got. It can be done, but for Jose even with Messi, CR7 and Robben leading the line and Vidal instead of Ramires that tactic would be the same. Which is extremely frustrating as I wish we could ever dominate a game like those German teams did. Against Dortmund? Sitting back will result in Madrid style 2013 raping.

Yep he scored an amazing amount of... 1 goal so far. Not his fault though and he is contributing through other means so I am happy with him.

We never did full bus parking under Carlo, evident for example by that title decider in Old Trafford 2011 where we lost after going 2 down in the 1st half. The only time we have been doing extreme bus parking is under Robbie at Barca/Bayern in 2012 CL but that was understandable. Now however it is not alright, I mean the only way you can improve this squad is probably by signing Robben/Messi/CR7/Vidal...etc and yet Jose still insists on that small team tactic. I mean Stoke with Diouf and Crouch doing this is understandable but a team of Hazard, Fabregas, Costa, Matic...etc doing it is unacceptable really. I hope Jose learns from this and take the initiative next time a similar type of situation occur, but knowing him and considering he was 'very, very happy' with the performance it will be the same again. If we draw Juve/Atletico/Barca/Bayern/Real/Dortmund or any team that is considered top 10 he will employ this tactic again in the knock out of CL while in theory it should only be used in the case of Real/Barca and Bayern.

Is this just me or are PSG now terrible defensively since his signing? drew yet again today and even though not his direct fault their start this season has been horrible. Surely cannot be him? Last season they were the best in the league defensively and now already dropped 8 points in the 1st 6 matches

For Spurs? Obviously he would haha. Arsenal it is debatable but he is better than Cazorla and clearly capable of being better than lazy Ozil too, if he was signed for 30m Wenger would give him privilege treatment as he is doing with Ozil so he likely will start. For Liverpool maybe not, but considering they are shit atm he will likely improve them and he is better than Markovic/Lallana/Coutinho. Unless you are talking about Milan or Valencia then you are clearly not right.

Really don't want to criticize him but him returning here now suddenly forced Jose to play him as he can't just sit on the bench to collect the wages. I really hope there is a way to resolve this issue because as good as he once was Remy is a better player now.

I really feel sorry for him, from one of the best player in BPL to a reject soon that no on wants. I mean after that 12-13 season even if he was for sale for 30m I am sure almost every big team in Europe apart from Barca, Real and Bayern would have all gone in for him. Now he is will most likely be shipped off back to Spain to Sevilla/Valencia or a declined league with declining teams like Milan, Juve, Inter. It is really sad to say, it is not even his fault either, he is a nice guy just that his body doesn't permit him to track back so the top top teams can't afford a luxurious player like him. I feel so bad for him that I almost want him to join Arsenal/Spurs or Liverpool to at least keep him at the top top level. Him being at Valencia/Milan or crap teams like that would serve him an injustice for a player of his quality.

Doubt anyone is surprised as I pointed out after that Schalke game a few pages back he would do this. What most people including me are disappointed with is how predictable it is though. I don't think performance is anywhere near the one against them last Feb, in that match he hit the posts like 3 times and should have win 3/4-0 bar a bit of unlucky. Today we played for a point from the get go, if Zab didn't get sent off I doubt Jose would have told the team to be more adventurous as evident by the fact that even against 10 men we still used the same tactic, not a single alteration. However one thing we can say though is this game should finally dispell that notion that Jose can get us to play 'sexy' football aka Dortmund style. He never could and never will, it is impossible to change after spending your whole career perfecting this tactic. That game in Feb against City was really the best we could ever hope for against a big team away from home, it was close to perfection. We will never do a Bayern away last season at City and dominate from start to finish, not with Jose as manager and it is about many accept that I guess. I believe no one is disappointed with the point, but the way it was collected imo. On paper if you didn't watch the match and just read on newspaper, this would be a good result in a tough away game. But if you watched the match then you start to realize we really threw away the game with our unnecessary tactic. Anyway, time to move on now I think and look forward to thrashing Villa next week.

Yep that is the problem on here, some of the top players/manager in the team cannot be criticized at all. If anything slightly a bit negative is posted you are automatically a troll/Pep fan/glory hunter/idiot or whatever nonsense insult they can come up with. It is always either you support him as a God and be a proper fan or you don't and be a troll. It is pathetic really.

On a side note, is anyone impressed with Mangala? Seems like he is one of the strongest and fastest CB in the league by the look of thing, could become a Benatia for City. £32m might have seem to be a lot by the summer but by next it might look like a bargain.