Pizy

Have a bad feeling about this one. Stoke have actually been scoring recently and we always struggle wih crosses into the box and setpieces which are Stoke's specialty. Losing here would totally destroy the morale of the supporters and maybe even the players. Anything less than 3 points and the season is then about 3rd place and avoiding that stupid qualifier.

Name the striker he could've signed? There were NO top class striker who have been obtainable since he's taken over. Rotate? Rotate what? Our best XI struggles enough at times as it is. The only mistake he's made is letting Mata go mid season. The De Bruyne sale was just about enough to cover the Matic acquisition. Shouldn't have sold Mata who would've likely prevented us from dropping so many silly points.The frustrating thing about listening to José, though, is all of this FFP talk. City already had a great squad before this summer and still spent £100m. Bayern have the deepest and arguably best squad in Europe yet went out and bought Gotze and have Lewandowski coming in. United are surely going to go out and spend huge money (at least £100m) this summer. PSG spent £55m on a striker when they already had one of the worlds best. Real Madrid had an insane squad and brought in Illaramendi, Isco, and spent over £80m ON A SINGLE PLAYER! But for some reason we're playing this "sell in order to buy" game. Why are we playing by these imaginary rules that none of Europe's elite seem to be playing by? No way will UEFA punish any of these European giants. They won't punish us. We need to join these sides.

Just hope he has free reign and total authority to rip apart and repair the team in the summer. The quality in our side pales in comparison to Bayern, Madrid, PSG, and even City's. I hate to sound like a spoiled fan here, but we need some serious investment. Like more than £100m investment like ALL of the big European sides have done and will continue to do. PSG had the likes of Cabaye, Pastore, and Lucas on the bench, Madrid and Bayern can bring a couple of world class players off the bench at any given time, and City can afford to lose their best player and still be the best team in England. Our bench had a shit Torres, an ancient and past it Lamps, and useless Mikel.

Didn't expect us to go through with Eto'o out and Matic cup tied, but I was very disappointed with that terrible 2nd half performance. My mood has been totally deflated recently in general. Just a couple of weeks ago everyone was so optimistic and we were favorites for the league and happy with the CL draw, but we've now lost a couple on the trot and we don't look as good as I thought we were. Our problems have been totally exposed again. No strikers, overly reliant on Hazard, and atrocious midfield play without Matic. Not even mad if we go out next week because I don't think we had a shot at the CL this season anyways. Will help us in the more important competition to have fewer matches. I really think we can win all of our remaining matches.

Cech was really poor. Looked shaky all match. Ramires is REALLY starting to annoy the shit out of me. He gives away tons and tons of needless, cheap fouls and can't make simple passes. We desperately need to buy a top class CM and make Ramires a squad player. Not good enough. We once again basically played with 9 men as we have no striker. It's embarrassing how dire our options are compared to PSG's and other sides that are competing for this trophy. We need some major strengthening in the summer in numerous areas. Start by recalling Courtois and shipping out all of our strikers.

Yeah, I'm worried about that pivot as well. This may get ugly if we concede early. Our bench today is awful too.

"No, you heard correctly, play ALL of the attacking midfielders." -José Mourinho This should be entertaining at least.

Costa should actually be the easiest to get I would think since he's got a release clause. Kroos seems like the only nearly impossible one. No way can/would Southampton turn down the money we'd offer for Shaw. They'd be mad to turn down £20m or more.

Costa, Kroos, Shaw Maybe if I say it enough and click my shoes together it'll come true.

I think we'll extend his contract and he'll either spend one more season on loan or compete with Cech. I agree that it would be super dumb to have them both here as they're too good to not bestarting.I think we need to put sentiment aside and sell Cech. We owe him the respect of letting him go to another big club and be #1, not have him fighting for a place. Courtois is our future for the next decade and more.If it came down to Courtois for Costa I'd say not a chance. Courtois can be an invaluable piece for years and years, while Costa hasn't yet proven that he can consistently produce like he has in this breakout season. If it we Cavani or Suarez we were talking about here I'd consider, but not Costa.

I'm going to strangle someone if we let him go.

