Tomo

The bit i have quoted is the best thing i have read here for quite some time, you have hit the nail firmly on the head. It does my head in when people don't think more outside the box and enroll the same tired cliches. Making Lukaku our number 1 forward would have been a lot to ask for him in itself so young, but factoring the youth of the AM's then the demand get's higher. On the face of it Willian's signing didn't make sense, but before we were a Mata injury away from having to rely on 22 year old's to drive us forward in the biggest tournament's in the world, add a raw 20 year old being our numero uno up front, and well you get the picture. If our forward 4 were that young it would have then been incredibly hard to have played MVG (yes i know he's injured, but he wasn't at the time). It's easy to say throw them all in because of their potential and eventually they will win us trophies, but look at what happened Arsenal, it doesn't work like that. Experience is such an under-rated asset in football, not only does it add calm to situation's, but young players learn from that, young players won't learn as much from fellow pro's in their position as they would from Eto'o, Lampard, Ramires and Mata. Players who are in their prime or been around the block.

Inter Eva Carneiro take ultra defense to a whole new level. Eight 0-0 draw's in ten games

This opinion probably well an truly belongs here, i don't think Baines is that good. He may be decent going forward and has good link up play and understanding with Piennar, but defensively he isn't all that, infact when we play Everton i see him as the weak link defensively, look at what Bellamy did to him at Cardiff. In terms of actual defending i would rate Cole, Gibbs and Bertrand all ahead of him. If Everton sell him for any more than £10m they have committed the heist of the decade. I can see Blaszcykowski having an absolute field day on Tuesday.

Stop quoting him, it messes with my ignore feature

There was an uproar about Cudicini getting dropped for Cech, the result? a runaway title win with the less goals conceded ever in a season. and in a couple of years when Lukaku's one of the top PL scorer's, people will be moaning about another tough decision Jose has made. For some i wonder if it will ever sink in!!!!!!

I would take him in a heartbeat, quite frankly. It's easy to put his record down to being in the Turkish League, but Drogba who even now is better than our current forwards, can't touch his goalscoring sides.

Very true, what made that performance very ironic is that he was awful for the whole of that season, apart from that game.

fair point, but Blazha is probably the best right mid he has faced for quite a while.

Will be interesting to see how Baines deals with Blaszackowski on Tuesday. That will be a test off just how good he is.

England have got lucky with Poland having nothing to play for. They will not want to get injured and miss playing time for their club's, so they will surrender the 50/50's and with that control of the game.

KDB should look at following Townsend's example. Top players coming in and competing for his position but has performed to well to be dropped.

That just isn't an option now, he can walk into Barcelona's team next year if he wants so that rules out the PL loan. If he was owned by Athletico their would be a potential goalkeeping record breaking auction for him this summer, imagine if we were competing with the top clubs in Europe for his signature and we told him we were going to loan him out to the PL to adapt? Next year is decision time, we have to play him or sell him.

I don't disagree with the sentiment's of the article but we can't keep using Van Der Sar and assuming every keeper can go on the same. Shay Given for example was a top keeper in his prime, but in his mid 30's went to Villa and started declining to the point now he is Villa's 3rd choice keeper behind some novice. Van Der Sar may have gone to 40, but it doesn't mean every keeper will.

They won 2 and one of them was as good as by default because Arsenal threw away a 10 point lead. How many title winning number 1 keepers are not in the top bracket as far as keepers are concerned? Part of the reason Arsenal's season's kept derailing is because they were picking between Almunia and Fabianski, Cech's long injury in 06/07 was one of the main reason's we lost the title. Finding keepers really isn't that easy, especially top one's, if we sold Courtois and his comments about Cech retiring early are true, then their is no guarentee at-all that we will find a top class keeper in the league of those two, i can't think of an available keeper that is.

I came on this thread hoping for talk and analysis of his goals. Should have known better.

I swear i was in the unpopular opinion's thread

I agree and hopefully work will be done on changing that under Jose. Despite the myth that he hates young players, he gave Huth 2 years to prove himself and gave him a fair amount of games despite having the 3 best CB's in the league. He even gave Scott Sinclair his debut in a title decider. Im aware we are not talking about a 'half decent' product, that comment was more tongue in cheek and not referring to Nathaniel but youth players in general If we were a midtable club, Chalobah and McEachran would probably be regular's by now, but the problem that would bring, is team's better than us would be sniffing about like a preying mantis.

Sorry for the complete late response i didn't get the notification that you quoted me and haven't been on this thread since. Before Pep took over the talent of those three are obvious, but they weren't the undebatable best in their position's Pep turned them into. Xavi was 28 when Pep took over and while he was a very talented player, he wasn't even in people thought's when it came to the best CM's in the planet. Also a fact that is conveniently ignored is Barca were the 3rd best team in Spain when he took over and in a mess, he took over a team full of talented individuals and turned them into one of the best teams of our generation. The one dimensional thing is a fair argument, but at the same time the myth that he was a lucky passenger on the Barca steam-train could not be further from the truth.

I don't think that's true, football these days is such a high pressured environment, even Ferguson who's job security was a high as mine on fifa career mode with easy board difficulty, hesitated when it came to playing young players in the last 10 years, with exception of Rafeal, who did he play regularly without a PL loan first? even Wenger (who is widely hailed for his youth integration) wouldn't make Wilshere a trusted first team member until he proved himself at Bolton. I personally think there has to be a balance between the two, club and supporters meeting in the middle so to speak, club's (not just our's) are ultra cautious while the supporters (in general) would happily chuck any half decent product in at the age of 18. We could probably be able to integrate youngsters if that means no title for a few years, but in the world of FFP, we can just not afford to end up outside the top 4.

Why? it's not like Rodgers is still there, they have a better manager now.

If that was so easy, i think Fergie would have took quicker than 6 years to find an adequate replacement for Schmeichel.

That's not my view, but other's have said in the last few months that he should be loaned out to the PL to "adapt" to the league, i have been saying for months that next summer is decision time. I wouldn't have regarded it as a 'fantasy' if it was my wish.

And Torres isn't?

Promise? we are talking about a 29 year old, not a teenager just out of the academy. Torres is just crap, the fact he is getting praised to the hilt for the WHL performance is the problem, if Torres was at his best, this would have been one of his quieter performances and he would have actually got criticized for missing a 1 on 1 not praised for getting in that position in the first place. Ba was an asset to us Sunday because he gave us another option to go route 1, his presence should have won a penalty straight away then assisted a goal, then caused Ruddy to panic which luckily the defender tracked behind him to cover. Eto'o even if not scoring is good for keeping play going if nothing else, the amount of turnovers from him in a game is very low, compared to Torres who's turnover count in games last season entered the early 30's. I atleast feel we actually have 11 men when Ba and Eto'o are playing, not the same feeling i get with Torres. None of them are a long term solution but personally Torres is my numero tres out of the forwards we have.

Don't you think? i think it will make the world of difference. You only need to look at Man.Utd who won 4-2 against Levekusen despite playing dog shit to see where actual good forwards will get you not one's who "work hard for the team". When it comes to a forward - Goals > link up play, working hard and all that jazz, if we have a forward who scores almost every match, we would effectively be 1-0 up before we set foot on the pitch. That's why i would have took Mario Gomez with my eyes closed. The line i see used a lot is our system doesn't rely on a forward, well funnily enough since Jose left the last time we have only had one season off a striker being bang on his game and scoring week in, week out and by coincidence it's the only season we have won the league since.