Peace.

He was a player that I used to appreciate a lot — that is, I used to. But now, I am tired of his diving addiction, just as I am tired of his thuggish antics. As if was not enough, I am tired of him thinking he is some kind of offensive voodoo and of him leaving spaces twice as big as le Jardin des Tuileries behind him ; no Ivan, you are not technically-wise good enough to be the Roberto Carlos of the right-side, nor you are fast enough to recover the boulevard ground you leave behind you while spending all your time in the opposition last-third. And finally, I am tired of him never trying to block the opponents' cross !! To make a long story short : I am tired of him.

He has never looked like the sharpest tool in the box, though he is looking like a grade A idiot now... Someone, do him a favour : grab a hair clipper and cut that damn piece of hair — or whatever it might be — that parasitizes the top of his skull...

To score a goal against the entity that made and call you a "Legend"... Well, that is something that Steven I-assist-against-my-team Gerrard would be proud of.

I am not really sure that it work like that. To my knowledge, the important thing is the age you have when you register to the League. So, when your club registers you to the FA before the start of the league you are 21, you thus count as a U21 player for the whole season, even if you turn 22 two days after the start of the season. Maybe it changed recently, but I am pretty sure it work like this. At least, it was the case with Oscar last year when he turned 22 in september though was counted as U21. It was also the case with Sturridge, despite being 22 years old, he was still counted as a U21 player because he was 21 when registered to the League (if I am not 100% sure about Oscar case, I am dead certain on this). And if I remind correctly, it is also why Mata was able to participate to a U21 competition despite being 23, because when he registered for the qualification, he was 21. So I understand the age taken into account is the age you have when you register to X competition ; this mean he should count as U21 the whole season...

Hum... In his five seasons at Madrid, Cristiano has respectively scored : 26, 40, 46, 34 and 31 goals. So, apart of two seasons, his goal-scoring stats are pretty much the same as his best year in England. Furthermore, it has to be taken into account that he was not really the same player after he went to Madrid. Indeed, ever since he has been granted the free-licence to concentrate on scoring goal (and to not track-back) ; a free licence that Ferguson did not grant him and that would not have. We thus can safely assume that, had he stayed in the Premier League and be granted such a liberty, he would have scored once or twice more than 40 goals in a season. As for Messi, he is the greatest player of his generation, one of the greatest player of all time and there is an ongoing debate to know whether he is the best player of all time. So we cannot really use the fact he scores a lot in La Liga to conclude that you can score for fun in that league and that defenses are outrageously weak. And anyway, as it has been already demonstrated, these two players are each years the best goal-scorers in the Champions League. As for the hat-tricks... I have found stats for the Premier League, though I have found nothing for La Liga. Seeing the high numbers of hat-tricks scored by Messi and Ronaldo, it would not be surprising that la Liga has more hat-tricks scored. So, for the debat's sake, we will assume that it is a fact. Well, as in my last sentence I have said : Messi and Ronaldo score a lot of hat-tricks, and the presumably high number of hat-tricks is down to them two. It has been demonstrated above why they both score plenty of goals ; as a matter of fact, the high number of hat-tricks in Spain cannot be attribute to its so-called poor defenses, but rather it has to be attribute to the fact that there are two great goal-scorers playing in that league. Moreover, I have demonstrated that fact in my previous post : there is the same number of goals scored each year in La Liga and in the Premier League. Perhaps there are 3 hat-tricks scored in England and 30 in Spain, but at the end of the day, hat-tricks or not, there is the same amount of goals scored ! So this is not a valid argument. Finally, the vast majority of people who follow the Premier League tends to say that smaller team in Spain are much weaker, and implicitly, are way worst when it comes to defense. I disagree with that fact. I watch a lot of spanish games through Barcelona. There are a lot of small teams that give problems, regarding the defense. These teams make it hard for Barça to score ; and they do so without parking the bus ! Small teams in England use to park the bus with tall and powerful players ; which gives a feeling a defensive solidity. At the contrary, in Spain, they do not adopt such tactics and their defenders are not mountains of muscle like here. I attribute this distorted view (i.e. spanish teams are way worse defensively than british teams) to that fact. The fact that there are as many goals scored in the two leagues tends to prove me right.