Rooney had to just smile and couldn't even argue with Schweinsteiger there. He knew he was acting in a Hollywood film.

So lucky. Bayern can't break down this brick wall.

I don't think they're nearly as boring as Barca. At least Bayern play with two awesome wingers and have width to their play. Barca just pass it sideways 5-10 yards 300 time per match.

United playing West Ham-ball. Park the bus on one end and hoof it up to Welbeck on the other. Fellaini is absolutely fucking terrible too. He looks as out of depth at that club as Moyes does.

I want Kroos SOOOO badly! Look at him here doing just the job we need for Bayern. Staying deeper and pinging around accurate passes while also getting forward now and then to get into scoring positions. Just so calm and elegant on the ball. The antithesis of Ramires.

It was such a stupid decision to go there in the first place knowing Zlatan is the main man. You get the sense that he regrets it. Was a pure money grab just like Falcao. Of course I'd still love him here, but PSG would probably demand what they paid for him or ask for Hazard in a swap since they're so desperate for him. Not happening. More of a chance we could get Falcao.

No, I think for this game specifically he was talking about Luiz as well. Remember that it was originally reported during the match that Luiz was substituted due to injury at halftime but after the match José said that it wasn't because of injury but a tactical sub.

We bought Zouma, though I haven't seen him enough to know if he's ready to play for us. Wouldn't call Luiz a world class CB either.I don't want us to sell him, but I just have a feeling he will be.

Surely he is one of the players José was alluding to with his latest comments about certain players letting him down in these matches against bad teams. He and Eden. They look brilliant against top opposition and then shrink against sides we should be blowing off the pitch like Palace. Honestly think José will cash in on him in the summer. I just get the feeling that he uses him out of necessity and that if he had someone who could naturally do what he does better he'd use them. He knows Ramires can't handle simple passes most of the time and that Lamps just can't cut it anymore so he plays Luiz there because he can actually make some decent forward passes and can get stuck in to tackles. He clearly doesn't trust or fancy him in defense and for the money we could get for him we can buy or partially fund an actual CM. As much as I love him I think his days here are numbered. If we can get £30-odd million for him and immediately use it to buy someone like Kroos or Gündogan or someone of that ilk then I'd do it.

I'm not the biggest Costa fan or advocate but after watching yet another pathetic display from Torres yesterday I don't care. I just want to start a season with a striker at the level of our competition instead of being hamstrung with bags of shit like we have the past few seasons. I think, and I hope, that José is going to go nuts in the summer and make this side one to be feared. If he thinks Costa is the man for us than so be it.

I actually respect Gerrard so that won't be the annoying part for me.

They may be able to sign a few good players but their squad is still far thinner and lacking the quality depth that all of the current top 4 have (when fit, in Arsenal's case).While at any given time we can bring Oscar, Schürrle, Willian, etc off the bench and City can bring Negredo, Nasri, or Dzeko on, when Liverpool go to their bench they have players like Aspas and Moses. Their squad is still light years behind ours and City's. It's going to take a few windows before they're on our level. Very nice first XI but no real game changers in the squad. I think they'll be battling it out for 4th spot next season when everyone around them strengthens and they have to play in Europe.

Seeing Liverpool win the title would be torture. Not just because of their supporters and the media creaming themselves over Rodgers and everything , but also because we played a pretty big role in their resurgence. We gave them £50m for a crocked, shit player and handed them a 20+ goal scoring striker for peanuts. We need to make damn sure we beat them and hope that City do too.

Same here, mate.Like I said in the live match thread, it's like we just assume because we have far superior players that we can just show up against sides like this and win on talent and stature alone. Like sides will just roll over and die for us. We need a few "killers" in our team who can't be contained against sides like today. You look at a player like Suarez who gets a single look at goal and buries it. He puts absolute terror in opponents. We have Torres out there who looks like he started playing football last week. There are sides in mid table who have strikers better than Torres. It's embarrassing for a side as big as us to have this useless lump leading our line. Mourinho knows it but can't say it in public. You just know he wants the summer to come ASAP so he can finally add the players he wants.