Daniel1980

I really really hope he starts against Villa, but he probably won't. If he doesn't, can see him starting against Sporting.

Huh. Really surprised Fabregas sells the most shirts for us. I guess most people already have Hazard's shirts, but I thought Costa would dominate our shirt sales, especially considering Cesc's history with us. Must be Costa's face.

So we play United away on Sunday and Shrewsbury on Tuesday. Hope the squad will be injury-free and it won't be a problem.

Both Cesc and Matic didn't start against Bolton for this very reason: so that they're fresh vs Villa. Both of them will play. 100%.

It will be probably a tough game, but I think after two draws, we won't be complacent and the team will be determined to win this one convincingly. We shouldn't start this game as slowly as the Leicester and Swansea games.

AC Milan News ‏@Milanello Van Ginkel is expected to be sidelined for at least 4 weeks. More tests to be carried out in the next few days.

Villa are solid defensively. Those 3 minutes against Arsenal were a fluke more than anything, and the squad was hit by an illness ahead of the Arsenal game. Since we seem unable to keep a CS, we'll probably concede anyway, so we must find a way through their defence. Courtois Azpi Cahill Terry Luis Fabregas Matic Oscar Willian Costa Hazard Matic should play a more disciplined role of an anchor and stay back to stop their counters.

Gotta say it looks like Iniesta is rapidly declining. He's been poor for a while now. Looks uninspired, slow, bad touches, keeps losing the ball, uncreative passing, only flashes of vision. He's been very average for over a year, but he didn't get a lot of criticism, since Cesc was Barcelona fans' favourite scapegoat. This season Iniesta's decline is becoming even more apparent. Unless his form seriously improves, he might be well past it. And Rakitic might be solid defensively, but he has very little creativity. Basically, Messi is the only one at Barcelona still trying to create something, but he's past his best too.

Judging by all the comments, it seems Andre is being a bit selfish. Not for the first time. He definitely needs to sort it out.

I'm not watching. Who's at fault for the goal?

This lineup should be good enough to beat Bolton easily. Hope we won't have to use Hazard or Matic.

Let's ship out Hazard and Fabregas and get Menez and Muntari instead.

On an unrelated note, Milan's shirt is beautiful this season.

It's different. Picking a MOTM in a single match is easier since we're talking about a single match. To determine the relative importance of players over the season is much harder, and the sample is too small. So far, I can go as far as say that the trio of Eden, Cesc and Costa were our most influential players. All of them influenced the results in their own way and judging who is more important is not only very hard, but next to impossible, since they all influenced each other. That's why I think it's pointless and leads only to bickering. And frankly, I couldn't care less who of them scores, assists or stretches defences. They all do their part, and to determine whether Hazard's dribbles were more important or Cesc's passes were more important or Costa's finishing was more important is next to impossible and would be just a matter of opinion.

I know, but we shouldn't underestimate anyone. They did manage to win some silverware last season, after all.

It's a shame Arsenal lost. I wanted all of our rivals to go reasonably far, so that they couldn't focus only on the league.

Eden is not the fifth most important player in our team. That's ridiculous. I think instead of pointlessly trying to determine who is the best and most important player in our team--it's going to be a matter of opinion anyway--we all should be just glad that it is a matter of opinion this season. Last season most could say with certainty that Hazard was our most important player, and it was very bad that we had no more attacking threats. It's a very good thing for our team that this season there's no such certainty--not for us, and not for other teams. Isolating one player is always much easier than isolating three and it makes our lads' life easier. Costa and Fabregas benefit a lot from the opposition's having to mark Hazard, and Hazard benefits a lot from the opposition having to mark Costa and Fabregas. It's a win-win for them all. I'm glad things are the way they are. The best thing is, Eden, Cesc and Diego linkup with each other well. People talk a lot about Cesc and Costa's connection, about how they seek out each other, but I'm actually more impressed with Eden and Cesc's developing connection. I've seen the stats that Cesc<-->Eden is the most frequent pass combination in our attack, even more frequent than Cesc-->Costa. It's still very early in the season. In a few months, it should get even better.

Neither. But it actually should be harder to score at Milan than at Chelsea, because this Milan team is poor and lacks creativity in midfield.

Really nice header. Must be the red shirt. In all seriousness, scoring in his first start should give him his confidence back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag-k8Rp5z14 If only we had Torres against City instead of Costa. He would have surely scored. Bring back Nando, get rid of Costa! Nando can step up when the team needs him!!!

Fuck. Couldn't even walk away on his own. Also, Bonera, ffs.

Hope he has a good game, because he hardly endeared himself to Milan fans by his reluctance to join Milan.

That run was really world class and it wasn't the easiest goal. The problem with Andre is, he can be selfish at times, and sometimes shoots when he should pass, and he is inconsistent. While Willian is consistently average most of the time, Andre can be either brilliant or poor.

Precisely. There's no place for him at PSG. They already have a CAM--Pastore--that they bought for ridiculous money and don't use as a CAM. Zlatan can't coexist with a #10 because he's essentially a #10 too.

Though I would like to see the kids, I think it'll be too much to expect most of the team to consist of youngsters. Jose wouldn't do that. He obviously wouldn't play our starting XI, but I doubt he wants us to be humiliated like United got humiliated by MK Dons. I don't expect to see more than 3-4 youngsters (at most).