The Skipper

What? Christensen was nowhere near ready for first team football when he was loaned out. No one knew he'd develop this well at BMG.

You think Romagnoli is in the same league as Papy?

Because Zidane said so? Even AS who were claiming before that he wasn't on the move are now buying into the rumours.

That's certainly true. Even Ronaldo wept when Mesut left. Wasn't disputing otherwise!

60m euros is about £52m. Only £10m more than Ozil who went in a much more stable market. Madrid's cast offs include players like Mesut, Di Maria, Robben, Makelele as mentioned before. I'd gladly take any of them (at the age they left) in my team.

Almost forgot about Mesut. Edited the above post to reflect that. Then you also have Di Maria. It's ridiculous. Please make it happen CFC.

United and City are quite embarrassing tbh. For that amount of money you'd expect them to be amongst Real, Bayern and Barcelona quality wise but they're still just a level below. Also, consider that before this summer our net spent was closer to around €100m. Pretty impressive tbh.

Real Madrid always have great players they're willing to let go. Think Ozil, Di Maria, Robben, Sneijder, Higuain, Makelele... the list is endless. Could James be part of that list?

I don't know, it depends. If Conte brings in James, I don't think he'd play in a midfield 3 over Fabregas. What I do know about Conte is that he always tries to accommodate his best players. Cesc will force his way into the 11. Cesc's strengths lie in playing deep, in and around the centre circle spraying about the ball and dictating the game. James is a lot more effective closer to goal. James would either play behind the striker or as a second striker, or out wide IMO. Against stubborn sides, why shouldn't we play James, Cesc and Eden? Imagine the creativity and attacking potential between the three. Flank them with work horses like Costa, Willian and Kante and suddenly you have a great team. I really don't want to get excited but the potential of James possibly coming to CFC is becoming more mouth watering. There aren't any concrete links yet though. At about £60m in today's market it's a fair price. It would truly show we are still an ambitious club. Couple that with two good defenders and we suddenly have an outstanding window. Batshuayi, Kante, James, a LB, a CB. Can the club pull it off?

Fair enough. Didn't see that. Well, Cahill is at fault then for asking for help when he didn't need it at all. If Cahill doesn't ask for that Ivanovic would've probably been in the right zone and would've made it extremely harder for Capoue to get a shot off.

Please tell me of a striker available that'll be an improvement over Costa or Batshuayi?

Do like the look of Walace. Good player. Brazil have some nice young players coming through tbh, and they don't seem to really be under the spot light globally either. Good for their development.

Would be a great signing IMO. Maybe see if we can nab him for under £20m though. Or maybe just a direct swap for Cuadrado?

We thank God.

He was injured I think.

He challenges for it, quite simple... Anyway! In this scenario, Ivanovic doesn't help at all even if he is the 3rd defender near goal. He is completely irrelevant if the ball is crossed near post. That'll be for Terry to deal with, and he usually does very well in this scenario.

A defender should always be goal side of a striker. If he is, he minimising the chance for the shot on goal quite significantly. You don't need another player in there to negate the threat. Coaches teach full backs to patrol the area around the far post, and Ivanovic failed in that aspect. Was ball watching. Nothing more to it. Apart from that mistake he had a solid game (defensively anyway). He was definitely at fault for the goal.

Regardless, the signing would give us some great options. Doubt it would happen though, refusing to get excited.

Can we fit James, Cesc and Hazard in one team? That would be one team full of creativity and attacking prowess. He's going to have to play out wide though. Not sure how effective he is there. Something like: That would be an exciting team going forward. If we need more defensive prowess we drop Michy for a midfielder?

You definitely don't need three players to mark two in the box. You don't tuck in and help your CBs mark opposition strikers when there's a threat out wide. If you do that, you're surrendering a goal scoring opportunity. You say you give your defenders 50% to defend the ball if it's 1v1. But what you've done is essentially give that 3rd player that's coming in from wide a 100% scoring chance. Capoue took it very well but Ivanovic needs to be there. Full backing 101. Cahill and Terry are great in the air, why would they need help from Ivanovic?

"Get rid of him!!!!" and bring in who exactly? There is no number 9 we can get that improves on Costa atm. There're a very few players in world football that can improve us on top there at the moment. People focus way too much on his weaknesses and don't appreciate his strengths much at all. Dude has won us two games in a row where we haven't been the best with some clinical finishing, cut him some slack.

Yeah. My fears are becoming true. Don't think we should rely on him much anymore. He still has this season to prove everyone wrong but he isn't showing anything promising just yet.

The pass was orgasmic. Unbelievable assist. Cesc is looking in superb shape as well. Honestly, surround him with legs next to him and he can do bits. Surrounding him with legs isn't really building the team around him either.

ADL is basically Walder Frey.

Should've focused on him ages ago.