Did it cross your mind that maybe, just maybe, this is because they are the best players in the world ? And for your information, Cristiano has never scored 50 goals in a season in La Liga (the nearest he got was 46) — only Messi did it, and it was just once. And both Messi and Cristiano scored more than 40 goals in a season only twice. Get your facts right. Furthermore, last season : Cristiano scored 31 goals out of 30 games ; Messi 28 out of 31 ; Suarez 31 out of 33. By the way, in 2007-08, Cristiano has scored 31 goals in the Premier League, the same amount he has scored this year in La Liga. Finally, last season, there are 1045 goals that have been scored in la Liga........ While 1052 in the Premier League. And, in la Liga, the three first team have respectively scored 77, 100 and 104 goals ; in the Premier League, 101, 102 and 71 goals. Two seasons ago 1091 in la Liga while 1063 in the Premier League. Three seaons ago, 1050 in la Liga, 1066 in the Premier League. So, at the end of the day, there is nearly no difference between the Premier League and La Liga in regards of the goals scored. That kind of argument "La Liga is an easy place to score ; the Premier League is the toughest place to score" is an argument old as Herod, and today it does no longer hold any water.

Another thing about Fabregas. Some were questioning how would he fit in a team that like to counter attack, as he is slow. What is a counter attack ? It is primarily the ability to project yourself forward the quicker possible — but it is also the ability to find yourself in a good position to score goals by eliminating in the process the more opponents you can (in order to, ideally, being one versus one against the goalkeeper). To project yourself forward quickly, it does not necessarily require to have superhuman athletic abilities. For a reminder we are talking about football ; you have to project quickly your body, but also the ball. And to do so, either you run fast with the ball at your feet à la Ramires ; or you quickly see the run of your team-mates and quickly pass them the ball. It happens that Fabregas fit exactly that very description : he is an excellent passer from deep. To weight my point : * Bayern Munich in 2012-13 has been hailed as a fabulous counter-attacking team. They had Robben and Ribéry on the wings who are fast players ; yet in the midfield, they had Schweinsteiger/Martinez/Kroos (if my memory serves my right) which are slow players, and I am not sure that Müller is extremely fast. * Same for Madrid under Mourinho, when they were successful on the counters : quick players up-front (Cristiano, Ozil, etc..) while two slow players in the middle in Alonzo and Kheidira. * Barça was/Are a possession-based team, but they also used to be successful on the counters : Messi and Pedro up-front, which are fast players ; Xavi and Sergio (and Iniesta to a lesser extent) who are slow players. * United circa 2007... They were great at the counters. They had fast players (Cristiano, Rooney, Nani) and slow players (Schols, Carrick). * The list goes on... To be successful at counter-attacks, you need fast players that make runs and get to the box the sooner ; and you need players to pass the ball to them quickly and accuratly. That is why I am convinced that Fabregas has all the tools to be successful in our counter-attack approach of the games. He is a deadly passer from deep ! And as for the runners up-front, we have them : Willian, Schurrle and Hazard (even though he has to improve at making runs ; he is fast) — you can even had Ramires to the mix, though it remains to be seen whether he would control the pass/ball ahah. It might be presumptuous, but he might be the piece of the puzzle we missed to be deadly on the counters, as we only had the runners.

Well, I am quite surprised to see how much Mata's dribbling ability is held in high regards here. Mata is not a very good dribbler. He is decent, at most good ; he can pick up a dribble here and there but that is it. This is by the way one of the reasons for which he has never been given a go with his national team... And, even if you would like to think he is a "very" good dribbler, as @James has mentioned, it is not his game and he does rarely try to dribble past players. So in the end, good or not good, the end product (since it is a term in vogue over here) is : nearly no dribbles. Cesc is definitely not as good as Iniesta when it comes to dribbling, but he is better than Mata for sure. Once again, even if from a technical stance they were on the same level, Fabregas is more aggressive in his game a more or less likes to dribbles, whereas Mata it is not part of his game. In regards with the fact that whether or not he is one-footed, and to reply to @Ze Mario... Well, I will not even bother to make an assessment regarding the talent of his right foot since it is not the question ; the question is to know whether he is over-reliant (and feels uneasy on his weak foot) of his strong foot. The answer is yes. And the fact he scored one goal with his right foot does not change anything to that fact ; Messi and Sturridge also can score and pass with their right-foot, nonetheless they still are one-footed (which seems to be a common trait of the left footed players). As for is ability to hold on the ball... Well, it is rather a weakness than a strength for him. First off all, as it has been said numerous times, physically he cannot cope with the pressure ; and he cannot get away from it through acceleration/speed, as he has none, and only decently through dribbles. This is another reason for which he is overlooked in the Spanish national team. It might be also a weakness of Fabregas, if you will, but he is significantly better in this aspect and it does not cause nearly as much problems that it does with Mata. And finally, the famous end product. Juan Mata has been many time hailed because of his stats here. In his best season here, in 31 games started (and four subs) in the League, Mata has scored 12 and assisted 12 ; the same season, out of 30 starts (and two subs) in the Liga, Fabregas has scored 11 and assisted 11. The season before : 6 scored and 13 assisted in 29(+5) games for Mata ; 9 scored and 8 assisted in 23(+5) games for Fabregas. Basically, in regards of the statistical productivity, they both are more or less on the same level. While the later being only the odd man in the starting team and never had a set position ; the former was the center of the team. And finally mark II, Mata was not versatil at all. It was even his fiercest defenders that admitted that fact ; you cannot put him on the (right) wing as he is inefficient. A contrario, Fabregas is apt to play in several positions ; sure at different extent of efficiency, but still. In the contemporary football, this quality is more and more required. It is pretty clear as to why Mourinho decided to buy someone of the likes of Fabregas. This player is direct, "aggressive", is a great passer, can dribble, can cope physically and technically to pressure, can play several positions.

