lionsden

It's no coincidence that we have been battered to submission in midfield by teams with technical superiority in that position for the past 4 seasons dating back to Ancelotti's 2nd season where the sale of ballack, deco and essien's injury/decline signalled a downward spiral. all the technical teams we have faced since the double winning season have played us off the park domestically and in Europe. For me, I'm not convinced our current midfield options can produce quality attacking football to the level of top European teams even if we show full commitment towards the philosophy. the one common denominator amongst teams that play such style of football is the balance and quality in central midfield. Barca have Xavi and Busquets, Bayern-Bastian, Martinez and Alcantara, City-Yaya, fernandinho Dortmund- Gundogan, sahin and so on.all technical players with the ability to retain possession and control the tempo of play and excellent distribution. none of our midfielders can do this to any satisfactory level and until we fix this issue . . . . . . .

Imagine Bayern sticking Boateng in midfield. it won't ever come to that.

The quality of our build up and overall play offensively was poor again for the upteenth time this season and the terrible midfield combination of luiz and Ramires, who both struggled to pass the ball well and kept giving possession away and Torres who was predictably loose in possession and isolated upfront was largely responsible for that. The defence didn't have much to do but dealt with the little threat Hull posed. Hazard and Willian were the only shinning light in an attacking sense for me and that along with the defence and another clean sheet were the positives to take out of the game. What I'm still waiting to see is the evolution of a clear philosophy and pattern to our style of play on the pitch which is non existent at the moment and I don't see how that can happen when a technically limited player like Ramires is the first name on the team sheet in central midfield. That's fine if our ambition is limited to producing west brom and Norwich city level of football. I will cut Jose and the team some slack because we are top of the league and keeping clean sheet but our build up play and attacking sequence is still so far off the level of a "top team" without any evidence of progress however small.

Perhaps I should have clarified my statement better. "potential" was used in this case to mean that hazard hasn't reached his prime yet and I argued that there's no guarantee his prime would be significantly better than the current. potential could mean a raw and unproven talent or someone/something that hasn't yet reached full maturity. it depends on which definition you apply.

This discussion has nothing to do with hazards talent which is undeniable. it is about whether people are overrating his importance and contribution to chelsea a tad and making bold judgement based on potential i,e what could be rather than what is hence the Ronaldo (man utd) and Bale (spurs) comparison. when I read statements to the effect of he's worth more than those 2 players transfer fee, then question has to be raised.

You are missing one very key information and factor here, appearances. Chelsea played more competeive games than Swansea and arsenal lasts season which skews the figure considerably given Hazard featured in more games. and moreover stats doesn't always tell the whole story. for example willian in that carling cup game against arsenal was brilliant and did everything perfectly well other than score or assist a goal. does that mean he has had an inferior performance to someone who has an underwhelming game but pops up with a goal or assist? as it very often happens in football. There was no way on the evidence of last season that hazard deserved that award.

my question isn't what Hazard is worth to you but why he should be worth more than Ronaldo was to utd ( won ballon dor and inspired them to 3 epl titles) and Bale to spurs( single handedly carried them to their highest point total in their history which earned him epl poty). you justification is based solely on potential, "an important member of a team that has serious hopes of competing for honours for the next decade" rather than actual result. no one pays £80m plus for potential.

Ignoring defenders and midfielders. was Hazard ahead of players like Michu and walcott on the basis of consistency week in week out last season?. which is the criteria any award should be based on anyway.

And that's the crux of the matter. Bale was not only epl player of the year last season but single-handedly carried spurs (I hate using that word as it's a team sport). Has Hazard being any where near as important to us as bale was to spurs last season? why should he be what to us more than what bale was worth to spurs and Ronaldo to man utd is the point I was making which sounds straight forward enough.

means fuck all. He won those award in ligue 1 at a time when the league was massively short on talent. would he have dominated those awards during the 2000 era of players like Ribery,Drogba, essien,Benzema,Juninho,Gourcuff ( he was a beast back then) or right now? As for his nomination for the team of the season last year, do you honestly think he deserved that award last season. consistency taken into account?

