didierforever

brilliant performance. one of the best and the most complete performances i have seen this season. totally dominated the proceedings and showed those wankers who's who. schwarzer - good game. never in trouble except for the ryo chance. good performance. 8/10 azpi - what the hell was he doing there for the goal!!!! a good performance and congratulations to him for his forst goal. 8/10 cahill - anothere solid performance. he is showing that he can be and will be more than just a squad player. 7/10 luiz - a much needed solid performance. did what was required off him rather than trying to do everything. 7.5/10 bertrand - what a game!!! what a performance from him!!! MOTM for me. i honestly cant say any thing wrong about that performance. had ryo in his pocket all night long and he must have won the ball back about 10-15 times individually. even when cazorla shifted to the wing after ozil's inclusion, he was untouched. simply magnificient from bertrand. he has been continously performing well and he has given a shout for some regular first team football. 9.5/10 essien - very confused about his performance. he let people run past him (ramsey and wilshere) but i can remember atleat 3 instances when he literally bulldozed past those 2 in the mid. defensively was a little shaky but his runs were brilliant. the only problem in his runs was the final ball. he seemed confused to take a shot or just play etoo in or pass it to the wings. but a decent performance considering that he has not got any minutes so far. 7/10 mikel- a very mikel-ish performance. but some of the one touch that he, bertrand and essien played during the 2nd half to get out of tight spots was fabulous and great to watch. went ahead well and covered essien well too. 7.5/10 kdb - i have not seen much of him but the amount i have heard about him , he dint do justice to it. he seemed to be switched off somehow. some of his decision making was appalling. his movement or lack of it was weird. i specially remember a moment in the 2nd half when mata had the ball on the Left wing, kdb stood right in front of the D with koscielny marking him and dint make a run to drag him away so as to space for mata. in the end mata had to play the ball back and this was just one incident. very off-colour. he will be our 6th choice AM unfortunately. 6/10 mata - good game, great goal!!! and what an over the top celebration. his performance lacked that little bit of zing that u expect from mata. anyways his play on the ball was decent. runs were good but the final ball dint really pay-off at multiple times.also he was good defensively when we went 4-3-3. 7.5/10 willian - really impressive!!! best of the AMs. very direct and gave monreal a hell of a time on multiple occasions. defensively he was IMMENSE. 9/10 etoo - good link up play but a tad slower than necesaary to cos that serious problem. his shots were just not good enough (one of them going out for a throw-in). defensively he was great. it was literally like we were playing with 4 AMs, he was so deep at times. 7/10 subs - ramires - he is RAMBO. nothing more needs to be said. also i atlast got my wish to see a 4-3-3 with rambo-mikel-essien. i still remember in 2010 when essien was still bison, ramires used to run around like a mad-man and mikel was his usual self, i always thought a 4-3-3 with these 3 in the mid would be great to watch. today i got my wish after almost 3 years and it was decent. ba - good hold up play but i feel for his own sake and to get some real footbal he should leav in the winter. kalas- just a couple of minutes. he ll get his chance soon.

i think most of the questions u r asking, i answered to those in my last post to robguima. as for luiz, in the last season, i feel he was brilliant as a midfielder. i have said that in the DL thread too while arguing with tomo. he was in a brilliant moment and we were playing a style of football which suited him. we were playing a very open game (compared to what we are right now). carvalho's example again comes back to the point of having that support from midfield. we had one of the best DMs who had the position itself named after him (makelele), later we had essien who was thought to be the next makelele. also JT was in his prime then, much quicker than he is now. i feel a lot of things are different between carvalho and DL. i feel, DL's understanding of the game and defense in general in better compared to carvalho 's but he is also more error prone. also JT-carvalho formed the most amazing pair as a CB which DL-JT have not even come close to. what JT-carvalho had was special and expecting that again would not be right. i feel it is more than just football that can explain their understanding, balance and composure with each other.

