nadavTKL

Yeah he would never leave if he's starting those kind of games and perform well like today... we need him to have a really bad game, Ancelotti would quickly drop him for Pepe for the rest of the season and he'll get frustrated

Exactly, he's a better and more reliable Oscar. Like Oscar of the first few months of a season. It will be great to have too, but right now i would go for Pogba first. Pogba isnt a "soldier" or a team player like Koke is right now, when you say Pogba you think of a freestyle midfielder who runs and shoots and dribble, but the potential is big, and if Mourinho could give him some boundaries, give him specific defensive roles like Koke has in Atletico or Oscar here, he could be a big player for us.

Actually this game (and not only this game) raises the question for me about how good is he offensively? i see Atletico from time to time and look at Koke, saw them a lot last season (but never really made an effort to notice Koke too much), and you dont see the players give him the ball, they prefer to give it to Turan or Tiago when he plays... his role reminds me of Willian or Oscar in this team. Koke's passing and ability to stay with the ball, organise the game or dribble arent something special. Still a very good player and still one of the 3 players i want for Oscar's spot, because he's very reliable in terms of keeping the ball, short quick passes, work rate, but there are quite a lot better players in the world imo.

We are after Gaitan according to A Bola. A 25m pounds release clause on him.

You're right, if Juve didnt get the money this summer Barca could cancel the deal if they really want (Injury or anything else), and if Juve do get the money this summer, its a risk for Barca cause he could get injured and they're fucked. It sounds like too much a risk for both clubs. If thats really the case and its Chelsea against Barca, im optimistic.

I think they can get a deal done with Juventus this summer, maybe not in a formal sense, and the operation will be completed in January or July 2016.

Graham Hunter (talkSport) also saying Chelsea and Bareclona are the front runners to sign Pogba, he's told from "the people that run Pogba". Same thing reported by the Spanish paper Sport.

Its possible he'll do just that, but i didnt get your point...

No, Koke can say no to us and stay in ATM.

So you think people should stop talking about him here because it's possible he won't leave? I think we all know that.

It will be a struggle with anything other than Matic-Cesc-Oscar in midfield. If we want to attack them, want to show we can return to playing good football, there's only one way. Mikel or Ramires instead of Oscar would mean its going to be a fight, its 50-50, and "lets see who's more difficult to break". Its something that went great last season against the big teams but not this season when the team was constructed for something else. Their midfield isnt that great imo, with Matic-Cesc-Oscar its 3 vs 2 (Carrick and Herrera, Fellaini doesnt contribute in central midfield with the ball on the ground). We could control the ball with a good performances from Cesc and Oscar, and i reckon our attacking options will be too much for them to hundle.

Well.... isnt that obvious that our main problem is to keep possesion? and its also clear we dont have any descent replacements for Matic-Cesc-Oscar-Willian-Hazard. Mikel, Ramires, Cuadrado, all three arent suited for possesion football, so naturally they're disrupting our game when they play. So Jose had to play the 5 i mentioned again and again in some periods during the season (the best periods) because other players doesnt fit, it wouldnt be the same with them. But, than Oscar started to play badly, to be inconsistent, so we saw Ramires more and more. And another thing is that Mourinho doesnt trust this five, Matic-Cesc-Oscar-Willian-Hazard, in a lot of situations, mainly in big away games but not just those. So again, enter Ramires instead of Oscar/Willian and again the possesion game goes to hell. Why he doesnt trust them? i think the problem is Oscar. Oscar is a technically gifted player compare to Cuadrado or Schurlle, but not technically gifted enough to play in a crowded central midfield. He loses possesion too much and cant help Cesc when we play against top teams who presses our midfield, he cant take some of the responsibilities of Cesc when the opponent press Cesc hard. Teams know Cesc is our playmaker and our only one. Thats why we need someone else to play next to Cesc, not Oscar, someone who's good as Cesc on the ball, like Koke, Gundogan or Pogba. Again about Ramires, when Mou playes him vs a proper team, Mou basically gives up on possesion. He basically says: "Ok, i cant control the ball with Oscar-Cesc, Oscar wont help me, so i'll drop Oscar and get Ramires in, that way we'll at least defend better. We wont have the ball a lot, but that would have been the same case with Oscar anyway... i sink".

Yes, its done if we win our next 3 games.

So Payet, Sterling/x, Koke/Pogba and Witsel/Nainggolan? thats four players, how many of them you want to play in our regular line up? I assume two?

