The Skipper

Here comes Kojo with his monthly "the quality of the forum has deteriorated" post. There is nothing wrong with what he said; if Newcastle do beat us (which is possible because anything in football can happen) you can't say we don't deserve to be title contenders.

3 games?

Jupp and Ribery for me.

Cech Iva - Luiz - JT - Cole Ramires - Lampard Willian - Oscar - Hazard Torres Strong cases for Mikel & Mata to start as well. Headache for Mourinho.

Nah, JT was better. Carvalho was the flashier one out of the two but JT makes anyone that plays with him a better player.

Just because Mandzukic hasn't started recently doesn't mean Bayern are adopting a false 9 approach... There is also this thing called being a deep lying forward which Mandzukic is more suited at.

They should both be starting or on the verge of IMO, especially Fernandinho. They should definitely be in the squad already. This *could've* been Brazil's team: Costa Neymar - Oscar - Lucas Fernandinho - Ramires Marcelo Luiz Silva Alves Cesar With the likes of Willian, Hulk, Dante, Paulinho etc. on the bench to switch it about... It's very solid.

Ramires - Alonso pivot would actually be fantastic. Alonso's lack of legs can be countered by Ramires, or if we wanted to keep it tight and solid perhaps a midfield 3 of Alonso - Mikel - Ramires would also suffice... Would be a great short term signing.

He wasn't even that bad, just an average performance. Needs to do a lot more if he wants to break into the first team though. Right now, Schurrle, Willian, Mata, Oscar & Hazard are quite far ahead of him.

The perfect CB to partner him long term in the PL would probably be Kompany. A Kompany - Luiz partnership would be insane. Shame it would probably never happen though. Funny thing is that we could've signed Vincent before he signed for City...

Really stupid.

Heard he had a great game. Keep it up Ryan.

Because we aren't just going to need one striker...

Would love him. Forget his attitude player, he can sort that out, his talent is there for anyone to see. As I said before I'd love a strikeforce of Balotelli, Lukaku & Torres next year.

José Mourinho: "David Luiz has all what it takes to become a top player and one of the greatest defenders. He needs maturity and stability."

Still a very, very talented player. He's maturing at Milan, and he's becoming the leader of that team. Loved him at City, would love him even more here.

Still love Mario. I would take that.Sell Ba in the summer, don't renew Eto'o's contract... A strikeforce of Balotelli - Lukaku - Torres is fantastic.

Guys on bluemoon are actually deluded - apparently they "dominated" the game and "played us off the park". What ridiculous statements. They played a lot better in the 2nd half but we were obviously the better team in the first half by quite a distance. Could've easily been game over by half time.

Realistically, our second team should definitely be able to do the job over a second string Arsenal. Arsenal have Liverpool over the weekend, and definitely won't be fielding their strongest team, so I feel we should take this opportunity to rest players as well. My team would be: Schwarzer Azpilicueta Cahill Luiz Bertrand Essien Mikel KDB Mata Willian Ba That team should definitely be able to do the job over a second string Arsenal. Maybe the likes of Omeruo, Kalas, Baker etc. can get some game time too, we'll see. I'm optimistically expecting a win though. Should be a good game, and if we do win we'll have that slight psychological boost over the Gunners. Really looking forward to this game.

In what way do you think Cahill is a better CB? List them please? (apart from odd concentration problems)

LOL what the hell?

Amazing mate. Keep it up.

Fantastic today. Please keep it up for the rest of the season Fernando.

In the 2nd half we lost control and City were all over us in midfield until Mikel was brought on to stabilise the ship a bit.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. What a player. Just imagine what he'll do when he has a WC partner with him in the pivot.