Tomo

He might have I'm not suggesting he defiantly would not have but now he's established as the best left back in the league, there's no need to tinker with it now.

Not just the CWC but that season he was decent, but its since his move to LB he had blossomed into the defender he is today, he is almost unplayable from a defensive POV, and as said before I think his lack of attacking play is more down to instructions than anything else. I'm all for finding a replacement for Ivan but I'd rather we signed a new RB next summer or something, Cesar has been flawless defensively at left back and it would be insane to move him after the season he has had.

No, the group stage should be as easy/straight forward as possible.

Despite walking the league last season we Still have areas on the pitch were we can improve in.You cite Madrid but there's other examples like United under Fergie, Liverpool 80s and Barca under Pep who always made that little tweak each summer to keep going at the very top, standing still eventually leads to stagnation as we should know as much as anyone.

Yes

He has been a lot better at left back than he was at right back, at RB he got the run around a couple of times (CWC semi and Jarvis) at LB he's almost unplayable from a defensive POF.He's as good a defensive LB as we can get, hes not Marcelo going forward (not as bad as made out tho), but how many of the current best wingers in the world would still be considered one of the best if we put their defensive abilities into serious consideration? One rule for fullbacks, another for wingers.

Why? He's as good as anyone in that position and didn't make a single mistake leading to oppo chance.

Yes the club could maybe have done better in a few cases but I ain't accepting any blame for McEachran, that one Is on him and only him. Maybe if Jose was here In 2011 he would have given Josh similar tough love he gave RLC, oh well.

Arsenal fans are actually gloating about this Goes with United fans gloating about a 1-1 home draw last season and Liverpool fans gloating about only losing 1-0 at Real. And these are suppose to be the 3 biggest clubs in this country, what a mess.

Am I the only one that isn't bothered in the slightest he's done well? Fair play to him for doing what he has done but players can leave and do well without it being a mistake, how many Barca fans do you reckon lose any sleep over Yaya, Cesc, Sanchez or Ibra? Let alone create a reaction some have in this thread.

A few years back the same thing was both said about Hazard and especially Neymar, both have proven to be worth every bit of their hype and then some. Every person I have spoke to who watch people regularly say Pogba is just as good as the hype suggests if not better, In a few years time like with Neymar and Hazard now, Pogba will be one of the key players at a club challenging on all fronts and his admittedly steep price tag like with Neymar (we got very lucky Hazard had a release clause) will be a distant memory.

Fair enough but I think the mentality had some part to do with it. Real are a very 'special' club in the player power regard and it will be interesting to see what Rafa does there.What I mean by mentality is Jose had it in his mindset that he wanted to do a European tour before he was 50, if he didn't leave when he did he would have probably left in summer 2008 for Inter anyway, he was a young manager with the world at his feet and Roman was a new owner and was a bit of a power hungry by all accounts. That combination was always going to lead to a fall out sooner rather than later. Both have clearly made peace and made some sort of compromise this time, I mean look at Jose backing Romans decision to let Cech go to Arsenal despite not agreeing, 2007 Jose would have hit the roof, 2007 Roman might not have gone out and immediately signed Begovic on Jose's request either, the environment for the 3rd season of Jose is 1000× more healthy right here right now than it was at Madrid or Chelsea the first time round. Porto he was always going to leave when his stock rose and Inter he and Morrati both knew it was a short term agreement hench the Inter owner letting him spend millions on players in late 20s to get the CL, his job description at Inter was about as short term as you can get, Jose only wanted a couple of years in Italy, Morrati was happy with that, get the players nessesery in, get those results. Although having said that Jose did some good work on the academy. Yes I can understand the 3rd season concerns but like I said he has a much healthier surrounding this time round and mixed with the fact he wants the job for the long term and a healthy balanced squad at a good age, I can't see that much going wrong if I'm honest, on or off the pitch.

Sterling's going to be a top player for City for many many years

I'm jealous of that one, for £8m we should have been all over him, this kid is something very very special.

City do get a bit off unfair stick when it comes to "ruining" home grown players, Rodwell was injury phrone and Sinclair was never good enough. Zaha went from being an up and coming star and is now a Palace squad player yet no word on how United ruined him.

Not sure he would get into any of the top 6, Southampton is probably the highest club he would be a automatic starter for. Guess he has the choice of squad player and get medals round your neck or play week in week out and fight for 6th/7th.

Won't argue with that.

So far he has only had two '3rd season's'. At Chelsea mark 1 it wasn't catastrophic, far from it, we won a domestic double, yes we lost out on the league to United, but we got 84 points (I think) that season which isn't bad by any stretch of the imagination, even more so when you factor in Terry and Cech were lost for half the season. At Real they had an awful start but when they pulled their finger out they werebetter than Barca that season, unfortunately the damage was done but the performance level was still high. Furthermore although this is technically his 3rd season back here I think it has more of a second season feel about it (especially if Stones, Witsel and Pedro come in), Mou pretty much wrote off the first season as far as winning the league was concerned and the real task/pressure started last summer.

I think CM is a bit of a grey area and needs to be sorted if we want to make that push in Europe.Matic and Cesc partnership has been brilliant for flat track bullying, but when it's been used in big games, the latter's not so great defensive game is clear as day, Spurs away, first half hour at Anfield, Mikel and Matic combo is far too defensive and Rami with anyone and his very low football brain always handicaps us against the truly top opposition. We ideally need a player who can tuck in between Cesc and Matic in the big game's, as good as Luis deal was and was the right time to let Lamps go, we did lose a bit the big game power we had in 13-14.

Zouma was very promising with his appearances but by no means the Varane mark 2 some tried to claim.

+ Baba if Luis goes.

Jason has pretty much covered my response.

I thought we had a brilliant end and beginning but dodgy middle, what was quite annoying is whenever we had a chance to create some real distance with United we dropped points which was infuriating.My massive gripe with Carlos spell is when we were winning by 3+ we played with urgency and intensity like we were losing with ten to go yet when we were actually losing or drawing we coasted like we were 5 up. Not saying the former was a bad thing but I would have swapped 7 goals for 4 if it meant we found the much needed goal when things were going bad or at least showed some intent and urgency to try and get it. Do you remember the game vs Fulham away in 10/11? The amount of potential counters ruined by Lamps, Essien and whoever else was in midfield that night passing between themselves drove me up the wall.

He played 5-3-2 because we showed our hand at Sunderland with the diamond with Kalou 'playing' Torres, and when executed right 5-3-2 nullifies any formation that doesn't have any width. Im surprised more managers didnt try that vs us that season, we would have been in real shit if they did.Also Torres shot in minute one wasn't really a chance half chance at best, the one that Carragher blocked half an hour in on the other hand............

The home game was ten times worse, Carlo got completely destroyed tactically by a man who just got back in the game after a decade.