didierforever

for me the line-up is pretty obvious. cech azpi cahill JT cole rambo mikel kdb oscar hazard lukaku subs - schwarzer, azpi, essien, lamps, mata, ba/torres, schurlle. lamps should not start against united. we seen what their pace does to him. for me the striker is a no brainer.

well that was one cakewalk, right guys? OH WAIT... i feel we took our foot off the pedal to early in the first half, even before the goal, villa had started making the odd chance and for the last 15 minutes of the first half, i dont think we had a single move except for hoofing the ball to BA. we were really lucky to get 3 points off this game and should be buliding on the win. here's my player analysis - CECH - MOTM without a doubt. no keeper in the world could have done anything to stop the goal, so i dont think any blame can be put on him. the rest of the game he was a beast. handling the cross, vital-vital stops and saves and even his distribution was PERFECT. 10/10 for me. IVANOVIC - a lot of good and bad moments in the match for me. let agbanlahor go past too easily in the lead up to the goal. also could/should have been sent off twice in the match. but crucially got the winner. 6/10 CAHILL - was good. won most of the aerial battles against benteke. good tackles and covered JT and IVA whenever wiemann and agbanlahor ran behind them. could not have stopped the cross from agbanlahor for the goal.7/10 JT - was very average. really slow and could have conceded a penalty. had the the goal covered for the benteke goal but unluckily it was a beast of a finish,6/10 Cole- his usual self. though he dint venture forward much during the match because of wiemann's speed. 7/10 Ramires - a very close 2nd to cech for MOTM. beast in the mid, good distribution, excellent tackling and probably could have had a goal if hazard had put him thru in the counter towards the end.9/10 Lampard - felt he was really tired towards theend.dint close down the villa mid a no of times and gave delph/westwood plenty on time on the ball. attackingly was decent. 7/10 Hazard - POOR. lost the ball countless number of times. i feelhe is still in pre-season mode. needs to get his act to together before the united and bayern match. 5/10 Oscar - great ball to put hazard thru, defensively did more than his share of work. brilliant start to the season. 8/10 Mata - dint seem match-fit or even fit. levels below his standards. was not at all influential and could not control the game at all. 5/10 BA - if we are buying a new striker then this would probably have been his last match. simply put, he was awful. for the major chunk of the first half we tried to play him behind the defence but neither was he able to hold the ball, nor was he able to make a significant contribution to the attack. will probably be sold if we DO get a new striker.5/10 LUKAKU - HE IS OUR BEST STRIKER. PERIOD. won plenty of headers, ran a lot and his performance was characterized by the slide tackle he put on clark to concede the throw-in. a brilliant turn and shoot which got the side netting, link up play was good too and work rate was immense. SHOULD START AGAINST UNITED. 8/10 schurlle - provided much needed width for us since MAZACAR was too narrow. a decent performance. 7/10 MVG - not much to do.

sometimes he even dives to win us 35 yard free kick and dont u remember he had one good pass to oscar in the hull match. that should be enough proof that torres does help the team.

i guess because torres is 29 and lukaku is 20 and age and experience should take a preference than the player's ability according to some posters here,

LOL at people saying mikel wont be used and all. its going to be a LONG season and i have no doubt we will be competing for atleast 3 ofthe 4 tournaments that we are going to play in. so mikel will get his CHANCES, and i have no doubt he ll be good. anyways i trust in jose to make the right call.

