Daniel1980

Arsenal don't even play attractive football anymore. They used to play very attractively and few would call them boring. Now they don't have even that to console themselves when they lose points.

Sanchez was incredibly poor. Kept giving the ball away. *cough* Must be a big game bottler!

With all due respect to Matic, it's far easier to be consistent for defensive players than attacking and creative ones. And Matic had his share of poor matches too.

I don't like this stat. Come on, Eden.

1) Kudos to him? He played only in 3 of those 6 wins. In 2 games, actually, since he was taken off after 10 minutes against Hull City. 2) I'm not saying he isn't a top player. But he's nowhere the top 5 player he's hyped to be. 1 excellent season at a ridiculously good team isn't enough to make him that. Madrid are doing fine enough without him.

Okay, this is... really pretty damn weird.

2-0 or 2-1. Chelsea win. Two goals from midfielders.

That's the thing. He had only 1 excellent season -- last season -- so that season wasn't exactly "standard" for him. For that reason when he started brightly in the first few matches, I wasn't convinced he could keep it up. And so far, he returned to his previous performance standards: a few great matches, then a series of meh ones with an odd good match here and there. That's how he's been playing for Real before and how he's been this season for United even before the injury. Yeah, he's a great player, but not the player everyone hyped him to be. I don't think he'll ever be as good for United as he was for Madrid last season. As for this being Di Maria's first year in PL in a very unbalanced team, that's true, but the same thing can be said about Sanchez but he's doing more than fine--and he was far cheaper than Di Maria. So far Di Maria was good enough but nowhere worth his price-tag and "Top 5 player in the world" hype. He needs to step up.

Well, it's been half a season already. Just a few quotes from Redcafe. They're biased, but even they can see it too: And these are the fans that proclaimed him the Top 5 player in the world just a few months ago. The truth is, Di Maria is an inferior dribbler to Eden and an inferior passer to Cesc, and he can be almost as selfish as Andre: he shoots when he should pass. Don't get me wrong: Di Maria is a very good player and at times a brilliant player, but sometimes people believe the hype too much and have unrealistic expectations. I watch La Liga too and I've seen his inconsistency for years. That's why I thought it was ridiculous when some people here said he was the best winger in the world and better than Hazard.

He's been meh for a while before his injury, too. But because of the immense hype he has around him people don't criticize him much. Mata's stats are good, too. Doesn't change the fact that he's been very poor.

Di Maria has been poor for a while. Poor decision-making. And many people here claimed he was better than Hazard on the basis of one excellent season at Real. Looks like he's back to being a gifted but frustrating player he was before last season.

I fully expect it. The Stoke fans even called the match thread Fabregas Monday. He will be no doubt the main target for the jeering, but I'm sure our other players will be jeered too: It's pretty safe to say the atmosphere will be very hostile. I'll be happy with a narrow win.

Actually, he played plenty of times as #10 for us closer to the end of many matches.The Arsenal game comes to mind. And in the first match against Sporting he was excellent after he was moved up the pitch, but Salah and someone else failed to score after his through balls. Nah, I'm still working on the project. I wasn't even supposed to watch this game.

Always said he'd be good there. Good game. Good performance from Cesc, Eden and Luis.

It's certainly a nice problem to have. I wonder if Ivanovic is untouchable, though having Willian and Azpi on the right will kill us offensively on the RW. Maybe if Andre plays.

Di Maria's corners are very poor. Even Willian's corners are better. United fans constantly complain about it, saying someone else should take corner kicks: RVP or Mata.

I'm really curious who Jose will choose to play against Liverpool. Will Luis be dropped? I hope not, but Azpi is too good to sit on the bench.

Mata's assists from corner kicks in the PL: 4 assists in 2011-2012 3 assists in 2012-2013 Cesc already has 3 in 10 games.

His corner kicks were not that good in the last two games, but otherwise he's been generally good at them--much better than our AMs--and created many chances from corners that our players failed to score. He's doing a better job than most corner kick takers of the top PL teams. There are not many "set piece specialists" around.

Kroos actually has exactly the same amount of corner assists as Cesc this season: 3 in 13 games. Koke has 4 in 13 games. So Cesc is actually doing a very good job at assisting from corners, especially considering set pieces are not his strongest point--unlike Koke and Kroos, he's much better at assisting from open play.

What a legend. I hope he can do something to improve it.

Yeah. 4 of his 11 assists for us were from set pieces. 4 set piece assists in 13 games is quite good. Much better than any of our AMs managed last season. Though most of his assists are from open play, as expected.

Barca's midfield is absolutely terrible. No creativity. Pitiful performance. Rakitic is not a controlling midfielder at all. Terrible positioning. It's like he hides from the ball.

Oscar's my MOTM. Eden and Cesc played very well too. Chest bump.

Agreed. Playing him in the pivot is risky, because he'll have to do a lot of defensive work there. He makes at least 3-4 tackles every game. Being a yellow away from suspension might make him hesitant when he defends anyway and we don't need that. Jose should play him as #10 or in a 4-3-3 with Cesc as the most advanced midfielder.