The Skipper

He won't go United if he has a brain.

I'm still quite intrigued about why you think Falcao would be a better fit than a Lewandowski or a Cavani. He doesn't offer nearly as much as those two do outside the box. Falcao is the ultimate poacher whilst Lewandowski or Cavani can bring in the likes of Mata, Hazard, Oscar, Moses etc. into goal scoring positions and thus making our team a lot more dangerous.

It is quite hilarious how anyone can criticise a player for wanting to play for their country. Did you criticise Drogba and Essien for it too?

If you go back a few pages in this thread, the general consensus was that Piazon is overrated. Now everyone suddenly believes in him after one good cameo. Wow.

Does anyone really think Ba will sign up to be 3rd choice striker?

Now he would be an excellent signing.

I wasn't necessarily saying Luiz should be out Yaya, was just pointing out similarities in their roles. I agree with your point that he should pick his moments on when to attack, but I don't think Luiz has done too badly when it comes to picking out the right moments due to the nature of our opposition. I'm sure if we face more worthy opposition Luiz will naturally tone it down, and I'm sure Benitez will remind him of that.

I really rate Pato too, but to say he'd be "much better than Cavani" if he stayed fit is a bit of an over exaggeration.

Love how we're talking about the Australian Rugby League in the Kylian Azaar thread.

Of course both players in the pivot have the responsibility of defending but from what we've seen about the 4-2-3-1 there is always that one player in the -2- that has more freedom and a larger attacking responsibility. When Luiz and Mikel play together, naturally that's going to be Luiz as he offers more going forward. I've seen a few on here suggest that Luiz should replace Mikel as our primary (holding) DM in the pivot based on his recent performances in the pivot but he's plays a completely different role to Mikel. As @Leif just mentioned above, Luiz is doing a similar job as what Yaya Toure does for City. You can see Yaya at either ends of the pitch but that doesn't mean he's neglecting his defensive responsibility - he's just been given the freedom and is probably encouraged by Mancini to join in on the attacking phase of play. I suspect it's the same with Luiz. Essentially, Mikel could be our Barry, and Luiz our Toure. Your Lampard analogy is quite relevant but do remember that we did set up a defensive 4-2-3-1, not an expansive one as we see today. In an expansive style of football - there will always be gaps for the opposition to exploit. It's not so much about making sure that everyone is perfectly in position... That's what you do when you're a defensive minded team. What CFC needs to learn is how to defend with the ball. It's our biggest flaw IMO.

We have Luiz as a B2B and Mikel holding.

I'm pretty sure SFL would take a wage cut to stay at the club.

Luiz isn't playing as a DM. Just because he's in the pivot doesn't mean he's automatically qualified as a DM. To me he's being played as a B2B CM - he's always seen on either side of the pitch - whilst Mikel sits deep and allows Luiz the freedom to do that.

You've got some absolute idiotic logic going on there. Just because I said I'm happy Sturridge's moving for his sake doesn't mean I'm going to jump ship. I've supported CFC a long time before Sturridge. I've probably been to more CFC games than you. There's no "wankfest" at all either, I rate Sturridge as a player and all I asked was that he was given a proper chance. Didn't know that that qualified as a wankfest. There's no need to get bitchy because someone has a different opinion to you. Grow up.

I think otherwise. He's still got 3 years left at the top in my opinion.

Plenty of better CBs out there. AW is pretty average one that has good games now and then.

Nope, not mad at all, actually happy for Danny. Hope his career kicks on now. You don't "win" nothing, you can't justify your weird logic as to why you think keeping Sturridge was hampering our chances to get Falcao.

Firstly, Collymore is a terrible pundit. Secondly, he hasn't been "demanding" anything. Again a figment of your imagination. Find me an article where it says he needs to play as a striker or he'll leave or sabotage the club.

Yeah, because he's played so many times and has been so crap! Because he was definitely taking up a valuable space as our number one striker! Because its all his fault we haven't got a "real" striker at the club! /sarcasm.

So, if you've played as a striker for your whole life, and suddenly got played out wide, wouldn't you be a little bit annoyed? Also, Wilkins might have said whatever, but did he ever say Sturridge was arrogant about it? Prove that to me. It's imaginary in your head, the media have passively put it in your head.

I don't exactly get why some people are so satisfied that Sturridge is leaving? Yes, perhaps he wasn't a world class player but the certain notion that he was an "arrogant, cocky player who demanded to play up front" is ridiculous. He is a decent young player with bags of ability as he showed last season where he was our top goal scorer in the league despite 1) playing out wide and 2) sporadically playing in the second half of the season. This false imaginary thought that he isn't good enough to play up front (even though he's never in a CFC first team shirt had a prolonged time as a CF) is ridiculous. Everyone seems to forget that for his whole life he's played up front, through his youth playing days all the way up to when he first broke through at City. Of course he's going to have a preference of playing up front. Fact is, over his career, whenever he's played up front he's produced. It's not that people want him as our main striker (don't even know why anyone would think that) it's just about the fact that people want to see him been given a chance up front for a prolonged period! (That doesn't mean 2 starts and 10 minutes here and there at the end of a game). Fact remains that Sturridge never had a chance at CFC, and that's why certain people are sad, because he was a good player with a lot of potential. I'm happy for Danny, as I think he'll finally have a platform to produce at at Liverpool. £12m is a decent deal for both sides. Hopefully he won't come back to haunt us.

I know I know, but you shouldn't read much into what the bookies say. The bookies know as much as we do.

If the Italian league had as much exposure as the La Liga, people would be crying for Cavani. He is currently on 22 goals after 20 games after all. Monster. As prolific as Falcao over the last 2 and a half seasons but offers more to the team in my humble opinion.

Thank God.

Exactly. Shame Mikel isn't playing.