I saw numerous comments raising the question as to how would Fabregas fit in a Mourinho's team if Juan Mata (and to a lesser extent de Bruyne) could not. It is to misunderstand what was the situation with Mata. Mourinho does not have solely work-rate warriors in his teams, that is not true. At Inter and Madrid, he had Sneijder and Ozil (whom he described as the best n°10 if I remind correctly) as key players — both not exactly being great contributors to the defense, to say the least (Ozil having even stamina problems...). Despite his small size, Sneijder is quite a tenacious and powerful player, and is a good, nay very good, dribbler. As for Ozil, despite being quite physically light, he is a great dribbler, has some pace and speed. The two of them are able to sustain a high-paced and intensive game, because they have the physical and technical attributes. And more importantly, they can dictate the game of their team under more or less any situation because they can, among other things, get away from their opponent because of the physical and/or technical abilities they have. On the other hand, Juan Mata has no dribbling ability. He has no pace, no speed, no acceleration. He neither can out-muscled his opponent as he is physically pretty weak. I will not even talk about his ability at headers. And finally, he has no right foot. — notice how I have not even mentionned the defensive side of the game — Basically, Mata has a very good ability to pick up passes with his left foot (especially on set-pieces situation), a very good final ball and a decent eyes for goals. Because of that, he disappears immediately when the game becomes physically strong or/and high-paced. And more importantly, as SeB demonstrated it in the past, he cannot retain possession and thus he quickly passes the ball ; which will always lead to accelerate the game — as matter of a fact, he is not suited to be the player dictating the game. In order to maximize his strengths, and to nullify his weaknesses (which are many), you have to put him in the center of the team and to give him a free pass. And unfortunately, for him, he is simply not good enough to be given such a role in a team with our ambitions. That is why Juan Mata has been sold. Had he been a complete player (hello Lukaku ), and simply put, had he been a better player, he would have been kept, regardless of his inability to participate to the defense. Now, is Fabregas a Mata, or a Sneijder/Özil ? He is not very fast, but he still remains decent in that regard. He is a very good dribbler. Physically decent. And because he is an excellent player, he is able to play serveral positions (in the pivot, as a n°10, a n°8, on the wings, as a false nine). If anything, he is (or rather will be) Mourinho's Chelsea Ozil/Sneijder ; the comparisons with Mata stop at the fact that they are both spanish, at that is all. Anyway, it is pretty obvious as to why Fabregas and not Mata, without taking into account the defensive side ! Anyway, it is pretty obvious as to why Fabregas and not Mata, without taking into account the defensive side ! Speaking of it, Fabregas has not the quality of Oscar nor Willian, but he is decent, nothing more, nothing less.. Barça fans can say what they want... as the saying goes in French "when you no longer want of your dog, you say he has the rabies" (at the exception of last year, I have nearly watched all of his games at Barça...).

