CHOULO19

I'm allergic to false nines. They cause me to think of Barcelona and the Spanish national team and I immediately feel the need to trow up Luckily, "false 9" is not in Jose's dictionary and is as far from his footballing philosophy as possible.

I wonder if Jose meant him when he said we'll probably have to loan out if we buy..

Have a bit too much time on your hands, Ron?

Well you look like you have figured it out yourself I paid 300000 for the youth academy for 2-3 seasons and all I got to show from it is one player worth about 1500000 now. I'd rather pick my youngsters from the market.

I just downloaded this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R3Im9FPz-A Vintage Mourinho moment. Definitely worth remembering

I think you just proved his point Well one can first go to one's profile Click on Edit Profile then edit the Member Tittle. Not entirely sure, but it may require a minimum of 50 posts to edit your profile.

In those two passes he did make a mistake, but he must have played that pass over a dozen times in that match because the manager's mistakes left him stranded with out passing options. He was bound to get a couple wrong. I was one of the biggest defenders of Rafa, but IMO he takes the blame for this one.

Iva's distribution was never as good as JT's or Luiz's. The manager should not expect him to to find the right pass under pressure for 90 mins. You can't play Mata in goal and then blame him for conceding goals. Our CB's were under pressure for the whole 90 mins because they had absolutely no passing options. We played the game without a holding midfielder and no one from the 3 AMs dropped to receive the ball. The mistakes from Iva were inevitable, if not in those two particular plays then definitely in some other plays.

You can see why JT is popular with the ladies

Not that he never made at CB, but that was strictly Benitez's fault. Our CBs had no passing options throughout the game and Swansea were constantly pressing them. Wrong back-passes were inevitable.

I'm talking about the past two seasons, and in the past two seasons he's played at CB much more than he has at RB. And he's done well at CB because he is one. That's why he wasn't sold despite his average performances at RB. And that's also why we went out and bought Azpi.

I made 10 changes. Which shows how happy I was with my original choices!

I'm all for trolling the spuds, but surely there must be a cheaper way to do so..

He's been a key player because of his ability to play at CB. In 20011/12 he was almost never used as a RB because AVB preferred Bosingwa and the injuries under RDM meant that he had to fill at CB most of the games. Last season he was only used at RB in the first two months under RDM but was almost never used at RB by Benitez who preferred Azpi. Why would he be sold? Last season he was our second best CB after Luiz.

I used my wirldcard in the first week. Is that a a bad thing?

I did not mean the accuracy of the passing but rather the technique of the passing. Mikel has better passing technique than Rami. He can execute the same pass with more ease and less time. Mikel lacks pace though, and will slow down the game if he has to dribble on the ball.

Of course not. But what kind of forum would we be if we did not jump to conclusions?!

Not at all. Mikel is a much better passer and hence can execute passes quicker.

Jokes aside, not sure we should be spending something like 30m on another attacking midfielder..

So where's the link to that Tottenham forum again?

I agree somewhat, but I think you're exaggerating a bit. Ashley had a good game going forward against Hull, for example.

Yes he had a good season at RB, but he's had more than two bad seasons there since. It's not a fact that he has more good games there than bad ones, he rarely has a game there without making a mistake, like not closing down crosses which he does in every game, like poor positioning and wrong decisions like what he did in the Weinman chance. And even if I want to assume that that is true, when has that ever been good enough for Chelsea? Bosingwa did have a good period with us, and when he did he was a starter over Iva. At Chelsea level, Iva at RB is average at best. He can fill in a few games but he is no way good enough to be starting at RB.

Informal inquiry?! Lmaooo

Agree, he had a bad game (like many others, tbf). He didn't offer nearly enough offensively. But his experience in defense, especially in one-on-ones still edges him past most LBs including Bertrand.

So basically Ramires tried to do what Mikel usually does? Funny how Obi never gets any praise for it