Joe Cool

lol that's why Mikel doesn't take our free kicks.

Essien before his injuries was miles better than Ramires. He was much stronger, had a good amount of technical ability (something Ramires sorely lacks), and had a beast of a shot. Not to mention his football IQ was quite a bit better. However, I see why you would make that comparison. In a way, they're quite similar players (skill aside).

Damn this is actually happening, quite surreal (not really). Goes without saying, however, once this is done and dusted we have to get at least two holding players. De Rossi (hopefully) and someone of the same calibre as Alonso or someone in that mould.

Where's Cholo to tell us that Moses is better for us than Neymar would ever be?

Mexico are mind-numbingly gash.

Pinch your nose and lie down for five minutes next time you have a bloody nose!

clearly you've never seen Cholo post before.

Not saying that Dave is an especially great crosser, but your ability to hit a successful cross will be hampered when the centre-forward that you're aiming for is someone as positionally inept as Fernando Torres.

Some of you guys need to calm down. As much as I find myself disagreeing with Cholo on a constant basis, he was merely commenting on his pass (albeit against a pub team). Nothing more. He wasn't using this as any basis for an argument as to why Mikel should stay, just showing a good pass.

Well for a few reasons. Firstly, with a back three like that, either it would have to stay really narrow or spread out and leave massive gaps. If it stays narrow, then it will get destroyed by any team with competent wide players. Now, in defense, you could say that Hazard and Schurrle could help out, but honestly, neither are well equipped to be wingbacks as they aren't too good at defending. Therefore, any overload onto either side from opposition wingers and sidebacks would leave us horribly exposed. If the back 3 spreads out a little more, then that gives more space for opposition centre-forwards to run onto, and Terry, who's legs are quite fucked, would have massive amounts of difficulty dealing with any quick centre-forward. Just look at the 3 in defense formation that Juventus uses. Lichsteiner and Peluso are more side backs than anything and their back three consists of 3 very solid and smart centre-backs. A back three consisting of one centre-back (who has absolutely no pace on him anymore) and two sidebacks with no defensive cover from the wings would get absolutely crushed.

Damn, I guess with the £25 million rumour, it was always going to be a case of it being too good to be true. While £13 mil is a decent deal, I think we should just keep him around for the extra bit of depth in midfield.

I guess our strategy here would be to score more goals than the large amount that we will inevitably concede

25 million?? One would have to be fucking barking not to accept that. please please pleasepleaseplease be true!!!!!!!!!!!

Please Barca. Take him. Although this is most likely false, we can hope, right??

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11669/8770649/Transfer-news-Luis-Suarez-wants-to-leave-Liverpool-despite-love-for-Anfield-club Well, maybe he shouldn't have been such a cock-juggling thundercunt? He brings this entire shower of shite all upon himself. Good riddance, the Premier League does not need such subhuman scum. "About a week ago I was walking in a shopping centre near Manchester and three or four guys asked me for a photo," he revealed. "While we were posing for it my wife said to me "Luis, get out of the photo". She noticed they were making biting gestures. I was with my wife and my daughter. Things like that get on your nerves. My wife was on the brink of tears and the blokes ran off laughing. You get tired of stuff like that.

Well, attitude problems aside, Mikel is well too limited of a player to be playing in a pivot. He fits in better in a 4-3-3 due to the fact that formation has one person dedicated to the holding role, mainly staying in front of the back 4 and nothing else. However, in a 4-2-3-1, where we only have two central midfielders, because Mikel is so limited offensively and creatively, it often leaves well too much responsibility on the shoulders of his partner (which none of our other central midfielders are good enough to take up) and gives us absolutely no ideas going forward. If you compare him to players like Gundogan and Martinez, it's should become quite clear as to why they made it to the finals of the Champions League and why we couldn't even get out of the groups. I think he offers more to the team than Essien will (although that's not saying much), but why give either of those two a chance in the team when we have Ake, Loftus Cheek, and Romeu plus a new buy like De Rossi (potentially)?

He's best utilized behind the striker as an AM, so where would he fit in? It's not like we're short in that position or anything. No thanks. We have a ton of players we need to buy on a not unlimited budget (this isn't FM), so we could actually start looking for an actual deep-lying midfielder for starters.

And Tony Blair got us into that mess in Iraq, what's your point?Anyways, I don't think selling our best centre back who looks like he will only get better to buy two new (and possibly unproven in England) defenders is the smartest path to building a strong defense, which we have yet to do. If you ask me, Luiz should be the base from which we build our defense on. Obviously, he still needs to cut out the occasional error (Everton last game), but sell him? £35 million minimum for me.

A lot of good posters this month, but I'd have to go with Leif.

I think, had we had that extra depth in terms of wide players (Marin and Moses being poor and all) this season, we would have been able to see Oscar out in a central position a lot more. However, we will probably see him in that role more next season with Schurrle on his way here combined with other buys we may make this summer.

Typical England, the first half was absolutely disgusting, with nothing more than Stoke-esque hoofball for most of the half. Hodgson shows (yet again) that he's incompetent. FFS, why the hell does he feel obliged to park the bus in a friendly?? It's hilarious to see all the knobs over at ITV (Townsend and Tyldsley) absolutely jizzing themselves over a draw in which England only looked good because Brazil were quite shite. Even though it's kind of stating the obvious, neither of these teams will have any chance of winning the world cup. oh and Johnson is terrible.

Yes. Fucking yes. Please be true.

Oh I was not completely sure that you were comparing the two like that. Cole's importance to the team is nowhere near that of Mata, who is by far our best player, with most of our attacking moves going through him. Hell, Cole wasn't even the best winger in the squad (Robben), so it's not particularly fair to make such a comparison.

Just got back, Sturridge looked pretty fucked, hopefully it's not too serious. How crap were Walcott and Ox though? The latter should be nowhere near the team. The team in general did not look too great, but hopefully that's just due to it being a friendly.

He's not bad at right back, he's shown that he can deliver a better cross than Dave. However, his main issue seems to be more down to concentration nowadays. If somebody can come in with a good offer (25 million), then why not? But we can always use a bit of depth in defense, so keeping him wouldn't be a bad idea (as long as we sign a new CB this summer).