You are right in what you are saying. Keeping Lukaku in this situation, does not necessarily consist in being a "betterment" for the club, at all ; and it could be quite the contrary. When a player's head is off, then it is pretty much a lost cause. It takes a player to be an excellent professional in order to give near 100% in this kind of context ; and he will never 100%, consciously or not. Now, these past three seasons, we have witnessed how much Lukaku is professional ; and humble. Firstly he vividly criticized André Villas-Boas for not playing — it is classy to shot on a dead man walking... And to be honest, in regards of the situation, giving Lukaku playing-time was certainly one of the last priorities at that time (especially since he was absolutely dreadful when playing). Then, when having to face to competition of the Wonder-Horse and the 45 years-old Eto'o — people like to include Ba, but the truth is that he would have been sold or loaned, had Lukaku stayed —, he opted for the easy way and to go out on loan. Finally, he told the world that "clubs are interested in me", and pretentiously "Chelsea know my point of view". How it will fare when he will realise that the complete striker that he is will be the second choice, at best, by a fine margin, and will have to fight for game time against the Wonder-Horse, the one and only Ladyboy ? Mourinho seeks from each of his players to give everything they have. I say Mourinho, but it is how modern football works. It happens that Lukaku does not really take part to the collective effort of his team-mate ; every time I saw him play, he was just strolling around the pitch awaiting for someone to put him through the goal. This kind of attitude does not go well with the ambitions we have. So basically, we have on our hands a player : that does not really intend to fight for his place and who is eyeing for a move away from us ; that as the tendency to bitch when he is not pampered and denied the starting position ; that seems to bigger himself and feels he is as big as the club, as he pretentiously said "Chelsea knows my point of view" (who the hell does he thinks he is to say such a thing ?) ; that does feel like working hard for the team. When you put all these variables all together, it seems more likely that keeping him will result as having a dead weight than having a "betterment" for our squad.

I have always thought that this argument of "we do not need the money" is pretty simpleton. I mean, if we do not need money, then we should call back Paris in order to partially refund them, because we do not really need these 50m euros ; etc... It is like when people proudly say "we do not sell our best players because we do not need money bla bla bla" — we did not think a second before selling Mata and Luiz. It can also be applied to rich people. They do no longer need to earn money, yet they take it... It is like this that you become wealthy. And, if tomorrow i tell you "here's the deal, I give you 200 bucks today or 100 next day, what do you choose ?" — your answer will be pretty obvious. I could give just out of my head another twenty examples, but I guess I do not need to go there. —————————— And anyway. As you say, he pretty much wants to leave our club — and before someone ask if we have talked to him to know such a thing : you do not need to be Noam Chomsky to understand that when a player start to publicly say "clubs are interested in me" (in the fashion he did), it means that at the very least he considers to go elsewhere. So, with that knowledge, the best thing for us is to look to get the more money out of him. It is not like we desperately need him and thus should say goodbye to a huge amount of money, let's say like Dortmund with the Polish.

It is funny that we talk about a potential attacking-midfield crisis while we praise our defenders (Terry, Cahill, Azpilicueta, etc...). It is a fact and cannot be denied that we have had a strong defense and that it was our strength (being the strongest defense in the League by far) ; though it was rather a strong defensive unit than a strong defense. Indeed, had Mourinho not adopted midway a conservative approach, our back-four would have most likely looked shaky rather than solid — and by doing so, we sacrificed our attack. And, while we condemn our attacking midfielders (especially Oscar and Willian) for our "disappointing" third place, just as much a better productivity from our attacking midfielders could have won us the League, a genuinely greater defense (i.e. the back four) could have done the same ! In the second part of the season, in four matches against West Brom, Aston Villa, Crystal Palace and Sunderland, we managed to grab only one point out of 12 available, and thus because we could not keep a cleansheet. Had we not stupidly lost our lead against West Brom, and had Terry not scored an own goal, we would have three more points and thus one point behind the League winner... And it can also be argued that we should have taken at the very least one point out of the Villa or Sunderland game... It is not to lie down all the fault upon our defenders, but it is unfair to solely condemn our attacking midfielders. It is pretty obvious that in a system heavily focused on the attack — like Loserpool, and to a lesser extent City and Arsenal — our attacking midfielders' stats would have been completely different. Before ringing the alarm and to sell them all — and to speak of a crisis —, we should wait and see how they do in a more balanced team ; a team in which you don't have to sacrifice your attack to avoid leaking goals pretty often.

