Naked Mole Rat

What about we stop all this nonsense with loans and start giving players who are doing well in the reserves a chance? Loans always involve risks, whether they are to lower league clubs or to foreign clubs, and players can never go on loan and still succeed. Look at Barcelona. Do they ever send anyone on loan? (real loans, not Fabregas, Romeu sort) As far as I'm concerned, neither Pedro, Busquets nor Alcantara ever went on loan and they do just fine. Of course, they probably have better players than we do, and the system in Spain is better than the English system, but surely we could have given Borini a chance when he was capable of scoring five goals in a game for the reserves and we should probably let Lalkovic have his first team debut when he's been impressive in the reserves for quite some time now.

Calm down, guys. Absolutely no need for this here.

I always thought Vorm was a bit overrated. He's very short for a keeper and yet commits too much in air-ball situations. Not that I don't think he'll make a good backup for Cech, but he should probably stay at Swansea and help them stay up. We could probably benefit if they'd stayed up for seasons to come with Brendan Rodgers being their manager and whatnot.

Good buy. I expect Cahill to be a better option than Alex. Alex wasn't that reliable with injuries and all that.

Gary Neville, Neil Warnock, Arsene Wenger, Johan Cruyff, Sepp Blatter, Michel Platini The rules that are never kept. Hate how goalies are off the line before pk's are taken and the officials don't ever notice or how Lucio can man-handle Drogba when we have a corner and get away with it all the time. Soccer vs Football. Seriously who gives a fuck. Early games, for me sometimes it's like 4:30 in the morning. Champions League games because I'm always in school. Worst time zone ever. Szczesny. Took away my fun. I want Fabianski. Impossible name, too. Late equalizers for obvious reasons. 90+2 minutes desperately need a winning goal and Bosingwa sets up to cross. Lampard's free kick. I don't know if he tries to score or kill one of the defenders in the wall. Delap throw ins. He should be booked for time wasting every time he wipes the ball with his shirt. Referees because pretty much every single one of them is incompetent.

--------------Torres Winger ---- Mata ---- Sturridge What about this huge gap here? -------Romeu----Essien----------

Torres for me as well. By the way, did Andre really use only 2 subs?

If Romeu continues to be our first choice holding midfielder, I think Essien should start playing as a right back. I honestly don't want to see both Romeu and Essien in the midfield because not only are we leaking goals, but we are also lacking goals at the moment, and it really wouldn't help if those two played together.

Sturridge and Drogba are not refined dribblers; at least not as refined as Torres or Mata. The rely on other things that make them effective dribblers. For Sturridge, it's his pace, flair and agility (the most important one) and it's strength and flair for Drogba. Their dribbling skills, though, I'd say are above average but nothing to admire, and although Torres is out of form, I still think he's got better skills than them.

Skill wise 1. Mata 2. Torres 3. Sturridge Pace 1. Ramires 2. Sturridge 3. Luiz Agility 1. Sturridge 2. Mata 3. Torres Flair 1. Mata 2. Drogba 3. Sturridge Overall 1. Mata 2. Sturridge

Torres as a CAM may not be a bad idea (whatever works), but playing Mata and Sturridge as wide midfielders is a horrible idea. I don't know why, but people seem to think that wing forwards are automatically suited to play wide midfielders when they're not.

The Tore deal was stupid regardless of whether we get something from his future sale or not. We're not a small club who need money and could have definitely used a winger like him. He's a ball hog, which is unfortunate, but he has great skills (dribbling, set piece, crossing, passing, etc.) and pace, and some decent strength. I haven't watched many Hamburg games this season, but from what I've seen, he's already a much better player than Kalou and Malouda. It still pisses me off that the club sold him without giving him a chance in the first team.

I'm sorry, but Ramires is a great player. I know you don't like him because of his lack of technique and creativity in a traditional sense, but there's a significant difference in our performance when he's playing and when he isn't, and it's not just because we are shit at the moment, it's because of the determination and energy he plays with, which is as important as technique and creativity. But I agree with most other points you've made. At the moment, there isn't a thing that we can say that we are the best at, or even that we are good at.

Sigh.. It's true, but that would be a step backward. Ah well.

Because our wing attacks are terrible. On our right flank, we have Sturridge and Bosingwa, possibly the worst winger-fullback partnership ever. You don't see any link-up between the two as they don't want to work with each other and instead want to do everything individually, which isn't very effective. On top of that, the delivery from that side is quite poor due to the players' poor crossing skills (includes Ramires) and decision-making. On our left side, we have Cole and Mata, who are by far the better combination, but Mata isn't someone who should be restricted to one side, and often, our most effective route is to get Cole to dart to the byline and cross it in the box, as he so often did under Carlo. So basically, we only need one player on either side to carry the attack on the wings. And instead of just pointlessly crossing into a box where there is nobody to receive the ball, we can get more bodies in the box and hope that one day, one of Bosingwa's crosses that fail to end up in the stands will hit one of our players and cross the line for a goal.

Cahill, Hazard, Modric and a "Get Out Of Jail" Card (or a time machine) for JT.

Don't be ridiculous. It's always tough for young players to compete with the likes of Torres and Drogba even when they're out of form. Besides, the whole team is struggling, and naturally, we turn to the more experienced players. And Lukaku has had barely enough time to settle in and figure out what he needs to do to succeed in England. Anyway, just because we paid 18m pounds doesn't mean he has to immediately make an 18m-pound impact. We paid the money because of his potential, and he may be in the reserves right now, but he certainly has more than enough in him to become better than Drogba.

The same should apply to Lukaku? Just put the price thing aside and ask yourself if it's fair to criticize an 18-year-old for not being able to break into the Chelsea first team especially when he's competing with Torres and Drogba.

Great news. 7m pounds for a reliable backup defender, that's a pretty good deal. I'm pretty sure Bolton will feel like they could have done a better deal even though they're not doing well right now. By the way, does this mean Bolton are screwed? I really want them to stay up this season and would rather see either QPR or Wolves (or both) get relegated.

He probably won't. He didn't rest against Wigan and Fulham, who are weaker than Villa. Bertrand wasn't even on the bench against Fulham or if I remember correctly against Wigan. Anyway, it's very annoying that he's not getting a chance. If he isn't good enough, I'd like to at least see how bad he is. But he was decent the last couple times I watched him.

Dempsey isn't a bad player, but certainly not good enough to play for us. I'd "consider" (I should emphasize) him if he were 5 years younger, though. I wouldn't mind taking Dembele and Frei, though. Just to show Fulham who's the boss, I mean.

Glad he's finally gone to a club where he can get a full financial support. Wish him luck and all that but please take Kalou and Malouda.

Classic. I remember a German club got pissed so badly a couple years ago when something similar happened. They were pretty serious about it, and if I remember correctly there was some legal talk going on as well.

Agreed. 30m pounds is a lot of money to spend on a youngster who hasn't played in Europe. Off topic: your post count at 2222.

The first one's way too defensive and I find the second one very offensive. I can see why you love these formations, though. If you put two DM's in FIFA your defense is invincible (God I fucking hate it when people do that), and with the second one you can score a lot of goals. Anyway, I'd like to see a 4-2-3-1 or an asymmetrical 4-3-3: ------------------------18----------------------- ??---------------------10--------------------23 -------------------------------------------------- -----------------6--------------7---------------- 3---------------26-------------4-------------?? -------------------------1----------------------- ------------------------18----------------------- ----------------10----------------------------23 ??------------------------------7---------------- -------------------------6------------------------ 3---------------26--------------4------------?? -------------------------1------------------------ Whatever we do, Mata must be in the middle, and there has to be a left winger.