LOL at people under-estimating villa. i predict a 2-0 or 2-1 hard fought victory which would be the complete opposite of hull game.

wont be an easy game. they ll be all charged up. wanna see mata start. he has to get a gametime under him before we go to OT. cech azpi cahill JT cole rambo mvg moses mata hazard lukaku. wanna see this team.

u seem suprised, when has he taken a shot in 3 years?

still better than sturridge???

a perfect performance for me. did exactly what was needed. got 2 first half goals (could have got 5-6) and then simply killed off the game with breaking the tempo in the 2nd. and thats exactly what i was expecting. no need to go all-out unless required. by the way, first half was breathtaking, unbelievable. the way we started the game was just majestic. oscar was faboulous (my MOTM) while rambo just bossed the midfield. also his passing has improved exponentially. hazard looked a little off pace. not yet to his best but still a decent performance. kdb - good, solid performance. perfect debut and what a ball to play oscar thru. lampard - played more like a cam/striker in the 1st half than a deep lying playmaker, defence and cech- solid. not much to do thru out the game. cole was really good with the ball though. lukaku, schurlle, mvg - not much to do. barely attacked towards the end. schurlle's work rate is commendable though. torres - i felt that he started the game very brightly but then realized he should not be playing well.

speechless but all i can say right now is IN JOSE I TRUST. because that line-up just fucking screwed my head. the idea of watching that dumb blonde play ahead of ba and lukaku is killing me inside. also please dont say that essien is a defender. obviously he can play as a defender but i would rather prefer a jet-lagged azpi and a 100% fit and functional bertrand ahead of him.

no defenders in the substitutes = FAKE!!!

no need. we should be getting shaw.

line-ups?

no way will he start today, not a chance. believe in JOSE.

the pen was HARSH, no doubt bout it. and shearer just confirmed it. no way the ref could have known/seen laurent's knee getting gabriel down. the ref dint have all these replays and the decision to give the pen was simply because he thought gabriel was first to the ball. even the linesman had not given a foul and the ref just got lucky with the decision. but u have to say that the pen was HARSH. also szczesny just deserved a yellow. why a red? shearer gives an argument and i completely agree. also the 2nd yellow was stupid. no way was it a 2nd yellow. but is laurent got a 2nd, then vlaar and westwood both deserved to be sent out too. so no way can u say that the ref helped arsenal. all he did was screw them over bad.

most importantly they have CL qualification match on 21/22 against fenebrache. without arteta, ox and with this current group of players, cant see them beating fene, so no CL, they are so screwed.

the koscielny one? i thought he got the ball very clearly...

to put it simply thats the dna of the team... no matter what u do to the club, united's mentality will still remain the same. you can take out saf, scholes, giggs, rooney but united will still find ways to win, its their mentality. on the other hand, u can give messi + ronaldo to arsenal, they ll still find a way to lose. epl will be a 3 horse race. i seriously expect things to go right down to the wire, but with the squad, and the manger, we should be winning it.

he outscored torred after playing 3-4 matches until jan last year

i honestly could not have put it better than the way @cfc_lucas has done. that is exactly what i intended to say.

just saw the arsenal game. any1 who thought that we ll be having a nice-rosy start to the season with 2 easy home fixtures will need to re-think quickly. no game in PL is gonna be easy. but so damn excited....

i hate arsenal with a passion but no team deserves to lose this way. the ref simply gave villa the 3 points. firstly awarding one of the most dubious penalty decisions i have seen plus a first yellow for koscielny and then a 2nd yellow for an absolutely nothing foul which would not have normally not even been a first yellow, that too minutes after the penalty decision. the game was really good, high paced and a lot of physicality (we are going to have our work cut-out on wednesday) but the ref just killed it.

lukaku, sturridge and rooney with rest of the squad can actually make us a pretty decent bet for even CL. the versatility in this attack-force is just amazing.

go back a couple of pages and read exactly what i wrote. no one (including me) is rating moses higher than kdb. but to say that moses cant replace any of kdb-oscar-hazard is criminal in my view. and hence the argument which was taken completely out of context and turned into a circus. my only point was the team cant be decided on names itself. even mata is not a sure starter right now, forget about kdb. each and every player should fight for his place , and form plus performances should/would be given preference over names (we all know how true that is with mou). i feel if moses was available for this match then jose would have had a hard choice to make between him and kdb considering the pre-season rather than saying "He shouldn't be starting ahead of any of KdB - Oscar - Hazard" exact words of another poster.