lionsden

I was just messing with you. however there's sufficient evidence to argue that signing league proven players doesn't necessarily increase the chances of a transfer being successful. transfer is just as much about luck as scouting and solid decision making.

Like Torres and Demba ba . . .oh wait

I smell bullshit. this is just a coy to unsettle him before the ucl clash.

How about this. he's better than any defensive midfielder Brazil currently has to offer. Matic >> Sandro,Leiva, Reges, Gustavo,Romulo, Melo.

And Roberto Falcão was the chief architect of that team even though Zico and Socrates got most of the credit. The 80's xavi I call him.

How many key players do you know of that aren't starters? How is that even possible?. unless you have a unique definition of a key player that's different to everyone else's.

hence why i said "key player". I have no problem with him being a squad player for depth purposes.

It's amazing how a player of his technical ability has been a key player for a team with big ambitions and huge spending power. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come. in the summer we have to reinforce the midfield with a complimentary player next to matic.

Even jose was frustrated by his performance

In recent times, scoring lots of goals and basically outscoring your opponent has been the key to winning the league. The last5 winners have generally being the highest scoring team in the league. man utd got by last season by outsocring everyone as their defence was god awful and liverpool are doing the same again. Hope I'm wrong regarding lfc.

Is this because of experience or because, crucially, those teams have had a combination of world class/great managers, great squad and some luck?. Would Barca have dominated the competition the way they did if they didn't have Guardiola, Messi,Xavi and Iniesta all at the peak of their powers? replace them with highly experienced average players and manager and they wouldn't have won anything (without unprecedented ridiculous amount of luck anyway). And if experience is so important then how come teams like Porto, Benfica, Arsenal et al often fail to achieve anything meaningful (like getting past the 2nd round or reaching the semis and final) in the competition despite their vast experience coming from consistently qualifying for and participating in the competition year in year out?

Steady now. Bayern and Madrid will still be considerably better than us. we need more than just one quality midfielder to be speaking with such arrogance.

He is always valuable for the calming influence he brings to the team. He's the anti-ramires

This is why it's important to have a big squad. injuries and loss of form means players that can come in and do a job are always beneficial. happy for the lad . he has been very patient all season and accepted his role very well.

I have said this many times. The single biggest reason for our inability to break down packed defences and play like other big teams is the lack of appropriate offensive coaching. our players often look quite clueless when in possession. they don't know what to do with the ball and the movements to make in attacking situations. Having technically adept players does help to but there's atleast 5 teams with inferior squads than us in the league that play much better, aesthetically pleasing football to blame it solely on lack of enough technicians. Great win in the end and that 's what matters especially at the business end of the season.

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

We have upped the tempo and playing much better in the 2nd half. least you had expect from a team with title aspiration playing against 10 men

Learn how to differentiate performance from result because they are totally different things. our result has been very impressive (some will even say we have overachieved all things considered) however the performance for the most part has been very uninspiring all season. he's right, we play like a mid table team. The one synonymous thing with all the other big teams is their ability to strike the balance between performance and result. when you constantly struggle to create and score against teams that park the bus then it's ahrd to disagree with pellegrini.

We are doing our best to prove pellegrini right. we do not play like a big team. slow, uninventive, lacklustre football. worse of all, against 10 men. And it's been like this all season especially against mid table teams.

I absolutely agree with iseah10 that the importance of experience is often overstated and exaggerated. To my mind the 3 biggest factors in winning a competition like the champions league, in order of importance are 1) Luck: with injuries and suspension, referring decision going your way and the opponent not converting the chances they create and vice versa. 2)Quality and depth of the team 3) Manager/tactical superiority. Those 3 factors are far more important than experience imo.

I believe William and Schurrle's job will be tracking the movement of Turan and Villa and providing adequate protection for Azpi and Cole rather than beefing up the midfield. Only time will tell. To me it may come down to two factors. mistake and stamina: whoever wins that battle will no doubt have the competitive advantage imo. we can leave absolutely no room for error and I do not have confidence in the teams stamina. only William and ramires I have been impressed with in that regard. others naturally tire out towards to last 10 minutes or so.

And they have a superior midfield imo. (matic is not eligible, don't forget). also their midfield as a unit has been together for a while, much more balanced than ours and are better at retaining posession when need be. I just can't see how a midfield of lampard, Ramires, Mikel and Luiz can dominate AM's. bypassing the midfield and going route 1 for the most part is our best option imo.

Well whenever this thread shows up on the front page I click in anticipation that we have been linked with a player only to find that it's just discussion about random players that aren't even on our radar. but carry on, I will just ignore this thread in future.

I wouldn't be surprised if he's one of those people that like their own posts on facebook.

Prime Drogba was tailor made for this game.