it is roman's club but he has entrusted mourinho to do what is best for the CLUB. not for himself. but as u said, we already have had that discussion and lets not go there again. i admit about the play of style and sooner or later we will be playing an ADAPTATION or a modified version of barca's game. but at this moment, can we? for me, more important than having a ball-playing/ball-winning defender is having a WC pivot. rambo has been phenomenol this season and had a very good season last time but i feel he is some way off being called WC. lamps is no where near a wc DM, he is not even a DM. the examples u give about barca, BM and city each have midfielders who would walk into world XIs. for me the problem is not in defence but in mid atleast about the point u r talking. Till then, till the point we are still in the transition period and until we get an identity of our own, and actually find our feet, we have to make do with what is best for us for the moment. cos winning is as important a part as is the football we play.look at arsenal, some of the best football was played with fiberglass and yet no trophies and moreover the lynchpin of their team moved on. hence, we have to find a middle road and for me, right now, GC is a good enough fit alongside JT.

pretty much our case last year when united won and had to play another at SB for COC. we played about 5 first team players and pretty much lost our way on league after that.

its not just the weekend though, is it? they have pool on saturday, dortmund on tuesday and united the next weekend. plus they have a major chunk of squad players like (podolski, walcott, aoc) injured or barely out of injury and in no state to start. playing with a strong XI will be suicidal and i wont mind because it would mean arsenal slipping in PL and CL.

roman may want whatever he wants... this is jose's team, and i have no doubt what-so-ever on who will be calling the shots here. also i have no doubt on the kind of football jose wants to play. also please, tell me the midfield of those teams that are winning international tournaments. its basically spain who has won a WC and 2 euros and barca who have dominated europe. tell me there midfield its xavi, xabi, iniesta, silva, fiberglass all together... we have mata(bench material for spain), hazard (3-4 years away from his prime), oscar who is playing awesome right now but was hopelessly missing during large chunks of last season. add to that lamps (a 35 year old CAM) who is now playing as a CDM. u have to look at the kind of play those teams play compared to ours. barca can afford to give away 2 goals cos they know they can hit 5, not so much for the PL. we are here comparing apples and oranges.

so u wont take into account the league messi plays in (LOL liga) where even soldado had what 30-odd goals... a league where ribery anyways has 4 matches less to play plus about 3-4 matches less to play in the domestic league too??? messi's personal performance, this year, has been no where near ribery's.also goals are not the only criteria to judge them...

so what criteria are u judging on some1 being "better" than the other. what does "who is the better footballer" even mean. this is what the ballon dor official site says The FIFA Ballon d'Or is an association football award given annually to the player who is considered to have performed the best in the previous year. it is and it has to be about performance. in 10 months this year, so far, 2 months there was no football and for about 2 months messi has been injured. he was average-bad in all the big matches (classicos, BM, super-cupa) meanwhile ribery has been phenomenol. be it in the final, semi quarters, uefa-supercup against us or generally through out the yeear.

my friend just told me that. wenger confirmed that hayden would play. so probably that is a direct swap for frimpong. also he says gnabry seems to have a niggle and he is being accessed.

AMEN TO THAT... kill those arse-anal 3-0 atleast.

here in lies the problem. ramos, puyol, pique, hummels play in teams that actually WANT their defenders to be pro-active where as i seriously doubt that about us. i totally agree with what phildriver has said (only on this thread though), that defending is all about the back 5 being on the same wavelength and defending like a unit. barca, bvb have a very different ideology from ours and it is simply wrong comparing their defenders to ours to prove a point. it wont be the other 10 players who will adjust and mould their-selves to luiz's style of play. the change has to come from luiz himself.

fabianski jenkinson vermalean mertesacker monreal wishere frimpong gnabry rosiscky miyachi bendtner. that is what my friend (an arsenal fan) expects them to start with.

ribery, heyneckes...

hazard might be a better player than mata but mata performed better than hazard last year. so MATA SHOULD BE ON THE LIST IF HAZARD IS ON THE LIST. ballon d'or decides the best player in the world and player of the year in europe - I KNOW THAT.but messi plays for barca which suprisingly is in EUROPE. the only other consideration is what messi has done with argentina and compare it with ribery's contribution for france. but that STILL DOES NOT MAKE HIM THE BEST PLAYER IN THE LAST YEAR. ribery deserves the award.

what the crap!!!! how did hazard make the list and not mata. anyways who cares for the awards.. even though ribery deserves it, messi will pay it off. and even though pep was on a sabatical and not in the shortlist, i am sure uefa will find a way to give the award to him. also how the fuck did wenger make the list?????? round of 16 in CL, 4th in PL, and not even in the semis of fa and COC. shit nominee.

