Tomo

Don't panic just yet, Jose is not exactly known for fast starts to the season performance wise.

The start of this season supports what i have been saying about City all summer. A good team who will be there or there abouts, but not a chance will they run away with it and they are not clear favorites.

Did he? he scored against Shaktar because of a terrible error by the keeper but was absolutely anonymous against both the Ukraine side and Juve. He was decent against Nord, but that just sums him up.

There are many myth's that go around about Chelsea but one that really grates me is the one that Carvalho made Terry look better than what he is. I mean how uneducated can opposition fans be about us? In 04/05 when we broke the record for the best defense in PL history, Terry played 36 out of 38 games while Carvalho played 25. In 05/06 when we only conceded 22, Terry played 36 again while Ricky played 24. infact it was 06/07 when JT got injured, that our defense which included Carvalho started to leak goals left, right and centre. John Terry was criminally under-rated at his peak, between 2004-2010 he had very, very few bad games, he was at the very least as good as the likes of Nesta and Cannavaro were at their peaks, he really was that good, between 04-08 he was the best defender in the world, by a mile. We could have got £40m for him of City back when paying that type of money was unheard off in England, never mind for a defender. Im not saying Carvalho wasn't good for us, he was very good, but there was a reason Jose picked Terry as his untouchable and rotated Ricky with Gallas for the other CB role and not just because he was captain. I can't help but cringe every time someone says Carvalho made him look a better player, because it simply was not true, even with Ben Haim as his partner he was incredible.

Sorry for the uber late response but to be in our squad next season with the AM option's he is probably going to have to be the best player in La Liga outside of Barca and Madrid.

He weren't too bad, he had his moments. Even so, he wasn't bad enough to warrant being dropped for Giggs, who is finished as a footballer in near enough every aspect and is risking doing serious damage to his legend status at Old Trafford if he doesn't retire very soon.

United have already got a proper (and top class) attacking midfielder in Kagawa but Moyes decides to play a 40 year old ahead of him. With Moyes there Barkley will be just as starved for game time as he would be for us, if not more.

Exactly, i would like to think if we had someone so obviously talented as Pogba is, he would get a damnsite more than 7 appearances.

There was the incident with Pogba aswell, he was young, talented and potentially a solution to United's midfield problem, so what do they do? play him a mere 7 times over the whole 11-12 season (3 of them in the Carling Cup) and lose him to Juve. To think we get enough stick for average players like Sinclair, Bruma and Mancienne never playing enough, imagine if we made a fuck up on that proportion?

Exactly, i don't see where United get this reputation from that there so great for young players, they haven't been for years.

Actually someone posted the stats on the 5 biggest backward passers in Europe last season (might have even been on this thread) Mikel wasn't on that list, Iniesta and Xavi were.

So he can play under a tactical dinosaur who benched him while playing Phil Neville?

That's what? 6 times you have posted this in 5 pages. We get it, you don't like Mikel.

That's true, if we had a team to the strength of Bayern, Real or Barca in the prem, it would be very, very hard to see us winning it but our rivals for the title aren't actually all that. United have to deal without Fergie for the first time in two and a half decades and Moyes's playing Giggs is going to hold them back. City despite all the weird hype aren't actually all that, they have an off form keeper, a Kompany injury away from being all over the place at the back and Yaya Toure is actually very inconsistent, we shouldn't be fooled by his displays against us.

Ofcourse he is going to say that in public, he is probably telling players every day in Cobham that we are going to win it at Anfield.

---------------------------Cech----------------------------- Ivanovic--------Cahill----------Terry----------Bertrand ------------------Mikel-----------MVG--------------------- De Bruyne-------------Oscar--------------------Hazard ---------------------------Eto'o----------------------------- Subs: Schwarzer, Azpi, Luiz, MVG, Willian, Mata, Schurrle. Basle are no mugs, you saw what they did against United two years back, we can't do to much rotation, the reason for picking Bertrand and not Azpilcueta is that it will be a risk picking two players who haven't played all season (apart from a few minutes at OT for Azpi) so it's boils down to who needs a rest more and imo it's Cole. Save Luiz for Fulham too.

@Rubber bullets, Regarding the Terry and Lampard bit, JT has been playing regularly this season because he deserves too, he hasn't done that much, if anything wrong. Lampard should be playing less however.

We have some young players, but we aren't actually that young a squad. The average age of the team's we have put out this season is 28.

They were back in the first two years yeah, but as their reliance on Messi goes up, the less good they are to watch, imo. I don't have a problem with teams that want to play that way, if they like tika taka then that way should be respected, what annoy's me is when those teams look their noses down at teams that don't play the same way or similar. Like for example, the way Arsenal fans use to look their noses down at Stoke.

He didn't, we had one good performer that night and that was Cech.

Even worse when the opposition try taking the moral ground, like in 2009-2010, we battered Arsenal twice with great defense and brutal counter attacking football, they hardly create a chance of real note in 180 minutes, but were trying to claim the moral victory because they played more short passes and triangles

I think the supposed "attractive game" is over-rated. Arsenal back in 2009 and Barcelona for me aren't even pleasing on the eye to me, i think passing the ball around in traingles isn't that good to watch and personally i love watching teams who will force opponents into submission (Chelsea 2005-2010, Madrid). I hate this perception of good football, there's a lot more ways of good football than just tika taka.

Maybe my standards have gone down after suffering with Torres for so long, but i thought he had a pretty decent game, he missed a couple of chances, but a striker reguarly getting in position to miss those chances is something we have longed for ever since Drogba lost his form.

That's a fair point, but also if you keep performing to the same standard eventually you will get your reward, look what happened to Bayern after the 2012 CL final?

Since when was Manchester United away not a real test?