Tomo

Not comparable. Torres got chance after chance, the team built around him, unconditional minutes and his competition sold off to help him, he would have had to have been below and complete and utter ametuer to not even have done at least a few good things with luxury like that.

Tbf if Cuadrado got the team built around him, got handed unconditional minutes and his competition sold off to "help" him, Im Sure he would have a few glory moments aswell, Torres got so many chances he would have had to been ten thousand times worse than completely utterly abysmal to not have any decent moments with the law of averages so much in his favour, Jermain Beckford would have a few "glory" moment's if we signed him and gave him the same amount of chances and excuses.Torres is the biggest flop in our history simply because of the price, the lengths went too to try and help him and how it affected the team's results, as bad as Cuadrado has been,it hasn't had a negative affect on the team's overall productivity.

He had always been very underrated.

Forget the prediction for us for a minute, does anyone have any predictions for the rest that most may not have? For me Sunderland have an outside shot at top half, Advocaat is a very good manager with bags of experience, theirs a reason the fans have gone as far as sending his wife flowers for agreeing to let him carry on. I think Palace might struggle, Pardew is flavour of the month right now but is very overrated imo, he had great season at WHU then again at Newcastle and both times they struggled badly the following season, can see it happening again. Let's not forget Charlton bombed down the league pyramid largely thanks to him. Also an interesting question is, which club will panic first and make an SOS call to Big Sam? Imagine if he ends up at Liverpool

Sorry what? Did you see our record vs the bottom half teams last season? Or any season Jose has managed us bar 13/14? Do you seriously think he will settle if we're drawing vs Palace at home? Also I see Arsenal are the new City on here, i.e. the team that get hyped up beyond comprehension.

This trigger happy Roman thing was always a lazy ridden cliche. He wanted stability in the dugout as much as the average fan, the bit where both parties separated however is the average fan wanted us to give any Tom, Dick and Harry time for the sake/chance of stability whereas Roman wanted the right man for it. That's why this Jose sacked if he doesn't win nothing talk is lunacy, with us seemingly going down the penny pinching route a competent manager is even more important than it was circa 04-12, another Scolari like fuck up could set us back years. He will have to drop out of the top 4 or stagnate the team badly for Jose getting sacked to even be a remote consideration, else he has this job for as long as he wants it.

Umm didn't we do just that (prove our worth) in the second half of the season? It's when things are going shit when the true quality and character of the team gets tested to the limit, that's why Arsenal fall to 3rd/4th every single season, because they simply cannot cope in adversity and suffer a series of poor results. We on the other hand knuckled down, showed the spirit and got the results, the players and the management team deserve all the credit in the world for that yet barely get any from even their own fans, I don't get it sometimes.

When Costas out is our options any better than 13/14? Eto'o off that season > Remy and Falcao.

Like Barbara said, surgery is an incredibly risky procedure, if it was guaranteed or even high chance off the problems being 'fixed' don't you think the club would have took that course of action?

Now I think we actually have a real chance of retaining our title for 3 reasons our manager, the other teams not being all that and the fact our best team when on form is perfectly set up for flat track bullying but beyond that there is holes in our squad, the depth is absolutely shocking. We are fine in the keeper department but short in the defensive department, a problem that will hopefully be fixed shortly with Baba and Stones but looking further up the pitch, we are lacking. On song, we got the best first Xl in the league but we are treading a thin line, If Matic and Costa get injured say and Hazard has a susoension this will likely be our mid field and strike. -----------Mikel----------Cesc------- Cuadrado-----Oscar-----Moses ------------Remy/Falcao---------- Is that really that much better than the team in 2012 that finished 6th? Even Chuck in one of the three absenties above and it still don't look that great. I'm not demanding a 2nd Hazard or 2nd Costa on the bench, but surely there's some better back up options than the one's we got? Strikers for example we use to have top quality to choose from, Drogba or Gudjohnsen, Drogba or Crespo, Drogba or Anelka, Drogba is out any off those three can lead the line, Remy and current Falcao isn't as close to the quality of any of them named before hand, if Costa doesn't sort that hammy out were in deep shit. Then there's the big games, the CM is a huge issue, Matic and Cesc and the latters defensive weakness gets targeted, Mikel and Matic too defensive, Ramires with anyone and we practicality surrender any control, Cesc is awful at #10, literally any midfield combo in the big game's handicaps us at the minute, Witsel would go a long way to fixing that. I think we can flat track bully our way to the title again, but it is quite frustrating that a good window this summer could have truly set the squad up for a long spell there or there abouts, luckily the team is still young and nowhere near the stagnation stage, so if there's no more activity this summer, there will be chances to rectify the mistakes of this summer, but its still frustrating never the less.

