Naked Mole Rat

Am I the only one who tried Makelele in desperation? Anyway, I got 21. Should've got at least a couple more, though.

Only watched a little portion of the match (laggy stream, missed both goals) and not planning to watch the rest, but I find it quite funny Bosingwa's getting a stick when he got the equalizer, though I saw the highlight and it was a shit goal and I read Bosingwa's error led to the Sinclair goal (what a great goal, too). But was he really that terrible?

Please summarize what you think my points are.

I wasn't saying spending was the only way out, was I? I did specifically say that what frustrates me is that we are not taking any adequate action, whether it's spending or developing young players, to get us out of the mess we are in. And I recognize that we were never going to keep spending so much money. The board have mentioned, on several occasions, that they aim to turn things around to start making profits, and I want that, too. But if we are not going to spend, we have to at least make the most out of what we already have, and we are not doing that either, and therefore we're not getting the results we want, then we go panicking and doing some ridiculously expensive emergency deals to salvage our campaign, which is actually the exact opposite of what we want to do.

If we were like Real Madrid, who gift their talents to other clubs but still have a very formidable first team squad, I wouldn't mind a tiny bit if none of our youngsters ever got through. Why would I? It's not so much that I care for the young players, it's more that I see the young players as a possible solution to our problem. The only other possible solution to it is obviously to spend more, and we're not doing either of those things and that's what frustrates me.

Oh my god. All of our proposed kits look shit. If they are just mockups, good, but whoever did it should definitely do a better job, and if they're actual Adidas stuff, we better get a new sponsor because clearly they don't give a fuck. Those white lines on the home kit are just horrid, and like I said they look like they were put there by someone who didn't give a fuck. The away kit looks just comical with that oversized emblem in the bottom right corner and that caveman outfit pattern. The alternative kit doesn't look nearly as bad as the other two, probably because I'm kind of used to that weird sky blue/indigo combo, but I still don't like it. I really wish they'd keep all our kits simple. A plain blue shirt always does the trick, so why not that? For instance, Real Madrid's kits always look good because they keep things simple.

Is that from our game against them this season? Just making sure it's not one of those creepy shopped fake photos. He does look good in that shirt, but who doesn't really?

No we are not, and we shouldn't be. We are more than capable of producing first-team materials or making profit off young talents. We have great talents. It's just that we fuck things up all the time. Gokhan Tore is already looking like someone who's worth at least five times the amount Hamburg paid us for him. Same goes for Stoch. We made a total of 5 million pounds of profit off him, but you know what? I bet we'll probably have to pay about 10 to 15 million if we are to get him back from Fenerbahce. What about Borini? Could we have saved those 50 million pounds we spent on Torres had we not ignored Borini? Maybe a bit far-fetched, but at that time he was on fire, and we could have at least given him a chance. It's not a big ask for the fans to demand the club take some kind of action to make our investment in youth pay because we really can be doing better.

I don't see Cahill putting any immediate pressure on either Terry or Luiz, though he may be able to replace Terry in the future.

He seems to be offside to me. His feet are definitely on the right side but not his head. I think we never stood a chance and decided not to go for him. Unfortunate that we didn't, nonetheless.

I don't want any more new signing this winter, either. Deadline signings are usually hugely overpaid and not well thought out enough.

Well, he's going to have to work hard if he's to succeed at Chelsea. I heard he had some attitude issue at Bolton.

I know we haven't been scoring many goals recently, but I don't think we could have won that match better than we did today with that "soft" penalty (deja vu much?) and 20 minutes of frustrating (from QPR's perspective) time wasting and all that. But if we're going to do that, we should still make sure we're fully concentrated and disciplined. Luiz had a good game in general, but his discipline was shocking as usual, and I'd like to see better use of the ball from Torres as well. There's no need for him to try beat three QPR players from halfway line when the whole team is trying to sit back and comfortably see the game out.

I bet Evans and Ferdinand will love that home kit. Nice little target.

Okay, I'll pay close attention to him next couple games. Hopefully you're right although as of now I don't agree with you at all.

Hardly. Even when he's one of our better players, he's nothing more than decent. The only thing he's been doing well is working hard (probably out of desperation more than anything else). Other than that, he hasn't done much right. He can't dribble past one defender, he can't hold the ball up like Drogba and he's pretty static for the most part. If he was close to completion and only lacked finish, he would be way more prolific than he is now, as he would be able to create more chances for himself.

I know this is trivial, but just wanted to say that the Popular Tags thing looks just amazing. I literally sat spinning the thing around for five minutes.

Relieved! Think I did fairly well yesterday on my English exam, which probably was the most important exam of my life. I also just finished the application for my first-choice university, and now I can enjoy the rest of my unofficial break.

The World's best Goalkeeper of the Quarter of a Century (1987-1911) 1. Gianluigi Buffon Italia 226 2. Iker Casillas España 213 3. Edwin van der Sar Nederland 201 4. Peter Schmeichel Danmark 179 5. Oliver Kahn Deutschland 162 6. Petr Čech Česká Republika 154 7. José Luis Félix Chilavert Paraguay 146 8. Walter Zenga Italia 132 Andoni Zubizarreta España 132 10. Claudio André Mergen Taffarel Brasil 130 http://www.iffhs.de/?388d85ff8b00388f05f4cbc0385fdcdc3bfcdc0aec70aeedb88419

I keep seeing arguments about how Torres isn't used to our style of play, but I don't think that's a valid excuse at all. The team shouldn't revolve around Torres, and in fact, it's the player who needs to fit in with the rest of the team. We can't afford to change the whole team so that he can perform better. And quite frankly, even if we brought players like Gerrard, Alonso and Kuyt, he would still be shit. It's not like his ex-teammates had this powerful aura or whatever that guided Torres' shots goalward or that one of his current teammates is a practitioner of dark magic that prevents him from scoring. It's simple: Torres can't score (and plays shit in general) because he is a significantly worse player than he used to be, and I don't think he'll improve much from here.

I know nothing of him, but he must be really good since there are over 100 people reading this thread atm.

Thanks, guys.

How good is he exactly? Is he any better than Kalou or Malouda yet? If he is, we should loan those two to Genk instead. I think it'll be a win-win deal. Just kidding. No disrespect to Genk. But, seriously though, if we do get him, will it be better to loan him out or to keep him?

Gower - 5 assists, 35 chances; Mata - 7 assists, 63 chances? Swansea have one of the worse offensive records in the league, too. That's just sad.