That means the title ceremony will be in Leicester?

Its not about world class players for 4 games (nubmer of games the philosophy is on 80%, like you claim) , but for a full season? i doubt you can keep going like that for a full season and call yourself a contender.

I think people get a bit carried away with the form United are in right now. I dont think their football is "beautiful" or dominant enough just yet, if they look like that next season i dont think its a PL winner team.. what im saying is that they're playing well and Van Gaal did established his system, they are in the right direction, but still needs more imo, more big signings and better attacking game. And yes (before someone jumps of his chair), we are playing poorly the last few months, and we do need to look a lot better next season, but we're still getting results because of the quality we have and some little spells of good football we create during the game (dont think United can trust those things when they play poorly, not enough top class players in their line up), and our preformences in the first half of our season were better than how United or Arsenal perform right now. And a little reminder, United are playing this way for only 4 GAMES. March 9 they lost 1-2 to Arsenal in the fa cup and looked bad. Arsenal for me are more like the real deal for now, playing well for about two months, they are the ones who play the beautiful football and dominate matches for a long time now.

Hull outplayed us in some minutes, not the all game.. but off course if we'll play like vs Hull or today, United will dominate the match. I just dont think it will happen in the Bridge in a big game against them. City did it but City played well in the middle of tha park, when they're playing well they're better and more dominant than this United imo. United doesnt have the quality in midfield to control this kind of game for 60-90 minutes.

I dont think Man u can outplay or dominate us on the ball, they're not that good. In our current form it will be very hard, but IF we show up and play like first half of the season i think it could be a comfortable win.

I actually think it would be Arsenal. They get a DM and i would call them contenders, United needs couple of more players (CB, and two midfielders instead of Felliani and Young, even if right now both playing well) but they might get them. And Arsenal play better football than United right now. Anyway, our summer needs to be great because i dont want a title race next season as well, they will improve to be PL contenders, we need to improve to be serious CL contenders.

Horrible is an understatement about how he played today, and its worrying, but im happy he's the one who scored it. One of our main leaders for the next few years. A little bit of "Lampard" from him in this goal.

I agree with your points as well. There is this feel about some teams who go to play against Real/Barca, like not enough emotion to give a real fight like the English teams. Another thing, the reasons PL is still more fun to watch for most people are imo those: 1) Better stadiums 2) More crowed, helps for the atmosphere significantly imo. 3) The "international feel" the PL has, compared with the spanish feel in La Liga, is just more intresting and intriguing for most people. La Liga has far less foreign players, in PL you can see players from everywhere... 4) English speaking league 5) That emotion we talked about

While i agree PL is more fun to watch, excitement doesnt mean good fotball. A lot of the excitement in the PL is a result of poor tactics by the managers, most of them know very little about ball pressing or about not allowing space. The game is very open and "fun" compared with La Liga because of that. 13 of the PL managers are British, and most of them are old-fashioned who stuck in the "old game", the problem starts there. The second reason the La Liga is superior is that.. they have better footballers. The Spanish player is just a lot more talented and technical than the English player. In the PL, players from the bottom table are really hard to look at imo. Horrible skills on the ball, sometimes i think i could play in the PL when i watch those players play, i just need to really work hard and grow some muscle. Off course La Liga have bad players too, and bad teams, but the standart is just more, in case of skill (for the player), and in case of smart-modern tactics (managers). When PL teams will get even richer (all 20 teams), maybe we'll see a change there, because teams would continue to buy talented foreign players. Real and Barcelona would have walked PL also given the chance. Since Real and Barcelona really took control on European football (with Bayern), there wasnt any PL team who was as strong as them, not a chance. PL strong teams allow their games to be an "excitement" time after time because of their vulnerabilities, they allow teams to control the ball, and their defensive setup is not good enough... they allow the game to get away from them pretty easily because of that. Actually, Chelsea this season didnt allow it too much, we are going in the right direction, and thats because we have skilfull players, but we need a couple of more to be really dominant in games, and we have a fantstic manager.

You're suggesting a diamond formation? defeneltly not Jose's favorite approach with no wingers at all. And Pogba+Koke will be like 100m pounds, come on...

Really? because Jose doesnt even play Oscar in most of our big games, he prefer to play Ramires because he cant trust Oscar to help us enough when we're on the ball, so he's like saying "the hell with it" and plays Ramires for tatical-defensive reasons. So i dont think it would be too difficult to replace Oscar, the player who repalces Oscar just needs to be good enough to get picked in the important games.