out - ba(10), mikel(5-10) in - witsel/sven bender - 20-25.

yup.precisely the point i wanted to make. could not have thought of a better example. also i remember that moment. it was quite funny.

i dint blame the norwich goal solely on DL. i feel JT was more at mistake than both iva and DL to let van wolf win the header. GC came in 2011-12 while DL came in 2010-11, so what point u were trying to make, i really dint get it. anyways we are playing under a new manager who is playing in a totally different system than what we played under AVB, RDM and RAFA. so u cant mistake me for throwing stats here just for this season. and its not just about the stats but the general play we have set up. i mean norwich and cardiff were more threatening than fulham and schalke. maybe its just co-incidence but we are playing better with JT-GC than with JT-DL.

if u watch the replays then its very clear where nastastic was looking at. THE BALL. he (like any good defender in the world should) had his eyes on the ball. also it does not matter what hart was screaming. i totally agree with what owen said in MOTD about hart's shouting not having any effect. but as u said, all that matters is we won.

u really dont understand anything do you. let me break it down for you. 1. jose knows just like i know and just like every1 on here knows, luiz is a better defender than cahill. 2. jose gave luiz his chance to prove that luiz can adjust to jose's style but luiz blew it with his mistakes against everton, norwich and cardiff. 3. now jose did the right thing by dropping DL out of the team and starting GC over him for one of the most important match we will play this season. this does not BLOW a hole in my argument but just confirms what i have been saying all this time. (let me say that again in a compressed one line otherwise i have no idea what u might interpret it to: luiz's mistakes cost us so we should play GC-JT). get it!!!??? or do u need to be spoon-fed further?

very true. we should not look at the stats, or the own personal mistakes of luiz or actually watch the game and see for ourselves how we have been playing with a particular player on and off the field but we should just take your word for it that luiz is better. thats right!!! forget about what all the pundits are saying and forget about what most of the people on the forum (despite admitting that luiz is better than cahill) want cahill to partner JT and also we should forget that JOSE-FUCKING-MOURINHO the coach who has won 2 CLs and domestic league in portugal, italy, spain and england, preferred GC over DL in probably the match that was between the no.1 and no.2 team in PL. but we should all listen to YOU NAME IT. cos he knows it all. what i wanted to get across may have been said in a very pedestrian way, but on the other hand, u dont have an argument except for exclaiming, "REALLY!!!", "HE IS WORTH 35MIL!!!" "I CANT BELIEVE U ACTUALLY THINK SO"... comeback when u actually HAVE an argument to give.

to give credit where its due, aguero's run was marvellous. he was offside, but comes onside and then dashes for the ball. and then he has acute angle shot at cech's near post. but yes,u r right, it was all cahill's mistake!!!!!!!!!!!!

they think lucas is god's best creation, so who cares what they think. but we had seen sturridge play and knew what we could do. i still remember that the forum was divided into 2 major factions at the start of the last season. 1. who thought sturridge would be our messiah and save our asses (me included). 2. the ones who put all their trust in torres and thought sturridge was nothing more than another over-rated, egoistic player. but honestly speaking, i am not at all suprised by how well he is doing at pool.

let me bring it down to the level that an idiot would understand. everton match - luiz's hopeless defensive error changes the whole complexion of a match that we were so fully dominating and controlling. after that everton parked the bus and we found it very-very difficult to break them cardiff match - luiz's childish display puts us in trouble once again. hence we were chasing the match again. with GC-JT, the opposition dont get the charity that luiz gives. also with cahill-JT we have so far conceded 2 goals in 6 matches (hull, villa, united, fulham, schalke and city) and both the goals have been phenomenol strikes by the striker. the benteke shot was absolutely brilliant and aguero's too even though cech should have stopped the latter one. this makes us more difficult to play against cos teams need a moment of magic to score rather than getting goals in free-fund.

u dont accept that luiz is error-prone. u dont accept that cahill-JT has been our best and most comfortable pair this season and now u have ridiculed stats which show that we have played best with cahill-JT. i am out of ways to get my point across. the only other way is to take a cheap shot and say that jose played the cahill-JT combo over luiz-JT against a team that he even in his post-match interview said "had the strongest squad in PL". now, that makes me believe in what i write and what i am thinking.