LDN Blue

This match is literally now a case of who's worse out of these 2 failing teams? Got 0-0 written all over it.

Yeah, but also you find team are now gaining entry through the 'fair play league' as well, which is why in rare cases even 8th will get you in the EL. I do accept that a big enough team with depth (as we're supposed to be) can manage both EL & League obligations. But it wouldn't be the worst case if didn't make the EL, would it?

Fair enough, my assessment of him wasn't that great imo I guess. Slightly unnecessary and the deal was done before we'd even secured a new manager.. It was Hiddink's parting gift so to speak. But either way, don't think he should have much say in transfers considering how long he's going to stick around for.

Idk if he should have control though. Iirc, the last time he 'signed' a player for us it happen to be one Yuri Zhirkov. Aside from that blinder vs Spartak(?).. He pretty much did eff all? Made a good emergency left-back mind you.

What about Saido Mané? 23 currently iirc.

See the thing is, I do agree. I don't know why Hiddink did that, because if Mikel was coming on I thought for Matic would've made more sense. But this brings me back to Cesc being too poor right now, for Hiddink to sacrifice him like that must be something attributed to Cesc himself. But that being said, Mikel hadn't done much wrong when he was playing. He did the job. Didn't play overly well or overly poor. It's a flaw of playing Cesc in that role. Everyone know, this is just a very wild example, on Fifa when you play 2 proper DMs then it's almost impossible to get past such a defence at times. Maybe Hiddink wanted the back 6 to be solid as possible to give a free license to Pedro (Hazard), Oscar, Willian & Costa.

http://www.thesportbible.com/articles/romelu-lukaku-absolves-jose-mourinho-of-fault-over-leaving-chelsea Can anyone verify this? Sports Bible is hardly the most reputable source.

Well if he consistently did a job, he'd probably continue doing that job - I mean I'm under no illusion here, he should've really been sold a long time ago. For his own career as well, no reason he couldn't have become that CAM he was meant to be. For some reason, managers seem to love him

They don't want you to have Christensen, Kalas, Ake, Van Ginkel, Romeu, Pasalic and Bamford.

I think he's still walking down the guard of honour he left in 2009

Well considering Hazard missed the last few he was involved in.. Plus I don't think it's a management decision per se either, players clearly have their input to that decision too.

Tbh, they're not really comparable for what they do lol. I was speaking generically in the moment we're in now. I mean of course Fabregas is capable of much more than Mikel. That's quite obvious. But he's not doing it now and when he's become such a.. passenger(?).. It's easy to point to Mikel being able to 'do a job' higher than Fabregas not being able to.

Lol 'vent' wasn't meant to offend you mate, I do apologise if it came across that way. With Luis. Even I didn't agree at the time we signed him, everyone was saying he was one Europe's finest LBs at that point in his career and it was a no-brainer between him and Shaw. I always wanted us to sign Shaw ahead of Luis. But when you come with the label of 'Europe's best' you don't really expect to have such a long period of adapting and adjusting. If Azpi (who let's not forget Mourinho dropped at RB) can fight the great Ashley Cole out of LB then Luis should've had no trouble doing the same. I also recognise that many posters, in the time KDB Mata Etc were sold, were vocal in their criticisms of Mourinho's choices. Again I'm not disputing that. What I'm saying on that point was I do believe Mourinho saw Oscar, Hazard, Fabrgeas, Costa etc as the main spine for the team for years to come - His words, not mine. So at the time he was getting rid of KdB, Mata, Luis, you could somewhat see what he was trying to do. Hell it was true at the time, because the level Hazard Fabregas and Oscar were playing at was great to watch. It's unfortunate you see my views as clutching at straws, when you wholeheartedly believe Mourinho came here to set the squad up to their own detriment. But hey, I guess that's part of debating.

