The Skipper

Pretty sure that squad is provisional.

Goal yesterday:

He's not... He's more in the mould of Ivanovic. A CB that can play the RB position pretty well. Not the Luke Shaw of RBs at all.

Alex Ferguson has completely mismanaged Phil Jones, moving him all across the pitch when he should've let him develop at CB. He could've been a top CB by now but as I said before he's been mismanaged. I wouldn't put him in the same boat as Smalling or Cleverley at all, far more talented than both put together I think. We don't need a CB right now so this would not really be a good transfer but I still think he's a very good player with a high ceiling.

There is a time where one must look past sentiment though, and Frank's time has come. Definitely our greatest ever player but if it came between signing Ash and Frank I'd go for the former because he'd still be a pretty useful player in the squad - not sure we can say the same about Frank sadly.

Yes, I didn't mean that either - I know that it's more about the system that's implemented. That post was in mere reference to the people getting misled by the chances created stat, one of the most bogus stats out there because people think chances created = creativity.

That's why the Torres transfer worked out so well right? Oh.

He barely plays any games and Barcelona aren't really using him properly. Essien analogy isn't really relevant because the main thing that ruined Essien was his injuries. At £10m/£15m he would be a great buy. Don't forget he's HG too.

Cavani plays out wide though. Nevertheless, very well done Salomon.

It starts from the grass roots level. If there's one thing that I've noticed during my time here in the UK it's that the coaching levels in general are quite poor/average compared to other countries.

Now that's a trade I could really get behind. Sanchez and Song would be a great swap deal. Much better than the Mandzukic deal.

How many times did you watch em, like once or twice? It's hard to miss on a guy that scores 30+ goals for his team... And he hasn't been a one season wonder either, you just have to look at his stats the season before (where he played out wide or behind Falcao most of the time) and he still grabbed 20 goals.

Rakitic won't go for 40m.

If we do sign him and Costa Lukaku's CFC career is over IMO... Can't see him staying on as the number 3 striker. I understand they're different sort of players but I'd rather keep Lukaku than get Mandzukic.

Complement both!

Don't even know why you wasted your time pal, he was not worth this at all.

We should've just got him last summer tbh. He'll be expensive, especially with free spending United in the market for him.

That's the sort of player I thought he was. Was surprised to see him being called a DLP but I haven't seen enough of him to disagree so...

I'm guessing you've gone off Paulinho being a great signing now then?

Isn't Nainggolan more in the mould of Ramires/Paulinho than Rakitic?

Not a bad shout. Fits the profile of what we need. Whether he's ready to be the number 1 midfielder at CFC alongside Matic though? I'm not very sure. If Holland are going to get anywhere this WC though he's going to need to put in some huge performances, especially now Strootman's out.

I've seen him play a few times now, which started after January when KdB went to Wolfsburg (when I was more skeptical about him because I never really heard about him before), mainly to follow KdB's progress a little, and I must say he's very good. Just seen on WhoScored that he's actually the 5th highest rated player in Europe at the moment, only behind Messi, Suarez, Ronaldo and Ribery. That in itself is amazing.

We can easily overlook that technicality because you and I both know there is no way Matic would be the player he is today had we kept him around. Matic now is a completely different entity to the Matic we signed back in 2009. Benfica did us a massive favour in fact - not only in developing him as a player but also in selling him back to us at a very, very decent price. Happy to have a fair debate about Luiz on here with you though, some seem to be incapable of that.

He's better than Moreno because he's a lot more defensively solid than him, also has a bigger frame. He's very good going forward as well and has a great set piece delivery on him - Moreno is probably slightly better than him in terms of attacking but Rodriguez is far better rounded. He had a great season as well, was probably one of the best players in the Bundesliga in general - 5 goals and 9 assists from LB is crazy. I think WhoScored has him rated as 5th best player in Europe after Messi, Ronaldo, Suarez & Ribery. Rodriguez would probably be a bit more expensive than Moreno though, however if we could get one of the two I would go for RR.

Luiz has not been a bad player for us though (i.e. Torres bad - that is a truly disastrous signing) - if he was his value would've obviously gone down. I wouldn't say the Luiz transfer has been a major success but to say it's been a bad signing is simply wrong in my opinion, simply because he has not depreciated in value. I fully agree that consistency was Luiz's biggest problem, never will I deny that - but the fact that he finished the season strongly for us last year and then went on to also have a very good Confederations Cup tournament had many on here hoping that this season would be the season where he truly broke out as a top CB. Obviously because of various reasons - i.e. not having a pre season, being injured when he came back, form issues and JT + Cahill being very solid throughout the year which justifiably meant he didn't get an extended look in when Jose did make the team defensively more solid - that didn't happen, but that's football, not everything goes perfectly to plan so I'm not complaining about that in the slightest. If we sell him it's good business for the club, if not, we keep him - he's still a very good squad player to have around and can still produce excellent performances for us. He might even get another run in at CB - who knows. Either way, it's not the end of the world if we sell, nor is it the end of the world if we keep him.