lionsden

This man is a tactical genius. totally outclassed pellegrini. impressive.

The best line up imho to stand a chance against city Cech Ivanovic Terry cahill Azpilicueta Matic Oscar Willian Lampard Hazard Ba Azpilicueta over cole as he's more competent at this point in time to deal with the threat of Navas Matic and oscar gives us the combination of physicality, combativeness, strenght and composure which will be key to controlling the game better against them and the main reason for Oscar over Ramires (pipe dream I know) Lampard in the hole gives us a genuine goal threat and ba's physicality and hold up play is superior to Eto'o. if Torres was fit, he would have been the preferred choice. hazard-willian on the wings is a no brainer.

It will be interesting to see how Jose approach this game. If he sets us out to park the bus then his credibility will take a hit given his criticism of allardyce for employing similar strategy and he will have a hard time defending it in the media. they will have a field day. I can see the headline already. "Jose, I have got 3 words for you, pot, kettle, black".

The bullshit rumours that I Never once believed aside. Is any club stupid enough to pay 30 odd mil for luiz. Other clubs have scouts and analysts who are unbiased and unimpressed by curly hairs and clownish acts you know.

I don't mind the look of Cahill, Omeruo, Zouma and Ivanovic as our CB's going forward. Perfect blend of youth and experience

Yes and now what? any more stupid questions?

Your analyses is spot on and it's what I already know about Oscar which makes it all the more baffling why people rate him exceptionally highly and some even see him becoming a world beater in the future. He must be the only "jack of all trade, master of none" that people view in such high regard. atleast Muller is extremely productive in the final third. When you analyze great players who have a very understated and low tone quality to their game, they usually possess atleast one stand out quality that sets them apart from the rest.

Point out a post of mine where I have ever alluded to Ramires being good enough for a team with great ambition and aspirations. either that or you must be the world's first psychic because that's the only way you could possibly know what I think or have always thought of Ramires as a player. As for the baffling logic. average players score fantastic and/or important goals all the time.kalou got a couple for us in his time here and I have never rated him as a genuine starting material, same with ramires.

Is it weird that I can't see the hype and fuss about oscar at all, whatever people see in him. In majority of cases where I have found players to be overrated, the issue as always been the lack of consistency and body of work to warrant the hype but such players usually have the qualities and undoubted talent but in Oscar's case, I'm genuinely struggling to see the qualities that's driving the hype machine. Is it vision, or passing or close control or ability to dictate the tempo of the game (None of which he has or excels at for me). What are these qualities that people see in him that I'm failing to see. I'm genuinely curious.

Absolutely. For me the buck stops with the scouts and technical director (or whoever is in charge of transfers and identifying key areas to strengthen and the right type of players to buy). given the amount of money we have spent over the past 4 years rebuilding this team, there's no way we should be this far apart from teams like City for example, quality wise. It's sickening that we are still a long long way to go investment wise to catch up with the very best teams in Europe.

You must have extremely low standard and expectation for us as a team moving forward if you think Ramires is good enough to be a starter. What top team in the world would he get into and be a starter? Bayern- big fat zero chance, Barca- lol, Madrid- no way, Juventus- nope, City- No chance, Arsenal- no, Dortmund- not a chance. Utd is the only top team that he might get into and that's due to the abysmal quality of their central midfield.

If our ambition is to become one of Europe's elite and be on the same level as the Bayern's of this world then we have to do much much better than Ramires as a starter in our midfield. it's no coincidence that our midfield has never been able to go toe to toe never mind dominate against any of the big teams since he Joined us. Man utd don't count as their midfield is equally as bad as ours, much worse actually (since we signed matic). Hard work and great engine is not enough sadly.

David Silva is the one player I'm most worried about. he ripped our midfield apart at the Bridge and has been nothing short of sensational this season. The sort of player we could use in the team right now and then there's Yaya toure and Negredo and Kompany and their 100 percent home record this season. sigh. we will need the type of luck we had against barca in the UCL to get anything out of this game. Aguero's being sidelined is big welcome bonus but I doubt that will matter much in the end result wise

Look here boy, your antics of responding to my posts (borderline stalking) and always moaning and having digs about me moaning is getting boring and repetitive. you don't like how I post I suggest you fuck off and stop responding to my posts. sounds easy right?

These youngsters never learn or they just have bad advisers.

Coming from jose of all people. The irony

He's simply not good enough to be a starter anymore.

Inconsistent offensively is too politically correct. He's fucking dreadful offensively is more like it.

The problem isn't what we think but what mourinho and the hyrachy thinks. He's played more minutes and games than every other outfield player in our squad this season. Unfortunately that's a clear indication that jose rates him highly and sees him as a key player going forward.

Exactly. Talk is cheap. anyone can blow hot air but it takes real commitment to translate the words into action. Peter kenyon made the same claims years ago and we all know the end result.

I can't disagree with that.

Nor passing ability and hazard isn't even a great passer

Atleast my mum raised me not to be disrespectful to people and their family. Can the same be said about you? certainly doesn't seem like it.

It's pathetic isn't it?

My point is I disagree with your definition of a dark horse. A player/team that used to be very rubbish/average in every sense, statistically and visually but showed massive leap and improvement to rise to prominence is my definition of a dark horse and not someone like Bamford who's consistently excelled at all youth and reserve level for both Forrest and Chelsea. Drogba is one example of a darkhorse as no one expected him to make a living as pro footballer at the highest level because He had never shown the potential or ability at a young age unlike Bamford. Bamford didn't just come out of nowhere as you and others seem to suggest.