francozola

Harsh on Meireles because he wasn't signed as a "replacement" for Modric. He is a good squad player to have. But yes, I agree that we should have had more plans in case the Modric deal did not work out. We should not have pursued him til the final day and should have given up during the last week and put in a few bids on other players.

Drogba AND Torres? Please no....

I liked the Kalou substitution but the Malouda one was straight up ridiculous. This guy has come on as a sub a number of times this season and has never done well. I know the squad is thin but maybe he shouldn't have isolated Alex & Anelka and "banned" them from playing because with Ramires & Luiz injured, there just weren't any other options available on the bench. Still, I'd rather have seen Ferreira come on than Malouda

Speaking about Mata and crossing, is anyone surprised at how poor his corners are? His general crossing from open play is good but his corners are pretty bad. They seem to hit the first man most of the time

He was awful yesterday, though. Like CHOULO19 said there were others who were just as bad so maybe he didn't stand out as much or something. Least Lamps wasn't giving the ball away every time he got it. Did you think he was anything apart from horrible yesterday?

Hardly think he is being made a scapegoat. He was decent yesterday and good in the 2nd half against City but does anyone honestly want to see him playing regularly for us? No. He is not good enough.

If we are thinking of keeping him past this season, we have to negotiate a decrease in wages. He's probably on 80k a week which comes out to 4 million a season. And just to make sure - his wages are paid by insurance whenever he's been injured right? Because he's been injured for 3 of the last 4 seasons and if we are the one that have paid him 12 million for doing absolutely nothing then I'd be pissed off. Even more pissed off at this than the fact that we've kept Ferreira.

I think that was the case at the start of the season, not so much anymore. His performances have been getting slightly less and less more effective. Even when he came on for Lamps against Newcastle he was shaky and out of position a lot of times. Agree with what Peace said. He should be a starter ahead of Lampard but he is not the long-term answer

Think something must have happened behind the scenes which left AVB completely losing faith in him to account for this total ignorance on AVB's part. Personally not really bothered. Will still support him whenever he comes on or starts but I just don't care any more and it's annoying when all people talk about is Torres Torres Torres like in yesterday's game they showed Torres warming up every other minute and commentators couldn't stop going on about it after Malouda came on. Wish they'd talk as much about Carroll (who's been even more of a disaster)

He better not get a fucking extension on his contract

No, I meant the worst individual performances so far in the season... I'm not talking about their recent performances, just taking yesterday's into account And I agree the squad is too small. I'm not blaming AVB's selection in that sense. Blaming the players themselves

Purposely stayed away from the forums for 24 hours because I was in no mood to read the majority of views that I knew were going to be posted here. VERY frustrating game. The 2nd half has been discussed enough. I was more concerned with our first half because we were absolutely dire. Wigan were practically picking the ball up off the ground and giving it to us and yet we'd put a shiny fucking bow on it and give it back. Lampard & Meireles. Jesus Christ. The worst two performances of the season so far. Everyone was off their game. Complete lack of desire. So now we're back to that same old shit that we were witnessing before the Newcastle game. Most of these twats need to go and hungry players that want to win need to play. McEachran should have played yesterday. Without Ramires, Meireles should have been the one providing some energy and zip to the team but he was atrocious. Josh would have been a bright spark in that first half. After watching how we played without Ramires, I've changed my opinion on who's been our player of the season so far. He brings so much to the team and if only his touch & control was better, he'd be unreal. Malouda What is this guy doing that gets manager after manager to pick him (whether it be in a starting XI or as a sub). He offers nothing. And actually is a liability i.e. backpass to JT against Arsenal

He should have come on yesterday. Lampard was utter shite and was slowing the whole fucking midfield down. Meireles was misplacing every single pass that he got and out of position every time.

What the fuck was up with him yesterday? I'm not just going on the bandwagon because of the mistake for the goal, but he was completely off his game. Kicking was horrible. Didn't give the defenders any confidence at all during set pieces. One decent save after Ivanovic's horrific back-pass but he was completely out-of-sync yesterday.

If avb has real balls, he should take lampard off and bring Josh on. Lampard is slowing the whole fucking game down

yeh he is

What's the EDL??

Mata for sure. Sturridge and Ramires tied for 2nd

Do you guys think we (the club) paid him for the whole thing? As part of an endorsement kinda thing? That was my first thought when I saw the video.

Hello and welcome I'm looking forward to having discussions with you Napoli fans as the two matches approach

Yes, but he was SEEN as an established player in people's eyes. I'm sure we are to blame too because we have been "chasing" him for years due to the Drogba comparisons which caused his value to increase tremendously.

Sturridge was seen as an average player towards the end of his career at City. Bags of potential but not enough end product. Basically they didn't think he was going to become "all that". That's what opposition fans kept saying and said after we signed him. Lukaku was already established player with the potential to be a feared striker. I don't know why his touch is so poor right now because he didn't look that bad in the youtube videos, so either the Belgium league is really, really poor or people conveniently left that part of his game out lol

VERY good point. I think that 18m today isn't the same as what 18m was worth 4-5 years ago. 18m is probably the same as about 12m. Transfers in the last few years have heavily inflated the market. I.E. Torres, the English lumps of shit at Liverpool, City's dealings, etc Plus, he was bought for 13m in initial fees. So that's.. About 8m. Which I don't think is that bad. I don't know.. A different way of looking at it, I guess.

Hello and welcome to the forum It's very nice to see you popping in here. Really looking forward to playing you guys, should be two great games

Can we buy Hamsik and Cavani in January just so that they won't play against us? lol