The Skipper

They are entirely different players...

Verratti is good at all that but he doesn't have Cesc's vision. It's a trade off. For Mourinho's system in big games, Cesc definitely doesn't work in the pivot but IMO you can't blame him for that. He is the player he is.

As long as his wages aren't excessive (so around £80k) I would be okay with having him here to compete against Remy and Costa. Not expecting big things from him though.

£45m for Griezzman???

Cesc is useless in dictating the tempo in big games because we don't set up to dictate... You can't dictate the tempo if your team isn't set up to.

Back on topic, I do hope Jose/we invest into the squad quite heavily. His latest comments are scaring me a bit.

This guy is just a year younger than Eden, barely a youth player. He'll be sold. Not good enough for CFC. Hopefully he has a good year so we make some money.

That is it. In Jose's system, especially in big games, we need another power player in the pivot next to Matic. Ramires doesn't work.

Rumoured to go to either WHU or Newcastle.

When will his Ivanovic love in end? Wow.

I think it runs further than egos. Zlatan for example has a much bigger ego than KDB but he adores Jose.

How many times did we exactly line up like that in big games in the 2nd half of the season considering we had suspensions and injuries?

Brilliant.

I don't mind him as a squad player on squad wages tbh. He's still okay enough to be our 3rd choice striker. That's if he's willing to come here under that.

In what world does Traore have bad technique? Have you even seen him play at all? His technical abilities are his strengths...

Traore does not have bad technique at all...

I certainly don't think RLC is the best academy talent (my favourites are Boga and Solanke) but I don't think Ake as better technique than RLC... They're both pretty technical players but RLC has more to his game, he can drift past players and does everything Ake can as well or better (technically speaking here). You will never see Ake getting the ball past players with close control like RLC does tbh. I've never seen it in his game, whilst RLC has shown a lot of flashes. For me it's not even questionable that RLC has a higher ceiling due to his ability to make a difference on both sides of the pitch. With all respects to ja1 (who I think is a fantastic poster), I think he's undermining RLC a bit. I've seen about 20 games from him myself over the last year or so and he's shown in enough games that he definitely has the talent. What I'm happy about with RLC is that he's been given the opportunity. He's a project. He's definitely not there yet but if he applies himself in the right way he definitely has the body to become a very good player. RLC has had enough games where he's shown that he's the best player on the pitch by a mile for me.

It was me. I don't understand why you compare the two? It's like comparing Makelele to Ballack.

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11095/9864849/chelsea-loanee-bertrand-traores-nutmeg-and-fine-finish-for-vitesse Sublime goal. Very interesting talent this lad.

The crowd wasn't even small, that wasn't anywhere near the main area.

Lol. Who tweets that?

Florentino Perez does what he wants tbh. There were even rumours that he approached Jose very recently to see if he would come back. Jose said no.

Because of a destroyed dressing room. The likes of Casillas, Pepe, Ramos etc. stepping up to him.

Jose wasn't "sacked" because of his lack of trophies... Florentino Perez actually wanted to keep him. He still holds him in very high regard.