I'm sorry but hazard and oscar especially have no where near the potential of Rooney and ronaldo. both players where already a "legitimate candidates" for Ballon dor at oscar and Hazard's age. hazard with some luck migth reach rooney's level but Ronaldo's is a stretch. oscar doesn't even belong in the conversion to start with. we need to stop overrating these players.

based on what? potential?. I don't think you are being realistic here.

firstly everyone has a price and I mean everyone. as for the boded part. alvaro recoba, deisler, saviola,stan collymore,robinho and many more also had the potential to be "1 of the top 5 players in the world" and were just as talented if not even more than hazard, you see where i'm going with this. potential is nothing more than that until it actually gets fulfilled

So you think he's already worth £110m which would not only make him cost more than ronaldo and bale but also make him worlds most expensive player ever?.

open question Sentiments aside and being reaslistic (i.e no zlatan,cavani,silva plus £400m joke) objectively, what would be that offer "chelsea can't resist" for you? for me it's anything upwards of £55m. at this point in time, he hasn't shown the level of consistency and performance to warrant the suarez, bale type of fees and the 55m firgure is largely based on his potential which he might or might not reach. there's no such thing as he's too talented not to fulfill his potential.

I actually agree with your point about the david beat goliath, against all odds factor. munich was one of my greatest nights as a supporter however, the point regarding the quality of football we played still stands even though I hate to agree with that cunt Xavi.

And how exactly does this statement translate into playing aesthetically pleasing and entertaining footie aka good football? the football you described up there is called win at all cost result oriented football which isn't to be mistaken for entertaining football. Not a single neutral or football purist would watch our tie against barca,bayern and some (dare I say most) of the games we have played for the past 3 seasons and call it entertaining, breathtaking football. To me, there are two key element to football, wining and entertainment but if you find the negatively tactical and technically limited football entertaining then to each of its own.

There's a clear difference between a "proper game of football" as bleedblue put it and scoring a "world class goal". While I agree that we did what was necessary to win the tie/trophy,it cannot be denied that we never attempted to take the game to Barca and bayern and given our transfer budget and status as a big club, people would have expected better than the extremely negative approach we deployed in those encounters and rightly so. Our tactical approach was an admission of extreme inferiority and desperation which wouldn't have been the case if we had a football philosophy, stability and shrewd transfer policy.

If we sell KDB/mata he might have a chance to be the 6th option in our AM. but as things stand, I can't see it. thinking about the amount of attacking midfielders on our books is quite sickening actually and unless the plan was to sell most of them for profit then I can't see it as anything other than awful and inefficient use of resources. KDB,Thorgan, marin, moses,piazon,traore,kakuta in addition to the regular first team options. that's just an overkill. It's only in sport where one can blatantly squander the company's finance and still manage to keep the job

As a defensive midfielder he's better than Toure post barca but since Toure never plays that position anymore renders the comparison redundant anyway.

I get the feeling many are massively underrating Matic here. some probably still see him as that chelsea reject who got traded plus cash for luiz. how much better could he have progressed as a player they say.

I thought I was the only one outside city fans that notices that ugly part of yaya's game. He gets the plaudit solely for his ability to orchestrate play from deep, bursting forward runs and goals. His defensive game is nothing to write home about.

He, alongside John swift (most underrated talent in England by far), Boga, Ake and RLC, are our best youngsters for me.

Yaya and stamina in the same sentence lol. ask any man city fan and they will tell you poor stamina and laziness off the ball are yaya's main weakness. he saves his energy for those long bursting forward runs. maybe you might have a solid case for the barcelona yaya but not the man city version. he probably still has the amazing stamina he displayed at barca but rarely shows it in full stretches anymore.

And so? he's already one of the best defensive midfielders in europe. as a natural DM only players I had rate ahead of him are Busquets, Javi Martinez, Daniele de Rossi,Carrick,Sven bender and pogba. Other top CM's like Yaya, Gundogan, bastian, Vidal, modric et al don't qualify imo as they either play different roles for their respective teams or have different skillset.