francozola

I honestly don't see him leaving unless we finish outside the CL places 2 or 3 years on the trot

Yes, this is scary indeed. You forgot Kalou lol. But yeah, it's scary that none of our front 3 players have scored virtually any goals at all for a year and a half. I know Malouda was our top scorer last year but that's a load of bollocks. he was shite for the whole season. The only decent goals/game record is held by Sturridge, and even he is missing at least 2-3 glorious chances every game. It's not creativity that we're missing atm, it's the finishing. We're creating enough clear-cut chances to score 4-5 goals every game whereas compared to last season we were absolutely atrocious.

Okay I get your point but it was done to get him before other clubs are interested. And you can't suddenly complain about the fact that we overpaid. We've overpaid for every player we've bought since Roman took over. We shouldn't judge his quality right now. He will improve a lot over the course of this season. However, one worry I have is that I'm not sure if he fits into AVB's playing style...

Agree - though for the long-term I do feel we need a better defensive midfielder too if Romeu doesn't work out.

Oh stop going on and on about him. Nobody said that he was going to be scoring 20+ goals for us immediately. Nobody even expected him to be a starter in his first couple of seasons. He was bought for the future.

:D that's hilarious. Where did you get the quote from? Simply love the guy.

It was when he scored the penalty against Liverpool in the epic 4-1 win at Anfield

Yep agreed! And now he'll have to wait two weeks before the next game........... which is against Liverpool The red card against Swansea was really really stupid. He would've done well against Bolton and Everton.

Agree with that. A strikers role is too important. And he's the type of striker that doesn't make any contribution to the team except for goals. If it was Rooney we were talking about, then he still has a big impact on the game even if he's not scoring. But Torres isn't that kind of player.

Agreed. Sometimes I'm yelling at him to shoot when he gets into a good position but he keeps the ball and makes a pass and it's always the right decision. His footballing brain is unbelievable.

AVB would not have been hired if he was required to start winning trophies immediately or face the sack. If Roman had such a demand, he would have hired a more experienced manager.

Welcome! :blue scalf: :blue scalf:

UB, did you honestly think at the start of the season that we had any chance of winning the league? Deep down I knew we had no chance. However the appointment of AVB signalled that we are looking to revamp our team and that cannot happen over the course of a season. It's unlucky that we are going through this transition at the same time as when Man City have built a perfect team (apart from defense, which is shite) to contend for the title. This transition period should have happened last season, but after winning the title in 09/10, nobody paid any attention. We started off so well but when the first domino fell, everything collapsed. The resurgence in March and April was mainly due to a combination of things - Man Utd's consecutive losses against us & Liverpool in the space of 5 days rattled them and we managed to improve our performances a bit to sneak wins against the likes of Wigan and Spurs which kept us alive. I don't get why so many people are suddenly so pessimistic after the last two weeks. We will NOT drop out of the Champions League places. Jeez. AVB can't solve everything in one transfer window. There's a lot of deadweight around which will be cleared in the next 2 windows. And with regard to the teams fighting it out for 4th place, Spurs look the likeliest. Liverpool rely too much on Suarez. If he gets crocked they're screwed. Same applies to Arsenal and RVP. Newcastle haven't played any decent teams yet. They've got City and United next. Lets see how they fair.

Things have quietened down quite a bit. Hopefully a good sign.

Hmm, true. But the Man City of present is a better team than the Man Utd that challenged us for our three titles - purely because of the number of quality players they have. Injuries won't affect them as much as they would affect other teams.

After Torres' shocking miss on Saturday (ironic thing was that he played well up til then) I am really losing my faith in his ability to score us goals. I was all "he's on the way to his best" after Genk but now he's got me thinking again. Sure he may get goals here and there but can we rely on him to score when it matters? No. Not at the moment anyway. We need to address this problem. Sturridge is missing quite a few chances atm which is also a little worrying but he is learning and should be given time. Drogba, Anelka, Kalou out in January. We need a reliable goalscorer. But it's still not a huge deal because we have players who will chip in with a few here and there. We do need someone upfront tho imo

Very happy for him. Glad the clown Carroll wasn't selected.

Alex + JT against Suarez is a disaster waiting to happen. Luiz has to play

That was the only useful thing he did, I thought. I'm not saying that he was poor... but either Meireles or Romeu in that position would have been better

Think today's game, particularly the first half, showed that we really need someone like Modric who can break open a game with a pass from deep And I felt that Mikel was really useless today. I don't mean that he was bad, but he wasn't needed imo

Was going to nominate Tomo-91 and Madmax but they've both already been mentioned so will nominate Kez and LDN_Blue

Had my head in my hands when I saw him lying there, thankfully all is ok. Love you big man! Some cunt on my facebook actually posted something like "If Hilario comes on I'll stop watching" ughhhh what the fuck?!

Most important thing about this match was to get the 3 points after two horrible defeats. Not too fussed about the performance. Defensively we were better than usual. The Blackburn onslaught towards the end was expected. Alex was a little shaky though. Overall I'm happy with the result. Blackburn away is always tough, no matter what kind of form they're in.

Well done Big Pete! You fucking legend!

Clean sheet!