lionsden

Has Oscar completed a single pass or dribble in this match. simply awful

If stockpiling pre teens don't work out, switch to pensioners.

First touch and passing (especially the latter). The latter for me is not even debatable as there are very few defenders with passing range and accuracy of JT. his left foot passing is a thing of beauty. How many times does Luiz attempt the hollywood 50 yard pass without success in games and how often does he get dispossed due to bad first touch and awkwardness in possession which he usually tries to make up for by getting his body in the way to win a foul. Shooting is the only technical aspect that Luiz rank higher than JT for me, every other aspect, no chance.

I have always believed that Luiz technical ability is overblown and overrated. JT for one is more technically gifted than Luiz imo going by the correct definition and not the meaningless flamboyant stuff. The problem is sometimes people mistake flamboyancy for technical ability which would make some people rank players like CRonaldo ahead of an Iniesta on the technical ability curve.

What's their weakness at full squad strength, go on and enlighten us since you want to be a smart ass.

Tbh it's city's to lose. They have no weakness in any area of the pitch and bar a major injury crisis, I expect them to win it. They have also built the fear factor that utd enjoyed for so many years which many people underestimate in football. most teams fold mentally due to inferiority complex before the ball is even kicked which causes panic which leads to mistakes . . . .. .

Also the the front 3 of Hazard, willian and shurrle has plenty of workrate and fit into Jose's system. i.e there's no reason not to bench Oscar in favour of that front 3 given his mediocre form of late.

Luiz isn't "awful" and that's not the point I'm disputing. but fair enough.

The same way Cantonna never got a proper look in for the french national team over the years despite his superiority over his peers Heskey got in ahead of players like Andy Cole, defoe,bent,crouch et al for many years Higuain ahead of Aguero for many years for the argies. There are factors that determine a player's hierachy and inclusion in the NT that doesn't neccessarily indicate superiority such as managerial preference (personal choice), reputation (once a player becomes established member of the NT, it's almost impossible to toss them aside even for better options) sometimes it's a case of luck and timing. The case of Torres for the spanish NT proves that point, he remained ahead of superior strikers like Negredo and soldado who were performing better for both club and country in the hierachy for many years/months despite his sharp decline and awful form simply because he had become a prominent member of the team. then you have the manager or team's philosophy factor where the player who fits the philosophy and able to carry out the tactical instructions better is the preferred choice, this was the case with heskey, doesn't mean he was a superior striker to the competitions he managed to survive through the years .

he's a very average defender with good technique seems about right. Massively overrated too if I might add.

I wonder why players like JT, carvalho, lampard,Zola, makelele et al were never scapegoated in their prime playing for us. must be because they didn't give critics reasons to scapegoat them with their consistently great performances and effort. poor/average/overrated or past their prime players always seem to be the "scapegoats". can't just be pure coincidence. If you are top notch and put in quality performances regularly, no one can scapegoat you without looking ridiculous.

Highly rated by biased and overly sentimental chelsea fans: yes and there's no concrete evidence that the Bayern and barca interests were legitimate. As for the bolded, not sure if serious.

If his replacement is a reliable,non error prone defender then I can assure you he wont be missed. so yeah he should join a club that doesn't demand consistent performances and professionalism from its players (a circus) if such a club exist. Not sure Barcelona's standard is that low either as their most dominant era has come at a time when they had world class and reliable defenders like Puyol, Pique and Abidal at their peak. I laugh when people reference pique and barca whenever the topic of defenders who like to express themselves is concerned as if Pique wasn't the best defender in the world at some point and was extremely rock solid at the back. i can't recall the Spaniard being as error prone and childish as Luiz. for all his technical ability, he was a n impenetrable wall at the back. If Luiz is/was playing at the level pique showed during the dominant guardiola years, no one would hear a word of criticism from me.

You said "everyone in the world" How does the opinion of Chelsea fans on this forum represent that of everyone in the world? I have never seen a neutral fan that holds or ever held Luiz in such high regard. Not a single neutral/unbiased fan never mind everyone in the world.

His lack of intelligence for starters (painful enough dealing with Luiz and Torres) then there's the limited technical ability issue which makes simple task such as controlling the ball and executing a simple 5 yard pass an mission impossible for him especially when he's off form like he's been for a long time. Also his knack for committing silly fouls and in dangerous positions. We can do much much better than him.

It has nothing to do with nationality. The issue is Luiz is simply an unreliable defender and defence is a position where reliability is paramount as mistakes made are often very costly and can directly impact result unlike other outfield position on the pitch. Thiago Silva is Brazilian, same nationality as Luiz, and I rate him as not only the best defender in the world atm, and has been for the last 3 years, but also one of the all time greats. Elias Figueroa (best south American defender of all time imo), beckenbauer,Bobby moore and Baresi are rated as all time great defenders and also happen to possess god like technical ability that puts most midfielders and forwards to shame and I promise you their accolade wasn't based on their technical gifts but rather their amazing defensive ability and reliability at the back. they rarely let you down. and on the flip side other great defenders like Gentile, scirea John terry,Cannavaro et al had limited technical ability (well in relative terms anyway) but are still celebrated and widely regarded as some of the best to ever do it. Bottomline is great defenders are great defenders regardless of their nationality or style of play and Luiz isn't being criticized because he's this misunderstood top notch defender that we "English style defender lovers" don't understand/appreciate rather we criticize him because he can't be consistently counted on at the back.

As far as I'm concerned part of jose's priority in the summer should be getting rid of him and Ramires. Bring in a DLP to partner matic and Zouma replaces Luiz in the team. I don't want continental, what I want is reliability which JT and cahill have offered us for majority of the season and a midfielder that can actually pass and control games.

You forgot the best one"He's continental and technically gifted"

Little?. I'm sure you meant much much better control as he's the second most technically gifted player in our squad just behind Hazard.

Can someone give me a logical explanation why we always try to sit on a narrow victory to see the game out when it's been proven time and again to be a very dangerous and risky strategy. why did we stop pressing them high up the pitch in the 2nd half and genuinely try to control the game and push for the killer second goal. why invite unnecessary pressure to yourself by sitting back deep. Makes no sense at all to me. the equalizer was inevitable, if you invite so much pressure , one moment of lapse in concentration or mistake is all it takes and you get punished.

This is just a blip for utd. it was always going to be tough replacing fergie. i expect them to return to challenging for major honors within the next 2-3 years. They are simply too big and financially strong not too. Fergie will come out of retirement before they go down the Liverpool/ AC milan road. Saying that I'm rather enjoying their demise and could care less if they fade into oblivion. They have dominated for too long and it's only fair that they have their share of bitter experience. makes the world go round.

If there's anything football has thought us over the years, it's that , like most sport, it never follows logic. if it did, the bookies would be out of business by now.

The offspring of Roman and Zlatan.

It would be interesting to see how much of an influence is wages will have on our aspiration to get an elite forward in the summer. Considering it's virtually impossible to get rid of him due to his ridiculous wages and the financial constraints of ffp means we probably cannot afford to have a 180k pwk earner on the books as a mere squad player. The only way to fix this mess is to develop a time machine