The Skipper

The depth in our squad means I'm not worried whatsoever about these three missing out. Would never have been able to say the same if we were in a similar situation last season. Mata's not playing? That's okay, we have Oscar/De Bruyne/Hazard/Schurrle/Moses. No Azpilicueta? Cool, we have Ivanovic/Kalas who can easily slot in. No Torres (lol)? It's okay, we have Lukaku and Ba coming in. Even Rooney potentially. Squad depth really is a wonderful thing. My starting line up vs Hull, providing everyone stays injury free: Cech Ivanovic - Luiz - Terry - Cole Mikel - Ramires Oscar - De Bruyne - Hazard Lukaku

As I've previously stated, I would like to keep Ba because he offers something different to Lukaku and Torres (not that Lukaku can't learn to be a target man like Ba but for the mean time he's the only proper target man we have). The club should be looking to sell Fernando before selling Ba if we do get Rooney. Ba's on low wages and is the ideal squad player. A Rooney/Lukaku/Ba strike force offers versatility and tactical flexibility. Almost as good as City's strike force - would probably be the second best in the league.

Wilshere is the only English player apart from Rooney and maybe Shaw that I would actually want here. He's a phenomenal player but he's been ravaged by injury recently so people have obviously forgotten how good he is. Josh is definitely the better passer + better vision but Wilshere just owns Josh in everything else.

Good enough for what? When Ba was signed, no one thought of him as our first choice striker. He's a very good 2nd/3rd choice striker though, better than most in the league.

I respect him for playing and training in the humid heat whilst fasting. That requires huge mental strength.

He definitely did, right before he said what you posted. If you look before in the thread I posted that he was sort of contradicting himself.

We weren't outbid we just didn't want to pay the unjustified prices that was being quoted for them. Simple. It wasn't value for money. If we really wanted and if we really thought Falcao + Cavani were worth £50m+ we would've signed them.

Are you basing this off 2 pre season performances or? Before his injury last season, Hazard was Chelsea's in form player. In the 2nd half of the season he was better than Mata. This is a ridiculous thing to say. Can't believe people genuinely wouldn't start Hazard because of two meaningless games. Absolutely shocking.

Fully believe in that. I think when it comes to link up play, Torres is probably the poorest supposed number 1 striker out of the top 7 clubs in the league at that. The amount of times he loses the ball if the defender is a bit physical is baffling.

I don't know, he seems to be contradicting himself as he then went on to say that bridges between United and Rooney are still burnt. He also said United won't let Rooney go until they complete two big money signings. I think what he is implying is that this saga could well continue on into mid/late August.

If they sign Suarez, they still won't be title contenders. Apart from Suarez and maybe a fit Wilshere, they still won't have a player that would actually improve our starting XI. You're ridiculously overrating Arsenal. Arsenal need a good 3/4/5 signings to be title contenders.

According to some guy on SSN earlier Wayne Rooney is training hard and wants to be fit and ready to play in Manchester United's friendly on August 6th.

I wish people would stop using the link up play argument with Torres. It's improved a bit but it's still very poor for a striker of his supposed calibre. It's not any better than Lukaku's.

Thanks for that mate. I've watched it already now though .

LOL yeah 90 minutes of pre season and he's suddenly "rather shit". Absolutely shocking how people can deduce something like that after two meaningless games. Like I said before about so many things, I'd rather take Jose's and Emelano's judgement over yours.

We don't have to accept that yet at all especially when the club is so publicly after Rooney and even if Rooney didn't arrive I'd have Lukaku starting over Torres.

If we don't sign another midfielder this summer then Jose is trust Marco a lot, and I'm fine with that. Like I said when we signed him before, a lot of you will be surprised by his maturity on the pitch. If Mourinho has faith in him instead of signing a De Rossi for example then I'm okay with it.

Chadli will play on the left and Bale will play behind the striker or on the right cutting in.

You're completely forgetting the fact that Arsenal didn't have anywhere near the amount of games we had last season. We had so many mid week games whilst because they also dropped out of a handful of competitions very early they could prepare for matches a lot better than we did. The fact that they still couldn't finish above us is very poor given the circumstances. Yeah our first team XI hasn't really been added to but you're also forgetting that whilst we've made additions in Lukaku, De Bruyne, Van Ginkel, Schurrle and Schwarzer, even Essien and potentially Chalobah, whilst also getting Mourinho back which will make a huge difference, the only player Arsenal has signed so far is an u20 French striker. Our squad is so much better compared to last season. Your view is very naive if you think we'll struggle to get top 4 like last season IMO. We're in a far better position than Arsenal right now.

I'm sure we did it with Piazon?

Even if that was the case, that's what pre contracts are for; so that when he does turn 18 it comes into effect. He's effectively a CFC player already.

I'd take Mourinho's own words over reliable twitter sources tbh.You do realise players can be signed without a work permit right? They're just not allowed to play official competitive games.

Well I've seen Marco play quite a few Eredivisie games and I can tell you right now you're being ridiculous if you want to judge his passing, which wasn't even very bad to begin with, on two meaningless pre season games. He's a good passer.

McEachran has always been a brilliant passer, don't know why people are surprised or anything. It's the other aspects on his game he needs to desperately work on and that's why MVG > McEachran because Marco is far more rounded and ready for first team action. Nice little cameo from Josh though.

Mourinho on Traore: 'We have to wait until he's 18 to try to get the permit for him to stay in England. If not we'll have to loan him out.' 'If he goes on loan then he has to go but if he's playing for his country then he'll get his permit, so no dramas with it.' We can't send him out on loan if he isn't a Chelsea player.