CHOULO19

True, but a bit isolated. He doesn't have the ability to drop deep and participate with the link-up like Eto'o.

Things went against us today, could go for us against Stoke. Of course it will be tough, but a fresh Hazard, Cesc and Costa can break a parked bus.

Forgot about Ake, but I am certain that Jose will start with at least one experienced CB. Can't play in Europe with a pairing of Zouma and Chrustensen. I think Matic will start because he had a rest today and will rest again next week against Derby.

You're just a ray of sunshine, aren't you?! I never felt that anyone except Eto'o and Barkley showed and fighting spirit. That's why it was so easy for City to dispossess them. Against us, from the same kind of positions they were creating dangerous chances while today they were almost nonchalant.

It's an ethical issue, though, isn't it? Like putting the ball out when a player is injured, your best interest is to keep the ball and attack the team while they're a man down, but if you don't someone doing that to you in the future, you kick the ball out. If I know Jose, I think he cares about fairness and sportsmanship. Obviously, he'll rest players, I expect about 5-6 changes (Remy, Zouma, Cech, Salah, Schurrle, Luis) but all are first-teammers. Talking about starting Baker and Boga is just nonsense, imo.

This match may mean nothing to us but it may be a decider on who qualifies with us. Even if Jose wanted to field a team of youngster, he couldn't because UEFA would probably punish us. Plus, put yourselves in the shoes of the shoes of the Schalke fans. We need to try to win this match while still resting some key players, especially Hazard.

Pellegrino said ligament damage and no doubt someone made up 4 months like someone always does. There is no way to know the extent of ligament damage without an MRI and they never do that on the same day of the injury.

Everton where beyond poor. They never looked like they wanted any points from the match. They're 1-0 down with 5 added mins to go and the two CBs are passing it between each other. No one, bar Eto'o, was really trying to score.

Yeah, Jose said after the match that when Newcastle scored the second he instructed the players to play direct balls. But still, there were a couple of situation where he had a 1vs1 and I was screaming at my TV "take him on" and he just passed back to Luis to cross it in. Probably fatigue, as you said.

First half was very poor, though. His decision making was bad as was his ball control. Very frustrating to watch.

So O'Shea kicking him makes it okay for him to kick him back? That was stupid. And the elbow was most definitely and obviously intentional. No one in the world lifts and spins his arms AFTER he had jumped. I don't like it at all. And when he had already won the header and had a chance for a dangerous attack but decides to elbow the defender anyway, then yes, I will say that he was more interested in fighting than in scoring. In fact, he was even more interesting fighting than playing an important match against Tottenham.

No, I criticized him for that after Everton and Liverpool, even though neither were as bad as the ones against O'Shea and Brown and both Coleman and Skrtel were clearly and physically provoking him for a long time before he responded. And you're having a laugh if you're suggesting that Costa gets over-criticized. He had a performance worthy of Fernando Torres today and now is saying a word about it (rightly so because this was his first real bad performance for us).

Name: Costa Reason: Trolling Punishment: Content moderated permanentlyAbility to create content removed permanently.Suspended permanentlyAlso move to Banned

That's because City have something magical called "wingers" and an inform world-class striker (who wanted to score goals not pick a fight with CBs).

No, what i'm saying is that if Jose keeps on doing it, then there must be some rationale behind it. Obviously, you (and WNDS) don't agree with Jose, but I'm asking, if it's not because of the defensive solidity like I'm saying, why do you think Jose keeps playing Azpi? Because "Jose is suborn" and "Iva is an ass-licker" does not cut it. Well, because Jose is a manager who always looks for defensive solidity first. I agree, there are some games where I think it is worth the risk starting the less solid Luis over Azpi for his offensive contribution like against Sunderland. But let's be honest, we're all going by what he was doing at Atletico. His offensive contributions with us have not been much better than Azpi. On any account, no I don't think Luis should have started ahead of Azpi today because Newcastle, especially at home, are a VERY tough side who are very difficult to defend against, but once they scored and sat back Luis was going to be more useful and I thought he came one at the exactly right time. So I have zero complaints about the issue today.

Because Brana offers things down the right that neither Azpi nor Luis can. This guys sums it up better than me:

From statszone: 17 ball recoveries 95/103 passes completed (92% accuracy) 1 chance created 2/3 won aerial duels 2 interceptions 3/3 successful take-ons 3/3 successful clearances. Also 18/23 passes completed to final third and 50% completed long balls (4/8).

Alright, forget that incident, it was only one example. Let's look at in general, in all of the his PL appearances Luis has not looked as solid as Azpi defensively. He's made a few obvious mistakes and has been beaten a bit too easily. He's obviously struggling with the physicality of the league as he himself has said/hinted at on several occasions. If he is so clearly superior to Azpi, then explain to me how Jose keeps starting Cesar?

We had two other players running to chase down Sissoko (and clearly not catching him), he should have been looking to see if someone else was coming in support. It's not a major mistake (and like I said I'm not blaming him for the goal, there were bigger mistakes made for the goal than that), but it's those little details that sometimes make the difference like they did today. He asked why Azpi keeps getting picked over Luis and I said why I think that is. Now, I'm sorry if this gets in the way of the rage on Mourinho and trying to blame him for the loss, but it makes a lot more sense to me than "Jose is a stubborn idiot" or "Iva is an ass-licker"...to me at least.

The result would have been exactly the same with Nemanja today (unless he smashed a 40-yard screamer or something). The issue was not at all in midfield where we completely dominated and long before Newcastle parked the bus.

Watch the second goal. If he was properly position or at least aware of who was behind him he would and should stop the ball to Cisse. Not saying it's all his fault, but Azpi provides defensive solidness that Luis is yet to show.

Excellent (in spells) for 70 minutes, completely invisible for the important last 20. I have absolutely no idea why.

I was feeling merciful

Just scored his first Bundes Liga goal to put Gladbach 3-1 up against Hertha Berlin.