lionsden

Unfortunately Jose doesn't and wouldn't see it that way. he wouldn't dare drop his beloved oscar for anyone.

Whatever brand of football you think they have been playing this season still beats the slow, un-creative, predictable, struggle mess of football we fans have been subjected this season and for the past 3 previous seasons.

In a world where success is the only goal to aspire to, you are right. But for those that believe there's more to football that winning trophies you are completely wrong and way off the mark. I enjoy seeing entertaining football (Gullit-Vialli era) Youth development and integration into the first team (see Frank sinclair,JT) and a clear and well defined identity and sound business and football model just as much as seeing the team lift trophies. And I don't even play football manager so come back with a better and relevant insult next time.. . .and you always deliver in that regard being the classy and matured fella that you are. lmao.

No more like the brand of football that the great teams of the past played with success to show for it like Liverpool of the 70's and 80's, Milan and ajax team of the 90's, barca team of the late 2000's and the current bayern and dortmund teams. yeah something like that would be nice for ONCE. if it takes a couple of years to get to that level while achieving no success along the way, I'm all for it as long as we can see clear progression and indication that we are moving in the right direction. Those teams left a legacy that will long be remembered for decades behind not because of their success but because of the way they achieved those success i.e winning with style and grace.

Well given our track record I had be happy if Omeruo and Lukaku make it at Chelsea, nevermind ake or any of our youth product. We are in no position to be picky under jose and the current board who have shown little commitment to youth development and integration in practical sense.

I'm still waiting on the beautiful football that Jose promised. If teams with less resources than us like Southampton, Liverpool, Real sociedad,Fiorentina and co can play attractive brand of football then what's stopping us. The fans deserve better than the garbage football quality we have been treated to since 2010.

care to elaborate?

Why is this notion that young and inexperienced equal inability to make meaningful impact right away. it's nothing more than a myth and a lazy argument used to dismiss youth integration at the top level. I can name plenty of players who shone brightly and outperformed their more experienced and accomplished competition when introduced into the team at a very young age despite lacking genuine experience at the top level. Fabregas, Casillas, Owen, giggs, Puyol, Raul,Fowler, Wilshere, Beckham and the list goes on and on Moreover the same Pogba that some people are now creaming themselves over was an inexperienced youngster that many would have dismissed as "not ready yet" or "not good enough" to improve our midfield immediately before Juventus gave him the opportunity and platform to express himself and he never needed time to establish himself in one of the best midfield tandems in Europe. All the talk of player A cannot improve us right away because of inexperience is complete and utter bollocks that lacks any basis, context and evidence.

Based on what i have seen. Ake is superior to those youngster you mentioned and is without a question the most underrated youngster in our ranks. His composure, tatctical awareness and toughness actually reminds me of wilshere albeit a less technical version.

That has never been in doubt. I would include ancelotti in there as well. . .since joining the Spanish club, he's already given multiple league and ucl apps to Jese rodriguez and morata . all madrid castilla products. and that's despite madrid having a far superior squad to ours and greater pressure and expectations to win titles. If it was jose, all we would be hearing are speeches about eggs, chickens and yolk

Lampard and Ivanovic. . have certainly earned the right to play virtually every game this season. jose values equality and fairness so much (insert sarcasm emoticon here)

Yer 10 minutes against a sub par team in a match we are already winning. so much faith and confidence being shown by jose in the player here

double post

Our philosophy is to play quick, free flowing attacking football they said.

There's no middle ground with him. He's either fantastic or absolutely dogshite. unfortunately for us his ratio of bad games to good games is about 10 to 1. I'm fed up with the false dawn he gives whenever he has a good game and gives a glimmer of hope to the fans that he might, just might kick off from there.

More like be should be sold. no other top club in the world would tolerate this level of mediocrity and inconsistency from its record signing

We are approaching a period when I always wished time machines and power of hindsight were real and I could control the mind and thought process of decision makers at the club. Gundogan, reus,Vidal,Cavani, Alaba, marquinhos et al would have been bought at the right time and would all be wearing the blues uniform right now instead of . . . . . . only if wishes were horses. . . .

100's of pages worth of discussion about youth development and no one has yet come up with the definition of readiness and how to determine when the time is right. To the Youth snubs on this forum, is there a set criteria that must be met in order to assess the worthiness of promising youth for first team football. 100 plus app at championship level?, 60 plus apps at epl level?, winning (multiple) prestigious individual awards, jogging from the north pole to the south pole without breaking a sweat? walking on water?. which one is it.

We are more likely to buy another attacking mid for £35m.

You don't start a clearly rusty,unfit and ageing player in midfield against a high pressing , energetic side. you just don't. straight common sense.The mind boggles

You have the right to doubt whether I have been following la liga for the past 2 years the same way I have the right to not give a shit what you think about the validity of my statement.

Despite our defence being generally solid those years, cech still had to make more saves than those two. So you want to use ONE game as evidence that Thibaut is reliable when called upon? on that basis, Tim Krul must be the best GK in world football as I'm yet to see any goalkeeping performance as dominant as the one he has against spurs this season. Shay Given's form didn't dip at man city and he wasn't out of favor for performance reasons as there was nothing wrong with his performance in the 09/10. he was just unlucky that there was this young goalkeeper who had just had as brilliant, if not more, a season with Birmingham on loan and mancini simply preferred youthful exuberance over reliability and experience and I was one of those that criticized that decision at the time as Given didn't deserve to be dropped and abandoned.

If we buy anymore attacking midfielder in the near future, it would confirm my suspicion that emenalo and co are just trolling everyone at this point. "Ha let's see their reactions when we make Draxler,Meyer,Coutinho and koke our Jan and summer signings"

Why fix something that's broken? why take such risk when we don't have to as cech remains one of the best GK's in the world and still has atleast 5 more elite years left in him. The only way i had be convinced by courtois and comfortable with him replacing cech right now is if A.madrid's defensive unit breaks down and deteriorate and he's tested far more than he's been used to and shows the capability to be genuine match winner on a consistent basis. The only reason I rate Manuel neuer who's regarded as the best is because I saw what he was capable of at Schalke. if it was up to his bayern performance, he wouldn't make my top 10 as he rarely gets tested, if at all, just like Courtois. Those two could stay at home to watch game of thrones and their teams would still keep a clean shit.

I'm one of the very few that has major doubts about him. I watch La liga alot and he's always been protected by the (annoyingly cynical but brilliantly solid) Athletico team defensive unit which to me is the best in Europe alongside Bayern. No other team have the defensive cohesion and solidity of those 2. barca under pep were similar. As a result of this, opposition teams are usually reduced to fewer chance creation and fewer goal attempts against them which is not fair way to judge a goal keeper and makes stats misleading in this case. for example, I have never seen any team (apart from barca on 3 occassions) dominate and create as many clear cut chances against Simeone A.Madrid as the way we have been dominated in the past by Bayern, barca, Basel last night and so on with Cech usually saving our asses from utter humiliation result wise or rescuing a point or even salvaging maximum point under such circumstances. If anyone has proof of the matches were Atheltico have been dominated and Courtois single handedly rescued points for them, I will like to see it. even the Madrid derby, i could only think of 1 magnificent save he had to make all game. such is the difficulty in breaching their defence. problem is, we are not as solid a defensive unit as the Spanish outfit and I'm not sure he would be as good and reliable as cech at saving our asses.