Tomo

Say we had Falcao this season, no the problems in the rest of our team would not have gone away, but they would have looked a lot less troubling, the same way a lot of issue's at United are covered up by RVP, the same way Drogba's form in 09/10 covered up some obvious sign's we were in decline. The CWC final for example, if it had been Falcao instead of Nando, Radamel would have finished for the first chance and positioned himself better (IE not been offside) for the 2nd, bobs your uncle a shite performance but two moments of utter class by a world class forward getting us the win. That would have also happened many times in the league with Falcao also.

Make no mistake, this will be a huge statement of intent.

Can we tho? Lewa is most likely going to Bayern and Cavani will cost just as much if not more. Those 3 and RVP (we missed the boat big time there) are the best four forwards in world football right now, if were serious about getting back with the big boys, one of these is what's going to get us there.

I can understand people wanting Lewa or Cavani over Falcao, but not wanting the Colombian full stop?

If Torres is so insistent of staying we make him 3rd choice forward and if he wants his place, he can earn it by good performances in training and on the pitch, like Drogba and every other forward in our history has had to do.

The people who run this game have too much time on their hands.

The midfield we have now, the striker doesn't really need to be that complete or even play well half the time, just succeed in where Fernando fails and do the basics right. Gomez would thrive with the trio behind him.

Thats two pens they have got away with already, don't forget the one against Milan too.

Pique is the most over rated defender i have ever seen, put him up against a really good forward and he is tripping over himself.

Will the final be on ITV too?

Fixed

Its a bit steep but if he gets similar goal average's to what he has been getting at Bayern Munich then i won't complain. Obviously i would prefer Falcao, Cavani or Lewa but we could do a lot worse imo.

Am i the only one that would be happy with this? His goal record is phenomenal and yes he may disappear in big games quite a bit but he will sweep up against the lesser teams, failure to do that this term is the reason were in a desperate battle for 4th. United win their titles because they rarely drop silly points, their big game record isn't actually that great, hench the lack of CL's and even FA Cup's compared to PL's.

I remember in the same fixture last season Suarez and Ivanovic had a minor (in comparision) bust up and at that moment i thought of the time he bit the PSV player and imagined him possibly doing the same in that moment. A bit strange he does just that in the same fixture the following season.

Unless he makes a vital contribution in the next few weeks to help us finish top 4/win Europa i will go as far as saying he is up their with Torres in terms of our biggest ever flop, despite only a £6m fee.

Purely speclutive, not a single rumour at this point. Personally i think he is just what the defense need. With John Terry on the wane, Branislav Ivanovic better as a right back and Gary Cahill no better than a (good) squad player, a long term defensive partner to David Luiz is needed in the summer. Roncaglia was signed by Italian club Fiorentina last summer and has helped them climb to 4th place (they finished 13th last season). After losing Nastastic to Manchester City, Vincenzo Montella unearthed another gem in this guy. At 26 is approaching the peak of his powers, just the kind of signing we need this summer. Also to add he is a right sided CB so that means Luiz can carry on playing on his preferred left side.

Sometimes things don't work out for certain players at certain clubs, if we get him we could bring out his Udinese form again. Duff is an example, he didn't work out at Newcastle, they sold him to Fulham and all off a sudden we saw the form he displayed for Chelsea and Blackburn again.

Before we signed Hazard and Oscar. So in other words if this happened this time last year before we got either.

If this happened before we got Oscar and Hazard, i would be fuming with jealousy.

Just a thought, if we kept Robbie and had the exact same results, would we have accepted that this was a season of transition and what has happened is the best we could have hoped for? I think were that blinded by hate to Benitez we are trying to make out this season has been worse than it actually has been. Ok Rafa hasn't done himself any favours at times, but reducing the average age of the squad as much as we did was only going to lead to the inconsistent results we have suffered this term. Maybe we could have done better in some of the cups, but im afraid we have done as good as we could have in the league. We must prioritize experienced heads this summer, in centre back, midfield and forward.

Its harder to score in Serie A than the Premier League. I love how the BPL is made out to be some super league that players have to prove themself's in before their considered great. The myth that Messi won't score as many in England is annoying, he would have an absolute field day against some of these defences.

They say things work in cycles, with Gotze going there, Hummels probably following eventually along with Pep, the next four years could be the turn of Bayern.

@Hutcho, They will defend him publicly, but ill be amazed if their isn't a fair chunk of our squad who privately have the same views on Torres as most of us.

Nope, any one who faces them for the rest of the season

So that's another fucking guard off honour we have to do for them. We need the title back, fast.