LDN Blue

They did it with Rio & Rooney, sounds like a United thing to do

Ultimate hipster

Perhaps you're right, and i hope you are. It just seems very unnecessary imo.

Thing with Beckham though is.. Everyone knows that. No-one thinks he was the GoaT or anything like that, so can he really be called overrated? He was in the media a lot and a poster boy, sure, but no-one really said he's world-class.

Well Essien got lucky, Mourinho wanted him & Essien wanted to reunite with Mourinho at Real. Seedorf and Essien are also good friends so that's why Milan took him. So unless Benitez wants Torres..

Yea, I don't know why English clubs have never adopted using stars to show recognition. I mean even Liverpool don't have one in Europe after their 5 CL wins. United wore the Club World Cup badge and even that was scrutinized.

Still doubt you're going to see that much youth. Mourinho's not that expansive.

Ash is the type of guy not to take the new contract because then his tears will be quite awkward

I wonder if we added a buy-back clause

It was the perfect time to release/sell Ballack, Carvalho, Matic and Deco! For the latter 2, Deco was signed far too late. If we'd bought him from Porto we would've benefited but his post-Barca form was just horrendous. Matic wasn't the player we see him as today either, it was at Benfica he became a DM. At Chelsea & Vitesse to an extent he was meant to be a no10 type player. As for Ballack & Carvalho I definitely remember people moaning that our average age of the squad was too high.. I vouched for this view too because it simply was. We were relying on Terry, Lampard, Ballack, Malouda, Joe Cole, Anelka etc who were all into their 30s and we were crying for new, younger blood. Torres came at 27, Ramires & Luiz were 23. Agreed, our reinvestment looks poor now.. But that's the power of hindsight. I have no issues with admitting I was damn excited when Torres & Luiz came to this club at the time.

Which is fine to keep between them..

I would only say to this... Seeing our striker problem this whole season, he could've easily displaced Ba and could've been a shoe in for second behind Eto'o. 'The only place to be' has summed up time and time again that Lukaku was getting minutes before he asked to leave. Which i distinctly remember a lot of fans denying when he left....

Sam's at Sheffield right now, isn't he? Feruz won't be there either imo.

Scholes and Zidane?! Scholes will always border underrated for me. Zidane was perfectly rated imo.

Sherwood is a moron to be honest, not a fan. But you're absolutely right, it's not like we have that much of a right to criticise after RdM, but at least our players didn't show this much disrespect to him (though they did to AvB)

Yea definitely, but that's where Roman being a fan rather than letting his manager do what's necessary becomes a flaw. You have to empathize, slightly, he spent £50m and broke the transfer record by doing it.. He was desperate to see that pay off, even resorting to Benitez. That was probably one his requests of Mourinho, to at least try and reinvent the Spaniard. Hopefully he's come to realise now. Though hopefully not forsaking our spending on acquiring another.

Mourinho needs to be careful with such comments. We've seen Hazard doesn't react well to this kind of stuff and if goes talking to the media again, we'll have a problem

Yeah fair enough. I do think it's petty of Fulham, Norwich and Cardiff to try and bring action now, they lost on their own merits. Though consistency in the FA needs to be more prominent.. This article is a good read if you fancy it, http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/may/03/gus-poyet-sunderland-points-ji-dong-won-ineligible

I'd say Cole maybe, if you haven't got his?

Yeah definitely agree Liverpool isn't a good choice for him, signings like that just remind me of Kenny Dalglish spending for the sake of buying English.. if Rogers goes down that road there's no coming back. It's tricky for Lallana because he'll obviously want a move up, but his nationality and his club will inflate his fee so much that he'll end up moving for a sum over £20million and the pressures that come with that.. Well we know English players are fragile these days (hence my reservations of Shaw for £30m). He's probably better of staying at Southampton for a year, run down his value by taking a year off his contract and giving him a year to prove consistency. These guys who have one brilliant season and move for big money frustrate me. Because we've seen time and time again, especially with your examples, they can't replicate their form. I respect people like Lars Bender, who recently said he wouldn't join Arsenal this summer because he feels he hasn't played well enough for Bayer to have such a move and he wants to stay and improve before making such a move.

How embarrassing if we end up simply releasing him from his contract if/when he comes back

Red pill or blue pill?

Wouldn't go that far tbh, he's shown he can be quality against bigger sides which Adam would often just shy away from. But yeah he won't reach world-class heights but should definitely move a stage up from Southampton. United, Everton even Spurs are all viable options for him.

Doesn't sound like the most reliable source