Blue Armour

Ramires will be restricted if he takes on any sort of defensive role. His strengths are utilized on the counter-attack, and that can only happen if he plays further forward in midfield.

Well that's just perfect. Man Utd vs Everton on Aug 18

Man Utd or Everton for the first fixture...both these teams generally take time to warm up.

I remember that one, and also remember reading somewhere that he loved his time at AC Milan better..

He does know, actually.

My point is, in a normal season no manager would group together so many out-of-form players in the starting 11. It applies to every squad. Take 09-10 for example. Nearly every member of that squad was injured/unavailable at some point during the season. But when someone like Belletti had to come in, he had no problem getting into the groove because all the other players around him were in good form and playing at a high tempo. Carlo rarely had to rest more than 3 key players of his squad at a time. This situation where you have Team A and Team B both playing at the same tempo, never occurs. And certainly no top team will field their weakest possible eleven in a league game unless they have suffered from a horrible bout of injuries. In THAT scenario, expect the worst

In an ideal situation you wouldn't have to rest all your key players for a PL game. Priorities were different last season.

True, people payed to see a match. Poor decision, when it was clearly an accident. They should have taken action in a different manner.

Terry: "Zlatan mate, I think your best chance for a photo finish just rolled by"

Sad but trueTM

True, but imagine if he did sign for us this transfer window. He wouldn't be able to set foot back in Bavaria! Still, its a player I admire a lot..Abramovich has got good taste.

Apparently Roman A. visited the German camp to talk to Bastian. Offtopic: Didn't want to create a new thread just for this, but the other Schweinsteiger thread has been archived? In any case feel free to move this there..

How dare you...it was Batman and Robin you blasphemous fiend... Ontopic: Adriano, anyone?

That's the second thing they'll realize.

Its irritating to still hear about this bad relation between the players and AVB. Fair enough, they may not have been on good terms, but it always takes two sides to generate friction.

Well, they failed. Now I hope people realize that what we did was not exactly as easy as "parking a bus"

This comparison between RDM and AVB is a bit irrelevant at this stage, as the latter isn't coming back. RDM is a young manager, and I feel he is still learning his trade. It will be interesting to see how he sets up his team next season.

I certainly won't complain if we do bring in another creative CM. BUT, if Josh has a good preseason I hope the club takes a gamble and makes him understudy to Lampard. If this still fails, we switch to 4-3-3 and bring on an extra attacker..Like I said earlier, this deep lying playmaker is more crucial to the 4-2-3-1 formation.

Well... might as well make a "Torres out" thread instead of this one.

That I can agree with...all things considered, objects like statues are rather superficial, but if the club ever decides to erect one to honor such a player, that's fine by me.

Lol..next season I'll be paying more attention to Torres than RDM...If those goals don't start to flow...

Offtopic: See, that's what irritates me a bit....If they think Osgood and Zola are the best, that's fair enough, as they are an important part of the club's history and gave it whatever recognition it had before Roman arrived..but to think Drogba is not in their league, and maybe in fact a level below them? That's just ridiculous and looks like small-club mentality...

Is it necessary for a team to always have a deep-lying creative midfielder? Granted its a good option, but even one player playing further forward with vision can provide solutions to unlock defenses. Plus, I don't expect us to continue playing with a double pivot in midfield for the whole of next season.

Wow...and sky sports is supposed to be one of the more reliable sources...

What's the problem in that? A lot of clubs flaunt their history, with Arsenal even having each of their trophy victories displayed on their stadium stands..We even have Mourinho's coat on display under the Bridge.