Well, I am not 100% sure, but... As someone was wondering during the game "why is he on the wing while he is our slowest AM ?", it gotta be said that he is also the worst when it comes to defensive contribution. Furthermore, our pivot is not setting the world on fire — far from it. It happens that when Mata plays in the middle, there is a huge gap in the middle of the parc ; between him and the pivot ; which allow the opposition to overflow us in midfield. Thus I believe that Mourinho has played Mata down the right wing to nullify as much as possible his deficiency in defensive duties, and as a consequence to not lose the midfield battle. We also have to take into account that Azpilicueta was the right back and Ramires can give a hand on that right side (thanks to his mobility). To conclude, Mourinho did not play Mata on the right wing in order to make Mata look bad as some people were saying (*shake my head*), but rather because it was where his defensive flaws would less hurt the team — I guess...

I'll respond to you both here. I know that we cannot completely compare Mata situation to all of these names that I mentioned, since all of them were pretty old (excepted Zirkhov, Robben and Kalou that were still young). To be truthful, my point was not by any mean to say that since we let go in most cases our players for free then Mata will leave for nothing. It's quite the contrary — I was name-dropping just to stress out the fact we have pratically never tried to get any money from the players we were letting go, could it be even a symbolic amount such as one million or even 500 000 pounds. In other words, that example was only meant to argue that we would not act like Lévy did with Bale and Modric, or even Self Pity FC with the ladyboy. Now what I mean ? All in all, I am not denying that it is possible that a team puts on the table £35m or more. Such a thing is not unthinkable, and it could well happen if a team is within a panic moment, as TX pointed out. I was just responding kinda indirectly to the few people that were offended by the fact that some people were saying that Mata could not command a fee of the likes of £40m. We kinda are on the same line of thoughts although we do not present things from the same perspective ! I presume we will be agree to resume like that : * if the team that wants to buy him is in a panic mode, then we will be able to get something around £40m ; * if the team that wants to buy him can afford to not sign him and is wise enough, then that team can have him at a cut price or in an exchange deal. P.S. I mean, this summer the consensus was to not offer more than £30 m or so for Rooney because he was more or less marginalized... It is more or less the same thing for Mata, so no needs to be offended if we don't get a record fee for him.

This summer, a lot of people were thinking that he was bought only for the sake of brainlessly stockpiling AMs and/or to not let him go to Spurs. As for myself, I always thought that Mourinho was not convinced by Mata and de Bruyne by any means so he bought Willian (who was available) in order to put these three players into contention so the best choice would come up naturally. Actually, he is proving that he was bought for none of these reasons, but at the contrary because he is simply sooo good and that he fits like a glove what José is trying to implement at the club. I guess it is time to let go the "we unnecessarily spent 30 million for a spot where we were good enough instead of buying a CM" and start to claim that it is absolutely a fucking great buy.

He is truly marvellous. We scored five goals in our last two games — Oscar was involved in each of them. One goal ; two clear assists ; two "lucky" assists. And it's not all about stats — his volume of play has been simply incredible in the last two games, he was the heart of the team. I remember some days ago someone was wondering why it wasn't Hazard that got the n°11 — it is clear, Oscar walks throughout Drogba's path as the ultimate team player. He scores, he assists, he passes, he presses, he tackles and he is a drama-queen. As the matches pass, he is becoming more and more important for the team ; and he is growing a pretty good understanding with both Hazard and Willian. We really have a gem in him, I am so happy that we have him. P.S. Once again today he has proved why he is the player to which Mourinho entrusts our play.

