CHOULO19

You can say he's a bad defender, question his decision making, call him undisciplined, but to actually say David Luiz is a terrible footballer...fucking hell! I've seen it all now To anyone doubting Luiz's footballing ability, just take a look at this:

This terminology mostly came from FIFA and FM and I must admit it gets annoying sometimes with all the new terms. You won't find unanimous agreement on the definition of these terms, but allow me to explain what I think they mean: A DM is the type of guy who sits in front of the back four and provides cover and eases the ball from defense to attack. Alonso is DM, and a great one at that (Although he is not a ball-winning DM and can easily be played next to another DM, but let's not get into more needless terminology!). Ramires on the other hand does not have the discipline or defensive ability or even passing technique to be a DM. He is a box-to-box midfielder, meaning he has the pace and stamina to keep making runs from his own box to the oppositions. Some would even call him an "Engine" (I know, more stupid terminology! ) which is basically someone who covers all pitch with his running like Vidal, or what De Rossi was a couple of years ago. Now the pivot, or originally the "Double Pivot" is not a type of player like DM or B2B, but rather a position in a formation. It is a term invented solely for the 4-2-3-1 formation which was made famous by Jose's treble winning Inter. The term refers to the two players in front of the defense. The meaning of pivot is axis or what the team revolves around and double obviously because there are two of them. Originally, it was meant that those two would have interchangeable roles in the team. When one joins the attack the other has to drop deep and cover. In practice, not a lot of teams managed to implement that, us included, and you ended up with one player always staying deep and the other always going forward making it much more static than intended (and making the job of the guy who stays deep much harder). You can choose to play whatever type of central midfielder that you want in the pivot to different effects. You can play two DMs and solidify your defense but that would give you less men in the attack and invite pressure on your back four. You can play two box-to-box players like we did when we played Rami and Lamps (to terrible results, unfortunately) but that would leave you exposed at the back since both pivot players will leave their position...etc. Ideally, what I think we are attempting to do here at Chelsea is find a pairing of DM, along side a DLP. A DLP, or Deep-Lying Playmaker (sometimes called Regista), is the type of central midfielder who likes to drop deep to receive the ball where he will have the time and space to pick up some long passes and have more control over the tempo of the game. This term was created to describe players like Pirlo and Xavi. But for DPL to work well in a double-pivot, I think that he should also be able to defend well when needed (for example, I don't think Pirlo would work well in a 4-2-3-1) which is why a lot of fans want the club to sign someone like Van Ginkel and Modric. That is also why I don't think Oscar should be moved to the pivot. Your analysis of this was absolutely spot on, imo. What Oscar does best for the team is his link-up play, passes and creativity in the final third. Moving him deeper would be robbing him of all that. I also don't think he has the physical or defensive ability to play in the pivot. He is decent enough when he's defending against other teams fullbacks, but can you imagine him getting stuck in with Yaya Toure for example in midfield?! The only reason people want Oscar to play in the pivot is because attacking players like him are rated highly and get all the hype, so they want to fit all of our attacking players like Oscar and Mata and Hazard and Schurrle..etc in one formation. Sometimes I think if one of our fans was our manager we'd have a goalkeeper and 10 strikers on the pitch! (kind of what Brasil have ) Unfortunately, very few people appreciate the players that do the basic things right like covering and simple passing that despite not looking too 'fancy' are crucial to the team nonetheless. I apologize that this came out too long, and I hope it helps. There is absolutely nothing wrong with your English or understanding of football, you just have a different perspective than the one we are used to. I hope you could teach us more stuff about the Brazilian perspective of the game like the "volante"

I'm not saying he will, just that he could. And even if he does want to sell, what do you think is more attractive to businessman wanting to make an investment: a club with half a billion pounds debt to the previous owner or a club with almost no debt?

And I don't think people realize either that should he decide to leave one day, how much the club will owe him money. That's why some people actually care about how much we spend because the more profit we as a club make the less we owe Roman money. Yes we can spend 150m for two players in the market right now through Roman's money, and we can probably even still by pass FFP rules while doing it, but if he ever decides to pick up and leave, we will be in shitload of trouble.

