Sheva.

Torres played like how Mou has always been talking about, dropping deep to link up play, allowing others to run behind him. Sometimes he dropped too deep, but Rooney will do that a lot too. The one difference though is when Torres drops deep he will never score since he won't make it back to the box, unlike Rooney.

Lmao, fair enough.

You must value their opinions so much so, that you always seem to go there

I'm alright if he's our Plan B. Better than our current crop of strikers, and like Didier he's still playing well into his 30s. And no point even talking about his wages, he wont get anywhere near 300k at any other club, desperate business by Anzhi and he should have saved up shitloads by now lol.

Luiz is going nowhere, he's our best CB and we should be looking for a partner for him, instead of paying attention to fucking Barca.

Of course it doesn't matter, everyone knows this. But it's nice to win and see players putting in good shifts at this stage of preseason. Only 1 game left before the real thing starts.

Is Rooney on the bench?

Throwing Lampard in against Madrid is not right.

I wanted 4-3-3 but Schurrle or Moses instead of Oscar.

Ba has been terrible every game, so not that hard.

Cech; Azpi, Luiz, Terry, Cole; Mikel, MVG; Mata, KDB, Hazard; Torres. Would love to see that for first 60 minutes.

Rooney is not going to be on the bench, he's a starter, the problem - according to the media at least - is he wants to play as striker like he was doing 2 seasons ago and was scoring shit loads. No one really knows what he wants, might be trying to con his way to another pay raise.

Being pumped up and being good enough are two different things.

He already touched on it before, Torres can't play with his back to goal, and since he will surely be here next season the players have to try to get him chances in behind - he still has decent pace and looked stronger end of last season.. If we do not sign any striker, then yeah Torres will be first choice imo and Lukaku super sub.

I hope there is a plan B somewhere if we do fail to get Rooney on deadline day, but there's not many options.

You only have to watch Lukaku and co against these mediocre teams we're playing, to know they are not going to cut it against the big boys. I still can't believe we have signed no one at this stage, when we certainly had options - Cavani, Falcao, Negredo, Jovetic, Soldado, Higuain, Gomez, Bony - all upgrades over what we have, but we didn't even try to sign any. Of course Rooney is better than some on that list, but no team goes into the window with just 1 target, there has to be a Plan B or even C

He did not have a 'poor' season. Before AFCON i wanted him to start alongside Mata and Hazard because he always did a good job when called upon, and offered something very different. But winning that trophy with Nigeria fucked him up, and he only had like 1 good game in the fa cup after that - found his form in EL though. Stats are not everything. You only needed to watch him at the beginning of the season - direct running, great dribbling and terrorizing defenders. He's not a star player than can also add goals to that, but he still played well - led Nigeria to Afcon like that.

Hildebrand, Morientes, Mathijsen, Hitzlsperger.

Yes, we don't have quality at DM, and you want to sell our best DM lol.

Lol. Because Inter created abundance of chances after Mata came on. Also exposing the pivot makes no sense, there are 2 players in the middle and if both play their position right, they should be able to deal with anything - while the wingers track back and help the fullbacks. Mata is like the outlet whenever the ball is won, he can't be caught too far back, he needs to get the ball, look up and get the counter started. He's undoubtedly our best option at the no 10 position and even if Mourinho plays him on the wings, he will still be the one with the most passes dictating our play.

I couldn't get in all day, then cleared cache for past week and voila.

Most likely we won't get him - we haven't made a 2nd bid, he has done nothing to indicate he wants to leave. And Utd expect him back in training in August, just doesn't feel like anything is happening. Oh well, i've already resigned to having Torres, Lukaku and Ba till at least January.

Wow.

Very good.

Chalobah unlucky.