The Skipper

Match fitness is not the same as adapting to the league as said above. You're completely overstating the difference.

No, of course I don't watch football. Match fitness doesn't exactly relate to leagues like that. You're talking as if fitness in the Russian PL is equivalent to the Conference or something... Anzhi regularly participate in Europe, are a very big club in Russia and have good training facilities with a very serious manager in Guus Hiddink. How anyone can say he isn't going to be "PL match fit" (whatever that means) because he's spent two years at Anzhi is really mind boggling. It really isn't as drastic as you're trying to make it seem.

Being comfortable on both wings does not mean you're two footed.

Lol, this is ridiculous.

He's not bad with his left but I wouldn't call him two footed.

wow.

They've already played 4 or 5 games for Anzhi so they're more than sharp enough.

How soon is soon? Do you really think Liverpool will be challenging for the title any time soon?

He's not a teenager.

They aren't exactly our direct rivals.

If anything, just the fact that Mikel has come off the bench ahead of Essien should tell you Mikel would start ahead of him. On topic, regarding Oscar in the pivot... I'm not too sure now if it wouldn't take away from his game. Will be interesting to see how he develops this season.

Honestly, our team is far more scarier. You shouldn't be worried at all. I'd only be worried if I was an Arsenal fan.

Ridiculous. He took a massive wage cut and signed on for just a year. He really isn't thinking about the money. He's obviously challenging himself too.

Barbara, pace is how fast a player is, acceleration is how quick that player gets to his top speed.

Not true. Some criticised Mourinho's tactics/team selection/subs against United and basically got told their opinions were irrelevant.

...So just because he scored I should overlook how I felt about his overall performance? Give him a break? It's not like I said he was terrible, I actually said he was decent today. Calm down.

That's why I said "sort of" cos I don't agree with that - I even said in the post that Mourinho played it exactly how it should've been played because we're not ready yet. For further clarification, I was agreeing with him with the fact that we do have the players to challenge Bayern for control but that they aren't ready to do so yet.

I'm not disagreeing with you. I said:

Scrumptious finish for his goal, must be said. Was pretty decent today but still very frustrating at times.

I sort of agree with Sam in a sense that we do now have the talent now to really challenge the likes of Bayern for control of the game and stuff but we aren't there yet. The team is still young, and still quite inexperienced and haven't fully gelled yet. I think Mourinho played it well today with respect to this. It will take time for us to get to that level.

Kakuta does not have the same mentality as Lukaku though.

'His [Cech's] performance spoke for itself, the same for Manuel Neuer,' said the Bayern manager. 'Both goalkeepers were exceptional. In the last minutes Cech made two or three unbelievable saves and we were lucky at the end when Martinez scored.' Pep Guardiola.

And to think people didn't think this guy was future captain material because he likes to joke a bit... For me he has to be the next captain.

What I meant to say is that I want to see him playing at least this good for the rest of the season. This should be an average Hazard performance. Agreed that he could take some things away from Ribery's game though.

I want to see him playing like this for the rest of the season.