The Skipper

Well "rubbish" is a bit of a hyperbole but still my point stands. For example some were saying PvA is now a better LB than him... He's a good player that hasn't been giving a proper run in at LB which has caused a lot of people to call him below average and overrated. He might not become as good as Ashley but I don't think we can conclude that fully based on his sparse appearances at LB this season. Shaw signing makes sense as Cole could be leaving in the future but that doesn't mean that Ryan can't be useful or doesn't have the potential to be more than an average player for us.

Don't know why people still bother with Rupert. Anyone who thinks "Torres is clearly better than Ba" is clearly on something. Could you please share some of the stuff you're on mate?

Looking forward to see Bertrand given a consistent run in at left back. I think he'll prove the ones that say he's rubbish and that we should sell him etc.

Yeah, you notice that whenever this thread is quiet Luiz is doing well. It will only take one bad game for people to call him useless/brainless/headless & for the calls to sell him ASAP to return. Like it or not, Luiz has been one of our better, consistent players this season.

Fixed for you. I'm in the pro-Mikel camp but Mikel's overall performances aren't that consistent IMO - regardless, I still think he's a key player in our squad. If he's surrounded by the right players Mikel is excellent. If not then he struggles.

Okay, I'm going to post on what I think should be our essential signings for next season. Most importantly we need to get in a new manager. Hopefully that'll be Mourinho. Next, I'd be looking to get in a decent homegrown 2nd choice goalkeeper since Turnbull and Hilario's contracts run out this summer if I remember correctly. Begovic (if he would be interested in being the 2nd choice goalkeeper at CFC) would be an excellent option as he's homegrown and a very good goalkeeper. Hopefully promote Blackman as our 3rd choice goalkeeper too. I'd then probably look at getting in a deep lying playmaker - hopefully Mourinho brings along Modric with him if Real will sell him for a decent price. Maybe another holding midfield player - someone like Schneiderlin from Southampton maybe? Or maybe just promote someone like Chalobah as well instead. Up next, I'd look at bringing in a good winger. I don't want another AM, we're stacked there. I'd rather us bring in a player that can be a direct threat out wide. We don't have enough of those. I don't really know who is available to bring in though, but someone in the ilk of Di Maria would be perfect. Those are the bare minimum I think we definitely need for next season. I know that I've left out a striker but that depends on our Lukaku situation really. Will Torres leave? Will the next manager put his faith in Lukaku? We don't know yet. If the next manager decides we need another striker then fair enough, but the main objective of this post was to make clear what I think are the bare minimum we need for our squad next season. IMO we need to make at at least 3 to 4 signings next season, anything less than that will be disastrous.

Casually watching 300 at 4 in the morning even though I have work at 11.30.

I think I lost a couple of brain cells after going through the last couple of pages...

You can't have two aggressors in at CB IMO, it needs to be one who comes out and intercepts the ball and one who sits deep, who's excellent at reading the game + sniffing out danger.

Luiz and Terry in at CB with Cole, Ramires, Mata and Ba coming back in hopefully.

@ja1 has also been excellent. Usually overlooked.

It'll be very interesting to see what happens with this. Really hope it doesn't blow over into something ridiculous but it can happen. It's human nature - deep down everyone is has a barbaric trait to them. Hopefully wisdom will curtail that though. The ball is in N. Korea's court IMO, if they make any sort of move then it'll be a disaster.

Pep is literally walking into another trophy laden job. I'd like to see him take up a bit of a challenge for once. It's why I rate Mourinho above him as a manager.

I wouldn't build my team around a holding midfield player. What you do need though is to provide pillars for players you want to build your team around (in our case Mata, Hazard and Oscar) and in my opinion Mikel can be that. Whenever we play Mikel with the three aforementioned all three seem to have a bit more freedom in their play simply because they know they've got a good holding midfield player behind them as a platform.

How so? Barely anyone on here rate him anyway.

I've said this from the beginning of the season, our best CB partnership (by far IMO) is Luiz and Terry - they compliment each other well. IMO we would've had a far sturdier defence had both been fit for the majority of the season and paired for the majority of the season. Only defenders that can come out and say they've had a decent and quite consistent season this year IMO are Luiz and Azpilicueta (and maybe A. Cole to a certain extent) which is a big reason as to why we've been bad defensively this season. I can't really blame them though, I think individually we have one of the best defensive set in the PL but the team's defensive cohesion this season hasn't been good enough (that's from attack to midfield to defence). Whoever's our coach next season will have a serious look into that hopefully.

Likewise, just saying. Never said you did. I was talking about the general consensus.

Which is fair enough. He's definitely good enough to be a squad player for us - Shaw and Bertrand in a couple of years after Ashley retires sounds good to me. What I don't like though is how people call him useless - he's not. I think defensively this year CFC have been poor - that's not due to our individual talent but more due to the fact that we have never had a consistent back four this season. Bertrand has also only played a handful of games at full back this season - I feel most people are writing him off based on his performances out wide, which I think is unfair.

Yeah he had a poor game today, but if you read the comments here it's like the loss is his fault. The whole team was subpar today, that's fact. I'm not really looking into this performance as an indicator to anyone's overall ability simply because it's a one off game where we played a second string side (who aren't good enough overall to begin with). I think there's a general overreaction concerning today's result - it's like people expected us to comprehensively beat Southampton with the team we put out - I already knew it was going to be very difficult to do that when the XI was read out. IMO people are just using this game to bash players and fuel previous agenda's they had on them. If we started Hazard, Mata, Ramires, Luiz & Ba today it would've been a completely different game and everyone knows that. It's the gulf of quality between our first team and second team that needs fixing, and you can't really blame our squad players for that I think.

He had a poor game again today but he's not helped by the fact that we never keep a consistent back four. It's like building a wall and then destroying it over and over again. I feel that at any top club you need to have a consistent defence, especially a CB partnership. Benitez hasn't done that at all this season and that's one of the main reasons why our defence has looked so clueless at times this season; there is no chemistry anymore.

@.

Stop over exaggerating Henrique.

Those who think that Jose will make the likes of Lampard, Terry, Cole etc. untouchables again just because of his previous tenure here look no further than Ricardo Carvalho's current situation at Real Madrid. Jose isn't stupid.

Sorry, that is not a valid reason to write anyone off. Especially when that person is 17. He's come leaps and bound this year and has clearly been one of our standout players if not the standout player this season in the NextGen Series. Also how you think because Boga and RLC are technically better (which again is very arguable, Baker is excellent technically, especially his passing and shooting) that they stand a better chance of making it is quite laughable IMO. You only have to look at our own Kakuta to see that football isn't all about how good your technical skills are. Baker seems to have the mentality, leadership traits, more than decent technical attributes and physical attributes to make it as a top player if he keeps progressing the way he is at this very moment. Captain of his team & 14 goals in 29 games is no joke, especially from midfield. He's the one that drives the team when they're down, he's done that time and time again in the NextGen tournament.

Hoping to see the likes of Ake & Blackman coming back on monday and hopefully Nditi's ankle will be okay for monday too, hopefully see him back at left back. We can win this. It'll be difficult to swallow if we lost considering we beat Arsenal, Juventus and Barcelona on the way. Villa's got decent talents but they aren't on par with the aforementioned.