CHOULO19

Being capable of making great passes on occasions does not make a player a good passer especially when he very often misplaces regular passes. Passing is about consistency, especially if he is going to play in the pivot. He is a pretty good crosser, though.

Not unless they get minus 1 points and minus 4 GD from the game

Yeah, I said he's rather technically weak not tactically. And I still stand by it. The Inter fan didn't say any differently. He said that his best attributes are the physical ones, he said nothing about his technical ability. He said he had powerful shots (which I said as well) but he shoots too much sometimes from 50 yards and doesn't hit the target (which I think I said as well). He said that sometimes his passing is way off and he tries to dribble too much and loses possession. All I did was translate those three things into " his technical ability on the ball is rather weak". Below average player was probably an exaggeration and I didn't think I'd said it because it's really not my opinion of the guy. But he's nothing more than average and that is also the view of most Inter fans. The main difference between my posts and his is that I was trying to highlight how he doesn't fit what we want for the pivot while he was just describing him in general.

Much better second half so far. Doing very well both defensively and offensively and has been a part of why Valencia have managed to reverse the momentum in this game. 2-2 now and Valencia looking much more likely to get the third. EDIT: Valencia really need a new keeper. It ends 3-2 for Real.

And that is exactly what the Inter fan said: He plays as an attacking midfielder not a CM and what his brings to the team is his physical attributes. I still believe he is not Chelsea quality and I bet if you ask I bet if you ask the Inter fan if Guarin can be a player for a team who wants to win the PL and compete in Europe he'll say the exact same.

Lost Ronaldo for the second goal. Should have been offside but he needs to do better with his marking.

Alright, quote one of my posts where I said either of those things. The only thing I said differently was about his passing which I still think is below average if Jose wants to play him in the pivot.

That's very true. But last season, you wouldn't find anyone here who would have traded Luiz who was one of our best players for Kompany who had a sub-par season. In fact, many fans, yourself included IIRC, wanted David as our next captain last season.

Very nervy start against Real. Gave the ball away cheaply on a number of occasions. Doing better in the past 10 mins. It's 1-1 after 35 minutes.

Thanks for that, friend So......I make the exact same points and get slated, he makes the points and gets a whole bunch of likes? I'm just glad that someone proved that what I was saying is what Inter fans think.

Too bad that practically and logically that nostalgia accounts for very very little in the modern game. And Drogba and Cech are as much legends as Terry and Frank and we would not have won half of our trophies in the past 10 years without them.

Milner and Barry? They're not by any stretch of imagination the core of the team. They were basically the city equivalent of our Kalou and Meireles! No offense, but it's very hard to agree with that "only English players rally everyone when the going gets tough" is very hard to agree with if you're not English. In fact, if we're talking about mentality, then the German players are probably the best in Europe in that aspect because they are trained in the academies for exactly that. The English academies are still a long way behind, imo. The reason that JT is that he is by far the best defender England has produced in a long time and one that the NT have not been able to replace (which again highlights the lack of top English talents atm) and Frank is playing we don't have any top players in his position. Add to that the fact that they complete the homegrown quota that we need to fill.

Well the issue with signing players from the EPL is that all the best players are naturally at the top clubs which makes them rivals for us and thus it would be much harder to buy from them. And if all the teams in the EPL just bought players from the EPL then it would not have most of it's stars because obviously most of the best players in the league come from outside of England. Imagine if we had not bought the likes of Cech, Drogba, Carvalho, Ballack, Hazard..etc because they were from outside the EPL and instead just bought the likes of Wright-Phillips, Sidwell, Torres, and Cahill! We'd still be looking for our first trophy. Terry and Lampard era? They were both with us pre-Abramovic and the team did not become a top European club until the Russian came and bought a whole lot of top foreign players.Two players don't make a core and if I had to name this era after one person then it would definitely be Jose Mourinho because he built this team. I completely agree that we should ideally have an English core because this is an English team after all. But if there are no available English players who are good enough to be the core of a top European team, should we just settle to being an average team and just wait for the English academies to hopefully produce top English players if we want to compete in Europe or even in the EPL? Like I said, I agree in principle. But there aren't exactly an excess of English players that are good enough to be the base of a top European team like the Spaniards at Madrid and Barca and the Germans at Bayern. The team must get the players that makes it better regardless of their nationalities.

Hahaha I used to never get it wrong! The internet is contagious!

I honestly don't get your point. Are you suggesting we should sign players from the 1980s? In the world we live in atm a league made of only English players would be average at best, as would a team made of English players. Very odd suggesting that we can only be successful with English core. What do you call the past 10 years then? No the league attracts some of the best talents in the world because ever since it became the EPL it has had the best coverage in the world and the best wages for players. If this were the 1980s then I'd agree with you that we should sign English players, but right now in 2013, the number of English players that are good enough to be in a team that wants to be among the best 5 in Europe is very limited.

Hey, those Turkish guys want some banter and their getting what they want

Don't get me wrong. I love Kompany too. I think he's a very good person, not just footballer. His interviews and tweets are always very well put and level-headed. I would absolutely love to have him at Chelsea.

Funny, because the sole reason why the EPL is one of the top leagues is due to its reliance on foreign players. Imagine how shit the league would be if you take out the likes of Suarez, Hazard, RVP, Ozil..etc and relied on the "stars" of the England NT! Coleman has been doing very well, imo, even if he is not getting the recognition. But we already have a pretty good RB. Too bad we're playing him at LB..

Sorry mate, but that's just power in the shot for the goal. Some of the goals Luiz has scored (obviously the goal vs Basel was the best of the bunch) show technique that the vast majority of midfielders and attackers only dream of having. The pass was pretty awesome though!

Actually I wasn't talking about on the ball but the way he defends. Kompany defends on the same line as his back four, likes his fullbacks tucked in beside him and defends very well inside the area. Luiz, on the other hand, steps out of the defense to intercept passes and meet attackers and defend against them one-on-one. They are completely different styles and football "cultures". As for the part about technical ability, I'll believe Kompany is better when I see him score the goal David scored against Basel at the Bridge last season and play one of Luiz's trade-mark 70-yards inch-perfect pass to the striker

Luiz and Kompany are very different types of defenders. What they do have in common, though, is that both are capable of being world-class and have showed so, and both have been inconsistent in their time in England and are capable of being absolute liabilities at times. Luiz is the much much better footballer and obviously he offers so much more going forward. He can be very important to any team with his ability to bring the ball forward and efficiently give an extra man in midfield when needed. He's also a defender who likes to play 1vs1 and intercept attacks before they become a real threat. Kompany, on the other hand, is more of a typical English "no-nonsense" CB. Physically he's stronger than David, but I think mentally as well. Kompany is natural leader and organizer of the defense. Something we have been sorely missing when JT is absent. The comparisons that are being made at the moment are largely unfair because one is in pretty good form (despite the injury) and the other is in terrible form. It would have been very difficult during the second half of last season to find anyone, even a City fan, who believed that Kompany was better than Luiz.

That's very true. In fact, I think that Jose intended in preseason to rotate Kevin with Oscar and play Juan on the right. But Kevin's performances didn't really help his case. Plus, obviously, in terms of experience and maturity Juan is miles ahead.

That kind of language is not acceptable here. I'm sure you can convey your point in a much more respectful way.

Yeah I like Lucas as a striker, his movement is excellent. But not as a lone striker, he needs someone (preferably a big guy) next to him. I know we're a very long way from it, but I dream of a Piazon-Lukaku partnership in a couple of years.