lionsden

Lampard's long term replacement already sorted. well one can only hope.

What's happened to the lad. he's being absolutely awful and frustrating to watch this season. I have never rated his all round game and football IQ but atleast he use to bang in goals regularly and his technical ability was somewhat decent. now he just looks awful.

You mean the same inter that released/sold players like Roberto Carlos, Pirlo, Seedorf,Canavaro,Bergkamp amongst others prematurely, decisions that ultimately backfired on them as each of those players went on to become superstars. They let those players go for the same reason they released coutinho. Lack of foresight and gross incompetence. They have been trying their hardest to do the same to Kovacic this season as well

Only Brazilians worth buying atm are Thiago Silva, Coutinho, Marquinhos and Neymar. The rest including our own players not worth the effort. You can get better quality and value in Europe and other South American countries.

Ok fair enough. The sooner we sell him, the quicker we can get a proper and competent playmaker.

He does have a lot of nerve complaining about lack of game time considering he's being one of our most utilised players over the past 2 seasons and his performances over that period have largely been underwhelming. If he's not happy here he's free to seek greener pastures elsewhere and I'm sure all the elite clubs in Europe will be climbing and tripping over themselves for his signature as he's the treasure of European football. The new Zico

I'm not being controversial just curious what makes Oscar worth £40/50m. just to put it into perspective players like Hazard,Gotze,Varane,Isco are some of the best young talents in Europe and they were all valued at less than £40m. Now even if you think Oscar is on the same level as those players talent wise (which I very much disagree with) why do you think his value should be higher than theirs?.

Torres he's a false 9 afterall

The treasure of Europe can choose who and when to perform his best. we are not worthy

It's a shame what's happening to Dortmund. at this rate, they could lose all their best players in 3 or 4 years time. They are the new Valencia. what could have been.

I wonder why I don't have such agenda against the likes of Cech, Azpilicueta,Hazard,JT,Cahill,Ivanovic, Matic, Eto'o,Schurrle and Willian (to an extent with the latter 2). could it have something to do with their fairly consistent performances and the fact that they are not overrated as fuck. I wonder.

What's the relevance. I know what you are implying and I will spell it out to you. Mata has had a bad season and he's not been a resounding success at Utd however atleast he's proven beyond reasonable doubt that he can flourish as an "attacking midfielder" in this league. the same cannot be said for Oscar. You think I'm one of those that let's bias or sentiment cloud their judgement. if a player that I admire isn't playing well or perfoming below par, I will say so like I'm doing with mata. So you can shut the fuck up already about the mata bias and agenda against oscar that you cooked up in your head. I call it how I see it.

So we essentially paid £19m for a player that can only flourish when the conditions are comfortable and perfect for him i.e no one breathing down is neck and applying pressure when he's on the ball. he's not a good value for money. that's for sure.

But not at a consistent level Even Charlie adams once had his moments in the league with Blackpool. The difficult part is doing it week in week out at a top club. "And unfortunately for us he plays in the wrong league and in a wrong position where players rarely get space and time on the ball" So we are basically saying the same thing that he's not good enough to flourish as an attacking midfielder because he doesn't get the space and time he needs in that position.

Wrong. Another myth that won't go unchallenged by me. teams like levante, Almeria,Granada,Elche are comparable to the bottom teams in EPL talent wise. They play physical, turgid football and virtually all there players lack the technical ability to flourish at the top level.

Why do you disagree. EPL is one of the most fast paced, tactical leagues in Europe. His skill set is more suited to a slow paced league where he will be afforded time and space on the ball. He lacks the technical ability,speed of thought, improvisation and vision to flourish as an attacking midfielder in this league especially at a top club imo.

If that's true then why are majority of the best attackers in the league (statistcally and visually) also the most technical. is it just a coincidence that players like Suarez,Hazard,Silva,Toure,Mata (previous seasons), Aguero et al all posses high level technical ability and players whose game rely solely on physicality and not much else like Andy Carroll, Carlton Cole, Anichebe, Jelavic et al struggle to flourish. Explain that phenomenon without contradicting yourself or looking silly. The fact is there's an undeniable correlation between talent/technical ability and performance in this league and any top 5 leagues in Europe for that matter. And as for your claim that the epl is not a technical league, there are plenty of examples that disproves that claim. From the football teams like Southampton, Everton, Man city, Liverpool have been able to produce and the quality of players in the top 7 squads in the league. unless you are basing your assertion on the quality of players who play for the bottom clubs at which point the same would apply to every single league in the world. In the so called highly technical spanish league teams like Levante,Elche, Almeria, Granada et al could easily be mistaken for Fulham,Norwich,Cardiff, Hull et al.

Completely baseless statement and let's assume you are right (which you aren't because it's incredibly difficult to measure and determine which league is the most technical) what does that have to do with my post? what's the relevance? Unless you are saying a High tempo,physical and tactical league cannot also be technical.

And unfortunately for us he plays in the wrong league and in a wrong position where players rarely get space and time on the ball. In this league, you have to create your own space with high level technical ability and intelligence which Oscar clearly lacks but people will no doubt make up all sorts of excuse for his ineptitude/weakness.

The idea that Oscar was "great" "fantastic" and one of our best players from August to December is the biggest myth of the season. there's no way in hell he was great for 4:5 months. He had a "decent" month of August and a few decent performance here and there in September and October and started fizzling out by November. Even during his "decent " run , we were still struggling to create clear cut chances and he had very little to no influence at all in rectifying that as an attacking midfielder who was supposedly on a "great" run of form. This myth or lie has to stop. Also his stats during those 4/5 months stood at 5 goals and 1 assist in the league. he was decent nothing more.

While I agree that how we play is mainly down to the system I have to disagree with the bolded. By flair I'm assuming you mean technical ability and in that sense Man city,Liverpool and Arsenal thrump us in that regard. Only Hazard and Willian would get into those 3 teams on the basis of technical ability. My point that our squad is overrated always gets strengthened on a daily basis with posts such as this and some opposition fans and pundits claiming we are only a striker short of having a better or equal team to man city. Mind technical ability isn't necessarily the only benchmark for comparing player's quality, there are other factors that should also be considered before the, you are too negative and we have better players than team B,C and D brigade starts with their bullshit.

We did well to even challenge for the title to be fair as our squad , as I have been saying all along, was no where near good enough and massively overrated. The quality of our football,lack of youth transition into the first team and Jose's antics were my main issue with the season. while we weren't good enough to finish above city, I thought we should have done much better in terms of transitioning. at the current pace of development, next season will be yet another transitional season as I expect to see plenty of deadwood shifting, player acquisition and hopefully youth integration and implementation of a new philosophy. So 2016/17 season is when the manager will have absolutely no excuse to not win the league.

We already had Schurrle, hazard, willian and lost De bruyne and Mata. A player like Thorgan was more needed than a salah. whatever you think of Hazard and Willian, both players play exclusively on the wing for us and Oscar was the only no 10 we had. Also Atsu,Moses,Marin are still on our books and I don't see salah as an upgrade on them so whichever way you want to slice it. Salah wasn't needed. That's inefficient use of resources. With the amount of players we have out on loan and in the academy, we should only be spending on players who are good enough to be regular first team starters not mere squad players.

I won't express my gratitude until his departure has been confirmed and official because I'm still harboring some hope that the board will make the right decision in the last minute by retaining him for another year. He's earned atleast another year for sure.

We should have brought him back instead of buying Salah imo. There isn't much between them from a technical standpoint and both were voted the best players of their respective leagues.