CHOULO19

CB? I feel if they get an established CB to partner Kompany, they'll be favorites for the title.

Inter have played 3-5-2 for most of the season, but Matzarri tried playing with a back four a few times. Guarin is listed as playing an attacking midfielder when they've played 4-2-3-1 and as a central midfielder when they have played 3-5-2 but in reality he has played as the most advanced in a 3-man midfield: basically what Oscar does for us. Alvarez has played as a second striker, partnering Palacio. In fact, most Inter fans have been slating Matzarri for continuing to play Guarin. They want Kovasic in his place and, having watched most of Inter's games this season, I tend to agree. Fredy had a great season last year especially towards the end, but he hasn't been remotely as good this season.

Where did you get that from?

I'm more worried that a first team player is injured and it took the club two weeks to announce it. Ryan wasn't on that list last week despite Jose saying that he has been injured for two weeks now.

The difference is that Guarin does not have the natural ability of a CM, especially on the ball. That's why Matzarri is playing him as an attacking midfielder when Inter are seriously lacking a central midfielder. He prefers to play Kovasic, who is an attacking midfielder, at CM for his passing and general ability on the ball and plays Fredy as an attacking midfielder to use his physical attributes for Inter's pressing system.

LOL Seriously? To start with he's more naturally an attacking midfielder than a CM. That's where he's played for most of the season. Second, he's no where near Chelsea quality. He's strong and can run all day, but apart from that, he brings next to nothing. BS story, imo.

Same here in Lebanon. Obviously no snow in Beirut, but anything above 200 meters from sea level looks exactly like that. More than half the streets in Lebanon are closed thanks to storm Alexa.

It's no secret that our squad seriously lacked technical ability under Carlo, but it has definitely gone up with the likes of Mata, Eden, Oscar, Luiz..etc.

That's because Frank has not been himself since the injury in 2010. Since then he has struggled to find a run of form. And this season he has had some truly terrible games. It wasn't just one or two. It was a whole bunch of very bad games. That's why a lot of people are criticizing his performances now. But Mikel is getting stick and people want him gone after the first bad game this season. Romeu? Chalobah?! Come on. You are underrating the level at which Chelsea play at beyond belief. I'm all for them being given a chance at Chelsea, but to say that a player who's played half a dozen games in the last year and another who can't get into a championship side can perform consistently at Chelsea is not at all realistic. It's not easy to perform, what you are calling "average", consistently at this level. Those two are very far from regular first team action with Chelsea. Maybe Oriol would be close if he continues the rest of the season like he has played the past couple of games and continues to be a nailed on starter for Valencia.

That wasn't really the point here, though, was it? The point was about consistency. Saying that Mikel is consistently playing at a level below that which is expected of our players is obviously not true. If that were the case he would not have played in 18 of our 24 matches so far this season. Mikel had his first bad game for us this season yesterday. Granted he wasn't brilliant in the games before, but he was consistently 6-7/10 as you put it. And on the first bad game a whole lot of people come here saying stuff like he should go while our other pivot players have had more bad games this season than John. That's what I meant by double-standards.

Again, you're missing my point. I just said that Rami has been our best pivot player. Consistently putting in 6-7/10 is still consistency which is what we were discussing. Mikel has not been brilliant (except maybe in the Everton game) but he has been good in almost every game up until yesterday.

My exam got cancelled

I didn't say Mikel has been our best player in the pivot, I said he has been our most consistent. In the last month, Rami has been blowing hot and cold. Despite that he remains our best pivot player, but he has lost the consistency he had at the start of the season, probably because of the lack of rest he's getting.

The game we won 3-0 against an excellent team? He can't have been that bad. And against Spurs he was as poor as everyone else in that first half. You can't single him out. Point it is, Mikel has been the most consistent of our pivot players this season, granted that he has had a lesser role than Rami and Frank. But Frank has had as many bad games as good ones if not more and even Rami has had a games were he was pretty bad, especially recently. Saying that Mikel has had more bad games than good when the other players have been far more inconsistent is an example of the double-standards that most use against John.

Yeah, we tend to take that for granted, but it's a very important attribute. People tend to highlight David's mistakes but rarely the number of attacks he snuffs out before they even look dangerous by intercepting the balls to the attackers.

Have some sympathy, guys. If we take him from united, they'll be in the relegation zone!

Come on. This is literally his first bad performance this season. Granted he was terrible yesterday, but still, what are all those bad performances in which he was very bad in this season? Can you name them?

Spot on with the last sentence. We got the best group in as long as I remember, we got an early goal in a lot of the matches, players made some serious mistakes against us especially that Georgievski guy, and the groups panned out in a perfect way for us for the last 16 draw. May that luck continue..

"But the game was overshadowed after Mourinho and two Chelsea players, Oscar and Eden Hazard, were attacked with a laser pen shone from the away fans section of the ground." Overshadowed? Can the Mirror get any crapier?!

Worse, last year we'd play great but still not get the win.

Didn't have much to do defensively but did well on the ball to try and bypass our useless pivot.

I think he would have gotten more minutes had we killed the game like we should have. He was unlucky again, this time because our attackers were missing chances for fun. Nonetheless, he did well in his 10 minutes and looked like he had a point to make.

Clean sheet for oldest debutante in the history of the CL. Well done Mark, it was a flawless performance. I'd like to see him vs Palace again just to keep Petr on his toes for the Christmas period.

City and Arsenal are so screwed! The way the groups panned out really suits us. But we should really try to get our next opponents to sign that Georgievski guy. He was probably our best player in the CL this season!