You learned that on TC hey? I learned that watching the latter two fall over themselves.. Those two might be great player individually but they're not 'great' for the team and that's quite evident. You don't need us to tell you that. The fact Hiddink and Mourinho have both dropped Cesc at various times most recently highlights that? The fact Oscar hasn't put in a worldie since Juve 2013 should be evident enough. It's not so much that Mikel and Cahill are great players either, it's that at least their flaws don't come at a higher stake than Fabregas and Oscar's

Definitely agree. Wanted us to go for Schneiderlin before United went, but we were too infatuated with Matic-Cesc holding that position. It's surprising then, when Mourinho said he wanted a midfielder, that we didn't go for him. Especially when it was fairly obvious he wanted to move. Wanyama is another good player. Kenyan Power! Haha. I do see Arsenal making a move for him in Jan, especially after he bossed their MF today.

Hahaha, all jokes aside.. He did what he usually does and it was ideal he did it without any careless mistakes. Whether Mikel should actually be here or not is another issue, but it was pleasant to see other fans giving him his props

Come on, are you really going to get hung up on Bertrand-Luis over all things? If I had the time and patience, I'd go through the match day threads were Luis did play and show you how he didn't put in such world class performances as you think. Also are we choosing to forget that Mourinho actually did mention the fact that Shaw was too expensive in the first place. But of course choose then to forget one Baba Rahman who is young and did play towards the end of Mou's tenure. Anyway, I do think we're gonna agree to disagree here. Hindsight is wonderful and we can always get hung up on the what ifs I guess, they won't go away until we're successful again. So until then, feel free to vent

It's honestly like people think he came to burn the Bridge down. He tried and he failed. It's already been noted himself and the club parted amicably, so I don't know why fans still hold hostile feelings towards him lol .

I think this hypothesis is rather unfair. I think he believed, and wanted to prove, that he can be a long-term manager with a fluid style of football. He certainly said all the right things and for the first half of the season did well to implement them. RLC got some game time even. The problem was that loss to Tottenham, really shook Mourinho up and after that it was always back to the style he's known and trusted so well. Much like in 2010, when Carlo won the double, the title win did well to mask already established problems. The wave that followed continued to cloud problems in personnel and it wasn't found out until it was too late. By then José was always in a losing battle. He couldn't even begin to think about the youth, when his established stars were giving him such a headache. Look I've said before, it's easy in hindsight to talk about KdB, Mata, Luis, etc. But at the time it was working for Mourinho, he talked about this team being good enough to last 10 years (as he said when Lampard left). Mourinho gambled and it didn't work, I have no doubt he did want to leave a long-term legacy here. He just doesn't know how to do it and perhaps he may never learn.

I guess, but I mean when you're owned by a billionaire you do have the safety of not necessarily needing Europe's money. Yeah, winning the EL does now get you into the CL, but there's no reason we can't do that by the conventional way of getting 4th. I still think it's an overplayed state of mind to think you can't attract big names if you spend one season out of it. It's more true if you can't get back in. But United spent a season out and are back in. Albeit they've got their own problems now, but whether they dump Van Gaal now or in a few weeks, they'll still end up in the top 4. For all the EL is in terms of a European competition, the TV payouts are piss poor anyway. Long travels accompanied with a Football Association that doesn't seem to be willing to help with that simply means added fatigue. You just have to look at the stats of when teams enter the EL in correlation with their decline in the league table.

:lol: I forgot about that guy!

Here's the thing guys, Do we even want Europa? Lets rewind a little bit to when United crashed out the CL last time and ended up crashing out of the Europa too. They put all their concentration on the league and finishing back in the top 4 that they did so with relative ease. Liverpool, in their title chasing year with Suarez, were knocked out the Europa League pretty early. Had it not been for us, ironically, they probably would have gone on to win the title that year. So as bad as it sounds, if we don't finish top 4, I'd rather we finished 9th (just to be safe, because these days even 8th somehow gets you into the EL )

Uhh.. You say that, but actually our squad now looks better than the 08/09 one lol. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the players he had then were a lot older and most people were saying they were too old. The team this time actually is filled, or supposed to be, with a lot more attacking channels. The only thing you can say this team is lacking are the leaders of yesteryear lmao. This squad should be able to compete the highest level.

Lmao, you're clearly not a motorsports guy, huh? - It's an analogy to different types of vehicle tyres.

Times like this I wish Kojo & Justin were still around!