The Skipper

Poor but match winning. That's okay at this stage of the season.

This is such a fantastic thread, IMO it should be in the MH forum.

DDG Clyne - Koscielny - Terry - Bertrand Matic - Schneiderlin Sanchez - Fabregas - Hazard Kane

How much more money does he want? He was paid handsomely here.

It was obviously an Audi commercial anyway...

If all reach their potential, a front 6 of the following would be brilliant: Solanke (Hazard) - Musonda - Boga RLC - (Matic)

In the Hazard thread, where people are discussing the morality of using a condom. Brilliant, TC.

Mikel and Oscar do compare quite a bit... Contrary to what you're saying, any one that knows anything about football would know they have actually had a similar pattern in their development. (Not a dig at you Joker, more so at SMDPSG). I'll detail how they do below. Mikel was once considered a world class talent, believe it or not. He led his Nigeria to the finals of the U20 World Cup in 2005 where they lost to Argentina. He finished behind only a certain Lionel Messi in the Golden Ball award. He was seen as a huge talent from then onwards. Oscar is another player that shone massively in the U20 World Cup, hence why he was so heralded - he did after all score a hat trick in the 2011 final in which Brazil won. Both were considered massive talents at a very young age. Don't forget that Mikel scrapped a massive, controversial transfer saga between us and Manchester United. Surely, if he wasn't considered such a huge talent at the time he wouldn't have caused the above. I'm pretty sure you are well aware of the details of Mikel's transfer to us. Huge things were expected from him, he was seen as a potential world class midfielder. Oscar similarly had a lot of clubs after him after his showings in the 2011 U20 World Cup. Both came at the club as massive talents and were seen as players that had the potential to be world class midfielders. As we all know, Mikel did not develop as well as we wanted to - various reasons for that i.e. him having his position changed from originally being a number 10 to a number 6-like anchor man, him not developing into a star at all etc... While IMO Mikel is not a bad player, he certainly isn't good enough to be a starter for us. Very solid squad player IMO though. I can easily see the same happening to Oscar. It's scary how his best game IMO for us was his Champions League debut three seasons ago. He hasn't developed as well as he should have despite having an ample amount of game time (just like Mikel) and he definitely hasn't shown enough over the last three seasons that he is good enough to be a nailed on starter in his position and one of the best in his position in the world either. I used to be a massive Oscar supporter, until after a few months ago, you can check my posts. I have run out of patience with him though. If you believe that Oscar still has the potential to be one of the best number 10s in the world then fair enough but I've seen that that ship has sailed a long time ago. I didn't want to bring Eden into it but one thing I will always remember is how some said that Oscar will be a better player than Eden. That's how highly he was rated. Now anyone would laugh if you suggested the same. Unfortunately, he just isn't a special player like that. As I've said many times before, he'd be a pretty good squad player and he isn't useless but we can definitely do better. Luckily for us, Oscar has a pretty high market value it seems, so I definitely wouldn't hesitate to sell if a nice offer came in.

Please, you really can't compare Sturridge to Oscar. Sturridge didn't have 3 seasons here to develop, where he was a regular starter in his best position, like Oscar did. If he did, I'm very certain he'd still be a CFC player. It really isn't the same at all. Oscar has been given ample opportunity to develop, whilst Sturridge wasn't at all. If anything, Oscar's development seems quite similar to that of Mikel's. It certainly seems to be heading that way.

If Villa go down, Benteke is an easy, must signing for me. Perfect replacement for Drogba. Imagine having to choose from Costa, Remy and Benteke. That would be excellent.

Patrick is really, really good but no ready for Chelsea yet. Should go develop else where because he won't get game time here.

First and foremost, your stats are wrong. Neymar has only had 15 assists over the last two seasons with Barcelona, whilst Eden had 19 over the last two season with Chelsea; so you using your 'assist stats' only argument is completely debunked (it was very weak to begin with IMO). There's no way you're telling me that Hazard is less of a playmaker than Neymar, it's not even arguable IMO. If you wanted a creator in your team you wouldn't pick Neymar over Hazard. Neymar is a goal scorer. Hazard is a creator. Hazard creates a lot more than Neymar, not even arguable. You don't even need stats to prove that, just watch both play - but since you love your stats it seems, I'll just quickly look at a few. Neymar is the least creative Barcelona forward this season, averaging 1.3 key passes per game in La Liga, compared to Messi and Suarez who average 2.5 and 2.2 respectively. Hazard on the other hand averages 2.9 key passes per game in the PL. It really isn't arguable who's the better creator, sorry. (This is without going into the fact that Hazard had to feed the likes of Torres, whilst Neymar plays with Messi and now Suarez). Neymar is very impressive for his country but international football doesn't mean much to me at all when comparing players so sorry. Yeah, sure, Neymar has bulked up a bit this season but he isn't touching Hazard physically. Neymar might be a bit faster over the lateral but Hazard is definitely more explosive, more imposing physically and as I said before, Neymar can only dream of the balance Hazard has. Can you imagine Neymar trying to track back and putting in a defensive shift like Hazard does? Nope, me neither. Sorry, for me Hazard is the better player, and you're not going to convince me otherwise because I've watched a lot of Neymar so I know exactly what he's about.

Similarly I can say Hazard probably has the ability to be a more clinical goal scorer but he doesn't have the mentality for it...

Sorry chaps, fully disagree. I've never rated Neymar higher than Hazard, and I've extensively followed both since their Santos and Lille days. It's very close but IMO if you take away both of their goal scoring traits, Hazard would easily remain as the better player. He has greater playmaking ability, better dribbler, physically he's better as well, Neymar can only dream about having Hazard's balance. I really don't care about Neymar's stats for his country either.

The only thing Neymar is easily better in is goal scoring. Everything else, Hazard trumps him.

I've said it before... He's made two mistakes - one which he massively redeemed himself for in the same game - you're being awfully ridiculous if you want to see him dropped for basically one bad performance.

Perfect 5 a side team.

Not if we beat Arsenal and United. If we beat those two it's pretty much a wrap.

So do we (basically) win the title if we beat United and Arsenal?

No Jase. Similar would mean we're dropping a lot of points ourselves right now but we're not.

We did everything right with Oriol... Not our fault he got injured all the time.

Why? I saw enough of Cuadrado before Chelsea to make a conceited comparison between him and Willian...

Not really, no. We're not as slick as the start of the season but we're still getting results. Arsenal weren't.

I sincerely hope Oscar doesn't do his best impression of Torres at the end of the season because that would be tragic.

What's wrong with rating Willian higher than Cuadrado? Especially when you already thought so before we even signed him? Nothing too presumptuous about his opinion IMO, I think the same, hence why I didn't even want us to sign Cuadrado...He's here now however and I do believe he needs a lot of time to adapt to the PL before we see the best of him.