Exactly. People get easily on their high horse when one says Mata cannot command a high fee about 40 million pounds or so. It obviously looks absurd when you are standing from the Chelsea fan's point of view, since this is a player that has been voted as the best player of our club two seasons in a row ; that for us he is somehow the star of the team that won the Champions League, the FA Cup and and Europa League ; and that we conveniently attributes him trophies such as the World Cup and the European Championship where he — actually — hardly took part. We gotta take into account that the persons that will eventually buy him are not Chelsea fans and by consequence have little care regarding the fact that he was voted twice as Chelsea player of the year by Chelsea fans ; those people most certainly give little value to that reward. No, when those people will estimate a price for him, they will take into account more pragmatic facts such as : his situation at the club (whether he is the untouchable star or marginalized) ; the weight he has in medias ; his age/potential ; is he an international or not ; etc... * First of all, he is clearly been marginalized by Mourinho, his statut within the team has changed — going from being the indispensable star to a non-indispensable squad player. Plus, it has been spread in every medias that Mata was not into José's plans. These facts will not by any means inflate his price ; a contrario, they are arguments to lower his potential price. * Mata is a quiet guy and thus barely features into the medias, expected when it is to claim that he is unsettled in the team and is not into Mourinho's plans. High fees are generally spent on players that can sell shirts, and I am not sure that Mata have a big potential in this aspect. * He is entering in his peak years and this is kinda the finish product ; thus they will not over-pay for what he might be, as it was the case for Hazard, Neymar, Lucas, etc... * He is an ainternational, yes, although he cannot break into the spanish team and that is not this summer that he will do that. And he did not really participate to Spain recent sucess. All these aforementioned points are not meant to higher his transfer fee, but at the contrary to reduce it. Finally and above all, while we are bragging shit to death that "we are not a selling club" and that "we don't sell our best players", a lot of us did forget that Chelsea is a non-profit club and that "not a selling club" means that we litterally do not sell our players, but also that when we do not want them anymore we give them. All the players we have decided to part ways with have had the possibility to go quite easely. Kalou, Malouda, Bosingwa, Alex, Anelka, Belletti, Joe Cole, Ballack, Deco, etc... went for free. Carvalho and Zirkhov went for peanuts. The club could have sold Essien for a lot of money when it was already clear that he was past it, yet we were happy enough to keep him and pay him while he could not play. We are not afraid of sending players on loan to potential title contenders ! When we did not wanted Sturridge anymore, we did not cause any trouble to let him go to a club that has robbed us 50 million fucking pounds. As far as I can remember, the only transfer involving big money was Robben... In other words, If Mourinho and the club deem Mata as surplus to requirement and have their eyes upon some player ; then they most certainly will not wait that someone put £50m on the table. The bottom line is that, there are a lot of arguments for clubs to avoid paying silly money to get him — and it is quite possible that José and Roman do not even bother to counter these arguments. That is why I can easily fashion Mata being sold as a bargain, kinda like what happened with Robben and Sneijder at Madrid, and Ibrahimovic at Barça ; or even being part of an exachange deal.

The way the two bolded parts are articulated is pretty fun, since it actually puts them into opposition. When those teams sit back against us and let the center backs hold the ball ; what does it imply ? If the opposite team's defensive block is deep, then it means, when we are in the ball possession, that we have little space to maneuver and little space to pass the ball in — in other words, in these situations, long passes inexorably mean hoofing the ball into the air. Who exactly is going to win aerial duels up front, and get the ball on the ground ? Is this going to be 1,70m Hazard ? Is this going to be the rest of the dwarf band, i.e. Oscar-Willian-Mata ? Is that going to be our set of inept-in-the-air strikers ? Resorting to long aerial passes in those situations is just a waste of time — or simply a waste of ball possession. It is precisely a big problems of ours ; too many times in the past seasons, we have been resorting to aimlessly kick the ball in the air towards the attacking players because we had no clue how into build the game in midfield. Such long passes are not the solution because our attacking players cannot make anything out of them ; stressing the importance of Luiz because of his long balls is by consequence a misapprehension since not only such long passes are not useful, but also because the brazilian is actually wasteful at it as TorontoChelsea has rightfully pointed out numerous of times.

