Kostas

Same old same old Just when we were getting naive.

In no particular order. Can't pick just one.

The thing is..even the "he tries" argument is flawed as I've had the same discussion on a couple of boards about the Greek team that I support. To cut a long story short, the least you expect from a player who plays for the club you love is determination and commitment. However when a player tries and IMO consistently fails you shouldn't and won't blame him, all the blame should be laid on the people who brought him to the club and in our case also those who extended his contract. Notice how I didn't bring other players' (current) commitment or ability into the discussion as : It is irrelevant to our opinion of a player who has been here for 4-5 yearsI personally don't agree with your view (surprise surprise ) that our players aren't trying at the moment. That's the simplistic way of looking at things and I think I've tried numerous times to break his so-called good statistics down.That's like saying that we won the league only due to scoring 103 goals (disregarding that 29 of them came in just 4 games) and ignoring our tremendous home record and our double against the traditional top 4

Good points and I would have considered them when we signed Benayoun.Now.. just no. While I still believe that our bench is weak buying Pienaar would be step back especially after our transfers during the summer. Hell we might as well have kept Cole + Benayoun if we're so desperate for mediocre midfield choices. After the summer clear-out I firmly believe that we should emphasize on finding suitable replacements for our starters and not our benchwarmers. Didier Drogba - 32Frank Lampard - 32Nicolas Anelka - 31Florent Malouda - 30

Apologies for the double post This is a problem which came to surface only in the last 3-4 months and will go away once we stop underperforming. In the past most pro-Kalou fans only mentioned the fact that he tries or that he's still young and has time on his side (like ChelseaChick did, although the Drogba comparison is laughable) which I think even a moderate Kalou supporter like yourself have given up on.

It's not about tagging members, it's about having the same fucking discussion twice a week which only leads to personal remarks ignoring the subject at hand. At least this debate was stirred by a user who hasn't had the chance to see the good points raised in the past.

Then how is his price tag good for a stop-gap? He'll be free at the end of the season and we're going to waste 3m when Real Madrid payed 10m for a player who had 6 more months on his contract, was 5 years younger and is perfrorming at a level Pienar couldn't dream of.

A lot of very good points have been made but I'd like to add that something is going really wrong with the club when we're stacking Benayouns instead of stacking Lampards.

Another Salomon Kalou thread? *yawn*

The same was said about ManCIty and us back in the day. I've argued how Ozil and VdV are just exceptions to the new rule but Wenger's contracts and ability proves that good deals are still possible despite what our transfers suggest. If we're to accept 17 mil for Subotic as the right price then we might as-well stop babbling about how we over-payed for Zhirkov and Ramires.

Is Wilkins able to coach a team? Nevertheless some would expect him to carry us out through the season had Ancelotti been sacked.

Emelano would be a PR disaster. I'm sure the club would want to avoid it at all costs.

*sigh* Has the market really changed that much? I refuse to believe that after some of the deals the other big clubs have pulled through. FFS Thomas Vermaelen cost Arsenal just 10 mil!

My point was that the theory of Abramovich not paying more than 15 or 20 millions for a players is kinda disproved since we bid 20m for a player with no experience in Europe. Hell we did pay over 15 millons for Zhirkov and Ramires so I don't see where that came from.

Suits the profile Ancelotti talked about, don't know anything about him but if his price tag is reasonable he's more than welcome.

Chelsea managers are easy targets, doubt JFK would like the idea of sitting on our bench.

http://www.santosfc.com.br/noticias/conteudo.asp?id=22539

Afaik the original Ballon d'Or was awarded only to European footballers, that's why Maradona never won it.

No need for conspiracy theories. We've had posts similar to those banners on this very forum over the last couple of weeks.. What's stopping views on the internet turning into banners in RL?

Honestly, did you really expect him to start a PL game?

lol Good comeback :dude:

Didn't Lampards goal come from Kakuta's corner? Sure with such corners he won't get many assists (JT's goal was an exception) but goalkeepers can't catch them and defenders are often uncomfortable with them. For the record, I wouldn't mind relegating him to 4th/5th striker as with Borini out we don't really have any young strikers who need playing time.

ITV highlights

When discussing Barcelona/Spain defenders we should keep in mind that defending for a team that consistently has >65% possession is a much easier task than what most defenders face. Therefore I think having Lucio/Samuel/Vidic/Terry over the Barcelona pair wouldn't be a bad idea.