Oh Jose, you're such a flirt

And who says Strootman wants to even leave his club or even come to the EPL? What if we already inquired but PSV said they don't want to sell him for any price?

The official statement by the club said he hasn't yet.

^^ He still hasn't agreed personal terms yet, so it'll probably take some more time to be done, but there's no rush about it.

Didn't Zenith buy him for something like 80m last season? How much do you expect they are willing to sell him for? Errm, why exactly did you choose this topic to post that in?

Japan have been very disappointing tonight. They just didn't get into their system.

The technique of the passing Seriously his passing technique is almost perfect. The pass always has just the right amount of pace on it, and he makes it look so effortless and easy.

Scurrle has been a slightly better, German Sturridge. Fast, shoots a lot, and when played on the wings always cuts inside. I'm hoping he finds a few more dimensions to his game with his move here.

How would you know? Didn't he block you? Are people still posting what Palmeri tweets? In case you haven't noticed, everything he says is utter BS.

Can we please quit the insults? It has gotten past ridiculous.

You can't really bring someone who's had half a good season and is probably being hyped because of his young age and a few good performances to replace Mikel who has been playing at the top for a long time and probably is one of our most consistent players. If we want to experiment in that position and give it to someone young in the hope he becomes world-class in the future, we have our own hyped up youngsters in the shape of Romeu and Chalobah. BTW: I think the most important thing for someone who wants to provide cover are tactical awareness and more importantly discipline.

I don't doubt that Mikel has his weakness (I keep pointing out that he's not exactly blessed with raw pace, and he is sometimes slow to react) nor do I claim he's the best in the world, but I do think that most of the problems that are attributed to Mikel by some fans are largely not his fault alone. So even if you bring in Busquetes (who, for me, is simply the best in his position) most of these problems won't magically disappear, not until we sort out the problems in our system like start defending like a team with everyone doing their job and actually come up with an attacking system to get the ball from defense to attack. Can we improve on the position Mikel plays in by investing the transfer market? It won't be cheap, but yes we can definitely find better players. But the same can be said about every single position in our starting XI except between the posts and maybe left back. The more important question for me is: Should replacing Mikel be our priority? The answer for me is no, because I believe there are much more pressing matters we should fix using the transfer window like Mikel's partner in the pivot (if are going to continue playing 4-2-3-1), our striker situation, our first choice CB pairing, and most importantly squad depth, especially in the attacking midfielders area.

Again, a slap is out of rage, it does not injure the player, and Luiz's tackles can be very rash and even injure but the intention is never to hurt the player, I hope, but to get the ball. I just think it is incredibly cynical to stamp on another with the intention on injuring and hurting him. I mean at the end of the day he's a fellow footballer and it's just sport. Anyway, it's probably just me. I would still like us to sign Robert nonetheless though I don't expect us to.

The worst I've seen one of our players do in terms of intentional damage was the Bosingwa drop-kick, but I honestly can't remember any of our players attempting a stomp. I can understand a push or kick out of frustration like JT on Sanchez last season, but a stomp is different because it is meant to injure the player and take him out of the game.

This deserves a bump since not a lot of people got to read it because I took a while approve it.

Just call him Joe!

Was thinking about Josh today. I think it is best that he stays with first team next year and is given some chances in the cups, but would loaning him to Vitesse be such a bad thing? It would certainly suite him better than the Championship. The Eredivisie is the type of fast tactical league that would be perfect for someone like Josh.

Clearly BS, but would be sooo funny if it were true. That is 20 times the price we sold him at. That's got to be some sort of record!

This has nothing to do with the transfer, but I still can't get over that stamp in the CL final. I had a completely different idea about him up until then.

The problem with selling Luiz, even for that kind of money, is that we'll have to find two new CBs because he is currently our only CB with enough quality to be a starter especially in Mourinho team where defensive solidity come first.

That makes much more sense. We already know that Gala are interested, but Mikel has 4 years on his contract left so they will have to pay something like 20-25m to get him, that is IF Chelsea and Jose even want to sell him.