Of course the lack of technical ability we suffer from is an underlying issue — or the excess of it, funnily enough. And that issue, in my book is listed as one of our major issues, because the shape it takes in our squad / on the pitch is really problematic : the squad is suffering from a dichotomy. It is true — as you say we have changed our players and now we have what we can label as "technical players". Though, at the end of the day, those technical players are only paper over the cracks. Indeed — these players are basically Mata, Hazard, Oscar, Willan, de Bruyn and Luiz. It's six players and it happens that five of them are fighting for three spots ; so technically we are fielding a maximum of four technical players. And the most important thing there is that, in a nutshell, they are covering only a specific area of the pitch (~ advanced midfield) !! If Barcelona could develop their style of play, that is not merely because they had Messi, Xavi and Iniesta — that is because all of their players matched their philosphy, i.e. knowing what to do with a ball at their feet. In defense they had/have Piqué, Puyol, Alvès and Alba which are better technically than our central midfielders ! They also had/have Mascherano and Éric Abidal, who despite not being that good with a ball at feet before joining Catalonia, improved their passing abilities in order to be good enough to be in symbiosis with the rest of the team. Jésus, even their defensive midfielder has the best short-pass game and one-touch passing game in the whole world. Such a symbiosis cannot be found within our squad. There is a gap too important between the so-called technical players and the majority of the squad to implement a technical style of play. You can buy as many advanced midfielders as you want, it still will not work because they only can fill three spots out of 11 ; and if the other players are not up to it, it will be a failure and your playing style will not be cohesive. ******** That is also because of that dichotomy that we struggle to build our play and which we are clueless against the inferior teams that happily play for the draw and park the bus (in other words, the majority of the teams we encounter throughout the season). Look at our defense — lately, if I am not wrong, our defense has been Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry and Azpilicueta ... Ivanovic cannot make a pass to save his life ; he neither can take the ball out of the defense with the ball at his feet since he has no pace/drive nor dribbling ability. Cahill is no better than Ivanovic when it comes to passing. While Terry has a great accuracy in his passing game, he is now old and lacks mobility and quickness in everything he does ; therefore his passing game is more or less blunt. And Azpilicueta is a decent passer, though he is played on his wrong feet. And then you have Cole who is nowadays in the same situation than Ivanovic — plus he would rather get shot than to use his right foot —, and Luiz who, despite all his good technical abilities, loses the ball too much because he tries to do X+1 dribbles and tends to totaly fuck up his long passes. As a matter of fact, getting the ball out of the defense is a laborious and slow-made task. The building of the game is slowed down from the start. That's the reason why so many small teams are happy to seat deep and let our defenders having the ball : they will pass the ball between them all day long. The central midfield is not there to improve things : Lampard, Mikel, Essien, and Ramires. That is a toothless and slow passing game between them. And they cannot make up for it since they do not have pace/drive or trickery. Only Ramires stand out — he is able to speed the game and bring the ball forward thanks to his pace and good dribbles. He also has a good passing game — though his decision-making does often fail him in this aspect of the game. In his case, it's ok — he does what is expected from him. So, once the ball finally reaches the attacking midfielders, the opposition's defense is well organised and compacted ; giving to our attacking players no space to pass or go into. ****** To sum-up my comment, our defensive-minded players are set to play like Stoke City while our attacking players are set to play like Barça. Our defensive players or forced to play a game that does not fit their abilities ; they cannot throw randomly the ball forward because there is no Drogba to get it. It is like trying to put a square inside a round hole... We will have to take a clear decision in the upcoming mercatos — either to buy big, strong and powerful attackers or buy defensive players who can pass the ball. Of course it is okay to not have great passers at each and every spot — though, we cannot have a squad split in two dinstinctively different parts.

Ahah, that's so true ! Hum, I don't know. Because, take a look at the chances I have mentioned, plus some others like those three (?) against Sunderland last year. It's more or less clear cut chances, though nothing dangerous came from it. And now take a look at some of the goals he has scored : the two against la Juve ; the goal against Shakhtar (when he lobed the goalkeeper from midfield) ; the third one he scored against Portugal in the U21 final... I don't know, to my eyes he seems to have a problems when it's "too" easy and seems more comfortable when it's a "difficult" chance, or when he has little time to think (for instance, against Loserpool and Tottenham last year, Hull this season). Is it due to a lack of confidence ? Or at the contrary he is over-confident and take nonchalantly the shot ? Or he tends to over-think the move and it fucks up ? I am not sure which one it is (I chose the lack of confidence because he doesn't strike as the most confident player out there )but which is sure is that he lacks of composure and he needs to work that out — even though, nothing to worry about at this stage, it's a problem that more or less al the players of his age have.

I believe it might be due to a lack of confidence. He seems to have a tendency to miss "easy" opportunities. Springs to my mind the opportunity he bottled against Mexico in the Olympics (the header at the end of the game) ; one against Spain in the Confederation Cup and one against Hull which were similar. He seems to shot with not enough conviction, belief, confidence — as if he was afraid to miss (which is the case in my opinion). Just take a look at the penalty he took yesterday, and especially his facial expression when he come back toward his team mates (after taking the penalty) ; for a few second I thought he was going to cry... He seemed nervous and his facial was crying out loud "thanks God it's over, I didn't fucked that up". I believe a psychological work will need to be done on him so he can have the same efficiency in attack as he does in defense (which he definitely can).

