CHOULO19

Not looking too good for him. Valencia 1-0 after 9 mins.

True. Barry escaped at least three solid yellow cards and the yellow cards he did give were too soft. But, tbf, he was probably the best ref in the PL yesterday! Not a good day for refs.

Let's not jump to conclusions. Maybe he's just playing the role of an evil minion who Batman throws off the roof of a building!

I think we replay that game and put in the exact same performance we win the match 9 times out of ten. Incredibly unlucky.

On the bright side, he's still very young and we can put him on some kind of special program just for him to improve his finishing.

So I'm guessing the issues he had with the manager and players and captaincy are over now?

There is, of course, a possibility that we do win the league, but I think if we do it will be more due to the weakness of the other teams because quite honestly, in other circumstances, our squad is just not cohesive enough to win the league.

I think you just proved my point with the bolded part I don't think anyone doubts that our players are capable of putting in great performances just that they can do it with consistency with their current age and lack of experience. Even last year under rafa, we had some excellent performances, but we were never consistent. Yes we won the EL, but that's just the EL and we were expected to win it. None of the core players that you mentioned played any major part in the CL or FA cup wins. Add to that the fact they are being asked to play a whole different system than the one they had last season. Btw, Jose never said that we will win the PL or dominate it. In fact it was always the contrary when he was asked about it. He always said that this squad is for the future and it's nothing like the squad that won the PL back to back in 2004. Like I've been saying, I expect us to challenge for the tittle but I will be (pleasantly) surprised if we actually win it. I think Jose feels the same way. I think it's too early to judge Jose's system simply because I honestly don't think he knows what it is yet! We've played 5 games so far with four different styles, so no wonder that some players seem unsure what their role is. But Jose is a great manager, there's no doubt about that. He'll figure out the best system with the best combination but he will need time. Expecting instant success from any manager with the current squad is a bit naive if I'm honest.

Still he played for about 20 mins in the same 4-2-3-1 before Torres came on and we virtually created nothing during this period. I'm not saying that Oscar is not important to the team or discrediting his skills and abilities, I just see no point in over-simplifying all our problems in the game yesterday by saying that one play could have solved them all.

As they should, because this squad would compete for tittles for 5-6 seasons to come with little changes needed and will only get better as time passes. But this squad is nothing like Bayern for example who have a group of players all at their peak giving the performances of their lives. The same could be said about our squad in the 2004-5 season. Bayern probably have 2 more seasons at this level before they will need to replace most of their key players atm. But who are the stars of the team? Around whom is the team built? Certainly not JT or Frank or Cole or even Cech but around the young attacking midfielders and at their ages you can't expect them to be consistently brilliant.

Don't want to get into the debate, but as a Juve follower, I have to agree with Ryan there. Vidal is by no means a DM. He spends half the match in the opposition box! He's a box-to-box central midfielder which is very much needed at Juve to make up for the "lack of energy" of Pirlo.

How about the chance Eto'o created for Rami which forced Howrad into an incredible save or the one he created for Schurrle on around 40 mins and the through ball that Rami played to put Schurrle again through on goal in the 46th minute? With the Howard mistake and Eto'o header, that's 5 clear-cut chances. Teams rarely get that much in one game and I'm probably forgetting a couple as well.

I think part of the issue here is that the expectations from Jose are just too high. I'm not making excuses for him, believe me I have my criticism of him for some of the choices he's made so far, but I just think that his return was so emotional and it was built up so much by everyone that some expecting Jose to be able to instantly turn water (a group of young talented players with great potential) into wine (a cohesive team with players performing at their best).

If there is one thing we should have learned from yesterday is that maybe it's a bad idea to throw Willian straight in from the start like we did with Eto'o because coming from the Russian league his fitness will likely be a bit below the rest of the players. So maybe it's better to bring him on in the second half when the tempo is a bit slower and there are more spaces.

Honestly, I've stopped making line-up predictions when Jose himself doesn't know his best team yet. I'm afraid that we will underestimate this game, but on the bright side I think we will go out and try to compensate for the loss yesterday; Jose will make sure of that. So over all, yeah, I have no idea what to expect from this game.

Well we're open to hearing any explanation and any opinion. I don't think anyone of the staff is an unreasonable person. But you have to realize that when the recipient of the banter feels like he is under a racial attack we have to take action by either making it stop or clarifying to him how it was not a racial attack because we can't have that on our forums. Anyway, let's not get off topic more here. Please feel free to PM me if you wish to discuss this further.

His posts are under staff monitoring atm and if we see that he is trolling we'll take action. For the mean time it is very easy to just ignore the posts.

I'm not giving you an opinion, I'm telling you, as an admin, to refrain from making racist comments.

Of course everyone is entitled to their opinion as I am entitled to think that they are overreacting. Who says Jose is infallible? I was criticizing him in the very same post you quoted!

Essien is not even in the CL squad. So definitely no Essien. It will be Lampard-MVG for sure.

Not even joking, I honestly think that the post match thread should not be opened until the next day when we lose a match. Although some of the panicking and over-reaction does make for a good laugh I thought our performance was okay, especially in the first half, but we just didn't do enough in the final third. I won't judge Jose's subs because I honestly didn't understand them, but I think it's fair tosa y they didn't work. We lost a lot of our edge going forward when we took Mata and Schurrle off. But credit to Everton who were superb and to Martinez who honestly won the tactics battle with Jose. Mikel was my MOTM. Worked his butt off and did very well both defensively and on the ball.

Completely uncalled for comment.

Problem is Benitez already knew his system a couple of weeks into the job while Jose seems still unsure what his system or best team is. We've played four different styles in five games already this season. No wonder the players are unsure of their roles. I also think Jose is just making some wrong calls at the moment. Iva over Azpi is particularly puzzling for me because the latter proved last season that he can be a key man for us.

LOL it was aimed at Web after he wrongly gave the throw in to Everton

Didn't change much for the 35min he played, though.