The Skipper

He's not as amazing on the ball as Varane but he isn't bad. He makes up for it by being a class defender.

On the signing itself - this kid has incredible talent. Proper gritty defender who has brilliant physical attributes, and is already capable of marking top class players out of the game with the combination of his speed, leaping ability, strength and tackling. He's very mature for his age. A born leader. JT's heir IMO if he develops the right way. Here's his performance against PSG earlier this season:

On your points before the other thread got locked: 1. Him going out on loan wouldn't be that unrealistic. He can certainly contribute as the third choice CB already but if we could get him to a good club who'll have him as a first choice I would not be surprised. Jose did hint today that that might be the case. 2. It's not that Luiz isn't trusted by Jose anymore, it's more to do with the fact that Gary Cahill has been in the form of his life so there's no justification in dropping him. It really is that simple, the player who's on form is playing. 3. I did mention that if we were to get a crazy offer for Luiz then yeah sure, it's understandable why he'd go however I don't think that's going to happen given the fact that David has stalled this season.

The fact that Jose said that he might go on loan again after pre season tells me that Luiz isn't going anywhere, like some here are trying to predict, unless we receive a ridiculous offer.

Next to Matic.

This is stupid. Media trying to derail us once again. We have connections to our manager's agent? Wow. Major shock.

Jose must be blind then right?

And then when Terry retires we'll buy another CB for £30m right?

You know there's this thing called real life outside the internet right? You know there are real people you can talk to about opinions over certain players etc.? I've been to The Emirates twice this season with my Arsenal mates, they respect my opinions and I have great debates with them as I do with other friends - with you not so much. Please stop trying to act like you're the victim here. You've come to a CFC forum acting like you know more about our players than we do. Of course you're going to get challenged on that. It's a shame because initially I thought you had fair opinions when you joined but now you're just making up strange statements and obviously trying to rile people up. It really isn't that hard to just sign out and never come back.

Mata has amazing energy? Yeah okay pal. If that's what you want to think to yourself lol.

It's not about him being unfit, he doesn't possess the lungs that Oscar does. Mata is the sort of player that reserves his energy for action in the final third - Oscar is all over the pitch. You can refuse to believe that if you want but I'm pretty sure everyone on here, you know people that have watched Mata consistently for the last two seasons, will tell you Mata isn't athletic enough to be leading the high press for 90 minutes.

Don't see how signing Zouma automatically equates to us selling Luiz for some of you...

Kroos is a different type of player to those you've mentioned.

And bingo. That's the biggest problem Mata had - he didn't have the stamina or athleticism to consistently lead the pressing game for us. He'd always tire out at around the 50/60th minute and it would greatly affect his ability in the final third because he was knackered. Oscar doesn't have that problem. Our CAM is the one who leads our initial pressing game; we have stages - our forwards press, then the pivot then the defence and our AM leads the forwards; and Mata isn't effective in that because of his lack of athleticism and lack of long enduring stamina. It's really that simple.

Yeah, either of them if they could make the step up would be fine too.

Hmm I don't know because Zouna is more similar to JT & Cahill. Personally if we did get him in I'd sell Ivanovic and get in another RB.

Lol, you're actually ridiculous if you're clamouring onto that Ashley Young solo goal as an assist for Mata.

The PL Super Bowl

Exactly what I was thinking especially regarding us using this sort of line up against City instead. It should be interesting to see how we do line up against City though.

I never said Azpi is an elite offensive player because he's not, he's pretty decent/just about above average in that aspect - I just really don't rate Ivanovic's offensive game, I find it that useless. Azpi is a better crosser, knows how to overlap better, more pace/acceleration, and just has general better attacking sense. Ivanovic is really, really poor going forward IMO. We created more because we went more offensive and brought on another striker, a goal scoring midfielder and changed into a more offensive tactic in the 2nd half. In the first half however we barely did create anything, which was due to the way we started the game, which was my main gripe with us not creating enough - I meant us not creating enough clear chances in the first half, and decisions like starting Mikel and Ivanovic attributed to that IMO.

He can do that when his finish becomes consistent. He's not there yet IMO in regards with his finishing.

It's about weighing the pros and cons though. West Ham had 1 shot in the whole game, I doubt we needed Ivanovic's aerial presence. Azpi is more than decent defensively at RB and is obviously far greater offensively. I never said that we didn't win because purely Ivanovic started at RB. We would've had a greater chance to create more if he didn't though. He was one of the factors especially on why we didn't create enough clear cut chances, in combination with a too defensive pivot, and poor finishing. Him having a horrible game didn't help either.

Against teams like West Ham we need to start more positive because they will sit back and park the bus. No idea why Mikel and Ivanovic started, we needed Azpi and Cole at fb today to help break down the opponent. Also an ideal game for Lampard who has a phenomenal record against West Ham. We played pretty well, obviously couldn't finish but the result means we have to go at the Etihad and at least nick a point.

No he isn't. The only similarity both share is that they're both pretty laboured in their movements. Like you said, Kroos is more of an 8 or 10 whilst Matic is more of a 6.