LDN Blue

Paper rumours suggest Rooney's a doubt. Considering he's playing tonight.. Fail rumour.

What nonsense..

That's what I mean Guus' role should be though. Not necessarily first team affairs, but the younger squad. Reserves & youth.

Not the WP issue. The fact that we fill all our international spots when we register our 20-man league for the PL.

Perhaps. Though I could see the rationale behind the thinking. If it were someone like Cahill, for example, it might be a good buy. Subotic will be costly and since we have trouble with international players (player registration), Cahill could be a safer bet. Who knows though..

Don't think we will. Most, reliable, media reports suggest our next defensive signing will be English.

Well... Pato did score last night

True. Though hopefully he'd have learnt from that

That's what I mean. If there was ever a remote chance of Guus coming, it could be worth it, if AVB agreed.

Mm. He also faded in and out the game too, Torres (to his credit) tried to get involved a lot more. Not downplaying Sturridge's contribution though.

That was so speculative though. Hated when commentator kept banging on about it. Purely because, if he picked up that first yellow, there's no way he would've made the other silly tackle which he did get booked for. Agree about the quality of the shot though!

Arnesen did a good job though. When it came to scouting for reserves & the youth team, he did very well. Players like Kakuta, Borini, Sala ect, all came under him. As for AVB targets, his only actual "signings" were Romeu & Mierelels. We'd already been scouting Lukaku, KDB & Thibault before he came in. I think it's a myth he has "full control" over player transfers. The scouts wouldn't report to AVB, but to ME. For example, it was ME who wrapped up the signing of Davila.

That final assist may have saved him from some media scrutiny tomorrow.. Just a shred though.

I must disagree. But that's just my view

Fair do's, I had a different view.. Either way, it's better than he's been before.

Yes. Even his passing wasn't up to scratch. But he didn't really have much involvement when he came on anyway, so it's not something that can be used against him.

Played in a reserves game tonight, Bolton R vs Arsenal R. Don't panic, because so did their other signing David N'Gog. I think it's just for some match fitness. Anyway it ended 3-3, from what text commentary showed, not a significant outing from him.

Lampard looked just as shaky. Mind you, I'll give him some leeway as he came on quite late on and didn't have time to adjust to the pace. He must play though because Rami, Meireles & Mikel is too defensive for me. If only Malouda was a good player. He could be so useful in the midfield 3.

I wouldn't if Drogba was fit. But he won't be, so I'd like to see the same front 3.

Haha I know I mean more in terms of admiration of his technical ability and intelligence of the game.. Not actual comparisons though, because as you said, they are very different.

Yeah. I think (I hope..) it's because they took Leverkusen quite lightly. Concentrations will be a lot higher on Sunday though, so hopefully that's all it was.

It wasn't even in defence. We lot a lot of balls today because of simple passes not sticking. Look, I'm not saying we had a bad performance. It was a good game from us, but some players were trying to be too smart, and ended up looking silly. I'm thinking of Malouda & Bosingwa particularly.

David Luiz must get booked in his next game. I would rather see him suspended for Genk, as opposed to a stronger team in the knock-out phase. (With all respect to Genk)

He will be our own David Silva in the future

Gotta love how our players forgot to pass today. We were very lucky to have a sharp finisher like Luiz and the smart composure of Mata today. Bosingwa could be an amazing right back, if he improved his crossing! We played good football today, but a lot of school boy mistakes. Hopefully we'll see improved concentration on Sunday.