It always makes me laugh when people have a go at the club for "treating poorly" a player who was clearly no where near good enough to ever make it.

Everybody changes. Anyone who claims there the same person with the same perspective on things today as they were 6 or even 2 years ago is a liar.

Remember when Ronaldo was at United? He was also "missing" for a lot of big game's. Big games are big game's for a reason, no one can perform to their full potential for a lengthy period of time in a big game, not even Messi, the high quality on display makes it almost impossible.

The funny thing is in our last two trips to The Emirates Arsenal were actually more defensive than us. Wenger is a bit of a weird one, he's capable off good tactical games but in other occasions he goes and does his best Ossie Ardilles impression.

Hopefully this fantasy of him displacing Costa can end. Decent back up but Costas football intelligence is 100 times better, we missed Diego's movement and intellegent play so much this half.

Remy has been genuinely awful. Costa or Eto'o would have backhealed back to Eden and its 1-1.

His play going forward was brilliant in his first six months back but last season we restricted him due to Cesc being not so great in defense, obviously on a team level it was a sacrifice well worth making.

City and United yes but Liverpool? That was the game he showed he was still raw and if it wasn't for Tibo we would have been down at half time and he would have been as responsible as anyone. Also Eriksen and Fellani need to be put into context, he was asked to do a job and did it but long term he's a CB so basing things on those two appearances are misguided, I mean take Meireles in the 2012 CL semi, was asked to run around and harass the Barca midfield and did amazing at it, so because he contained Iniesta and Xavi to an extend should we have kept playing him and not signed Matic? I'm not saying he should or shouldn't be ahead of Stones or whatever, but when an argument for a player is listings few games its very misleading, Zouma had the kind of first season I expected from him, very good some games (City), average others (Liverpool) and poor in others (Bradford), the average inconsistent teen/early 20.

Off the top of my head Sturridge at Bolton for in with competition from Davies, Elmander and a couple of others, you may say there average but there no worse than what Bamfords competing with. Wilshire at the Same club, Welbeck at Sunderland got significant game time despite Bent and Gyan being his competitors. I believe Bamfords got a serious chance of being a regular there.

Murray will be a tougher nut to crack but I'd still fancy him, Murray's muturity and expierence might be a problem however.

Wickham is crap, he has a mini run of form in 4/5 games every season but bar that is useless. Put it this way if Bamford was owned by MK Dons then Boro then signed for Palace couldn't get in ahead of Wickham, Campbell and Chamakh and someone here suggests signing him the person in question would be laughed at.

Long term is an overused cliche in football, very few manager's think past the here and now when setting up their squads for the season. If Bamford is better than what they have got, he will play, just like Sturridge did at Bolton. I mean if say for argument sake Tibo wanted to go Real Madrid and we strike a one more year then were let you go deal (like Fergie did with Ronaldo and Gerrard with Suarez) would we start using Begovic just because he will still be around next season? No, were make the most of the 2nd best keeper in the world while we still have him and worry about his replacement when he's actually gone.

Same as Wickham, Bamford should walk in ahead of those options, Gayle is the only even remote threat in my eyes.

Who are the strikers there? On the top of my head there's Campbell and Wickham who are rubbish and Gayle who isn't very good either but has had his reputation enhanced by doing a bit of Liverpool bashing. Have i missed anyone because honestly I'll back Bamford to get in ahead of them 3.

If he can't force his way in ahead of Wickham and Campbell (two painfully averages strikers) then he won't make it here and won't deserve too either. If he's a good as we hope he will be/is he will e above those clowns from minute one.