Jesus. Some people need to think outside the box. It was the right decision to play the ladyboy instead of him. To play the belgian over the spaniard would have made little difference. Our whole passing game was off and Manchester's defense was compact and organised. He would have been isolated and would have had struggled to make anything against Jones-Ferdinand-Vidic-Evra. Also he is not the kind of player who will grab the ball in his own half of pitch and then proceed to dribble the whole defense to finally score with a lob below the keeper. Finally it's not thirty odd minutes that will change the outcome of his development — especially when you take into account that it would have been thirty lacklustre and uninteresting minutes. Had he played, he was always going to get a bad game (only the defenders had a good game, bar Rooney.. the game's physiognomy was not set for the "attacking" players to perform). It might not have hurt him thanks to his solid confidence, but it certainly would have not benefited him. By not playing him, José preserved him from the possible nasty repercussions — an altered confidence, knee-jerk reactions from the press and the fans (just look at the state in whom the forum is), etc... At the contrary, the ladyboy is a lost cause — it's not a few more criticisms and a bad performance that will hurt him. That being said, it is too early to judge whether José disregards him or protects him. My mind tells me that José just protects him. We just need to be patient to draw conclusions, three games in a season are irrelevant.

I read here and there than Oscar might be picked-up ahead of Mata solely because of his defensive work-rate... This is such a narrow way to see things. And to my eyes it's pejorative towards Oscar's qualities and abilities. To my beliefs, there's much more to it. The primary reason is, as I explained on the previous page, that Oscar plays like a midfielder, or at least have more midfielder's abilities than the spaniard — and it might be what Mourinho is looking for. I can't stress enough how the midfield battle is important in today's game. And today, we only play with two "deep" midfielders — and whatever the paring is (Ramires/Lampard, Ramires/Mikel, etc...), it is far to be functional, let alone world class. As a matter of fact, we need another player who will play nearer the pivot in order to help them, both in offensive and defensive tasks. That's where Oscar intervenes. I'll start off with his defensive contribution, since it seems to be what strikes the more in people's eyes... Oscar not only drops deep to help in defense, but he also has a splendid work-rate and a has a great defensive capacity for an attacking-minded midfielder. Thus, he is a great asset for the midfield so we cannot sink. But there's also an offensive side to the debate. Indeed, the first thing I'd like to mention, it's that Oscar can keep hold on the ball under pressure — a thing that Mata can hardly do, which is highlighted against every game against Manchester City. Mata is not good at it, because he is very weak physically, and he has no dribbling side to his game ; with no dribbles and no physical power, it is very hard to keep hold of the ball. Which does result by an inevitable loss of possession (either directly or indirectly). Then, just as in defensive phases, Oscar drops deeper than Mata (how many times can we see the Brazilian near our back-line ?) and help to get the ball forward. The bottom line is that Oscar is a better asset than Mata for our midfield, both off the ball and on the ball. And it will the case as long as our pivot won't be good enough on its own. Into my eyes, that's the reasons why José could be favouring Oscar over Mata (could, because as Mata is unfit we still don't know the role he'll have into the team).

They're everywhere

There is little evidence to assume such a thing. In the two seasons that Mata has been here, the team was built around him for only one season, and that was last year. It happens that during this season, we had two short-term coaches ; di Matteo was most probably a stop-gap to wait for Pep Guardiola and the fat waiter was appointed to be the stop-gap till the end of the season. Neither one nor the other has been involved in the transfer policy (which kind of player to bring). All they had to do was to win with what they had at their disposal. So, they had to work with what we call in sociology "bounded rationality". They were there for a short time, thus they were searching for what will work today, not tomorrow. Furthermore, as they were here for a short time, they didn't have the luxury to spend too much time to search what would work. In other words, they weren't necessarily searching fot the best solution for the team, but they were searching for the first option that will "do it". And it happens that the first option that "will do it" was to build the team around Mata because it was the option that would get us the most goals (and all what it induces) in the short-term. Now we have a manager which is seemingly a part of the part. He is involved in the transfer policy (and has probably the dominant role), he has been given the possibility to build his team. We're starting a new project ; we will shape our team to be competitive in the foreseeable future, but we also have at the back of our mind the bigger picture. That big picture most probably being to build a dominant team in Europe for the years to come. Which is likely to redefine Mata's role within the team. Maybe Mourinho will also choose to build his team around Mata, maybe he won't. But Jesus, we have only played two competitive games and Mata has only took part in one of them. It's simply too early to say which players will be given which role, etc... Things will get more and more obvious as the season goes. To say that we will build our team around a player that has only played sixty minutes (or so) is to get carried away. And maybe that's the reason for which the purchase of William has caused so much commotion. We comment things through our vision of today's team, but actually today's team may be quite different from tomorrow's team since we're still a long way to figure out the Board's plans.