Kostas

I'm sure he can handle both.

Blue Heart already said what I wanted to so there's not use in posting the same things. But I'd like to ask how and why did this whole Mikel discussion start. I don't remember any doubts about him or his position last year when we were cruising, earlier in the season when everyone was on top form, or back in November when he was holding our midfield by himself. This whole thing started when everyone noticed that we weren't scoring goals, I'd say that trying to fix a potential midfield problem doesn't make much sense when it's your attackers that are letting you down. However, I think I remember some journo last season claiming that we started free-scoring just after Mikel got injured.

Wtf? :huh:

You're either a huge fan or his agent. In either case there's no point in this as we've never been linked with him. You'd be better off contacting our international scouts, they all live in Portugal PS: You picked the wrong name and the wrong time to register.

Ancelotti said that Sturridge is going nowhere. He denied the rumours that had Daniel asking for a loan and said that he will have more first-team opportunities.

Ancelotti is confident that we've moved on from our "bad moment". Not what I saw against Villa but I'm willing to take his word, for a change.

*Ahem* damn.. my AFRICAN Drogba :tophat:

I though my posts in the original topic made it pretty clear.

2 years ago. He's hardly a striker anymore, the last time I saw him play like one was during the African Cup of Nations. Nowadays he's a wannabe-deep-lying playmaker Fact of the day: The last man who insisted on playing him as striker was called Raymond Domenech

Nah I double checked my post

I think Arnesen's sacking may change this. Or is it wishful thinking?

Weird.He wasn't at the Bridge on Sunday so I figured it had to do with his loan. What about this: Des amis partis en prêt m'ont raconté leurs entraînements, parfois c'est n'importe quoi ».

:lol: Can't believe I missed this!

In hindsight, that CL game against Marseille was probably our best chance to either play the kids or experiment with our starting XI. We ended up starting Ferreira on the left-side and witnessed Drogba being lovestruck with Marseille.

Calculated risk. Did anyone believe that we were going to go throughout the season without long-term injuries? With 7 players >30?! Apparently whoever thought that having 16 outfield players was a good idea did.

Surprisingly good piece of journalism. I feel that 3, 4, 5 are beyond his power but he does take blame for 1 and 2. I wasn't even aware that Kakuta has got a PL start ! Even if he has that's only two freaking starts (+ does Sturridge have any?) disgraceful number for a man who said that he was going to promote youth players during the summer.

Good thread I laugh at anyone saying that we shouldn't have had that summer clear-out. Even Ballack, who I've argued that we could have kept , is 34 years old and injury prone, we can't expect such players to play week in week- out just like we shouldn't have gambled on Drogba's fitness. On the other hand I believe we should have never loaned out so many players. Not after realizing that some transfers were going to fail and that we were going to start the season with 16 senior outfield players. Having Matic or Cork when we were forced to play Zhirkov and Malouda in the midfield might have saved us. Keeping Mancienne for rotation might have averted Mikel getting exhausted after so many games, the same goes for Bertnand and Ashley Cole.

JT was hated even before the Bridge scandal. Guess it has something to do with being a vocal icon for the most hated team in country.

^I'm glad that the stats support my view. Anelka needs to be dropped. Actually we should have had this discussion in mid-November. I can understand Ancelotti's unwillingness to drop him as the next one in the pecking order is Salomon Kalou but he can't do worse than 0 shots in 90 minutes. As a matter of fact neither can Sturridge, Kakuta et al. I argued back before the Sunderland game that Bruma couldn't do worse than ol'Paulo, his performance against Villa proved me right.

Good call.That was the last time he had a truly impressive performance. Blame the players all you want but there's something wrong with the one picking them when a player who has been bad in the league for over 2 months still starts.

Any thoughts on Essien>Mikel @ DM now?

They have numerous successful well run businesses across the world. They have to be smarter than we give them credit for.

You don't really believe that City bid for everyone they're being linked with, do you?

The league is gone, get over it. Of course we can hope that we will fluke the Champions League but that's not the way proper teams should be planning. From now on our priorities should be: 2nd or 3rd spot in the league, 2nd may be hard but 3rd is still very much reachable.Winning the FA Cup and having yet another trophy-less year is the difference between us and Arsenal. We can still make history so we have to give it our best.CL semi-finals. There we will get eliminated without losing our status in Europe.

Starting the same hopeless attackStarting FerreiraNo subs at HTTook off probably our best player at the time (Ramires) for his 2nd substitutionAllowed Anelka 78 minutes on the pitchAnother worthless 10 minutes for Sturridge And you know that I would have posted the same list had we won. I saw no tactical masterstroke today.I'd love to give him credit for what he does (like finally starting Bruma) but those two were just the changes he always makes. I'm pretty sure that it's been a while since we had the same RB for the whole 90 minutes and even if it hasn't substituting a RB for a RB is his second most used sub after (surprise! surprise!) getting Kalou on the pitch. He took off Ramires only because he was behind Anelka and everyone else in the pecking order, just like he used to sub Mikel last year, Benayoun earlier in the season and one of the kids whenever they started.