CHOULO19

Even agreeing with all of this, surely he is better than Djibolodji! For me, having watched Kenneth A LOT with both Nigeria and Boro, he's at worst slightly behind Cahill.

I've long given up debating Mikel with you as we both no one will change the opinion of the other. Regardless, at the bare minimum Mikel did not let players just walk past him nor did he give the ball away more often than not which is an improvement on Matic this season. PS: For the goal, his positioning was correct because he was in JT's place who was out of position covering for Oscar who had left Azpi isolated against two.

A real-life Chelsea dementor. Whenever he comes on I just feel the last glimmer of hope leaving me and I just lose all will to live. He's basically the Grim Reaper of our chances of winning a match.

Of course he's not the only nor the biggest problem. That said, Mikel in the past couple of games put in much better performance than anything Matic has shown this season, despite being a more limited and much less dynamic player.

There really should be a "None of the above" option in the MOTM poll...

Not that we were setting the world alight, but I felt we lost the game when he came on. To be brutally honest, I can't see what sort of system here he can be a part of going forward. I've been trying not say this as not to sound too harsh on him, but in my opinion he needs to go in the next few windows.

Could've been given a chance this season as well instead of going for Stones and the Djibolodji. Same could be said about Kalas. One can only hope that this is rectified with Christensen next season who is having a great season with 'Gladbach, but at this stage it's almost delusional to hope...

Honestly, at this point, we're hoping for miracles. There has literally been zero signs of improvement or that Jose is capable of turning this around in 3 full months. Seeing that Sky story, I genuinely hope I'm wrong about this.

I will be SHOCKED if he's still here by Monday.

Jesus, Ramires...

What I've seen so far, same performance but in addition we're really struggling with Eden behind the striker.

Just got home. How have we been doing?

Two out of three. I'll take it! Now let's fucking win this!! :blue scalf:

Reading rumors of 'surprises' in the starting XI on Twitter...

Honestly, that's just Mourinho being a dick. The questions were NOT negative, they were completely normal and justifiable questions. "Are you disappointed with the goal you conceded?" and "Are you disappointed that your team failed to score against 10 men in overtime?". I bloody hope that his inwards answer to both are "Yes, very much" or we're in more trouble than I though. What did he expect the reporter would say after we just got eliminated from the cup? "Congrats Jose, are you happy with the character of your team today?"! Also, it's very perplexing to read you saying that Jose always stands up for his team. That used to be true, but this season alone he's thrown several individuals and the entire team under the bus when his decisions and tactics have been brought into question while arrogantly maintaining that he's "the best manager this team has ever had".

You have to admit though that even if we've seen similarly shit patch of performances in the past, this is still different/worse based on the great added pressure from where we are sitting in the table and the fact that we just won the league last season. The problem with the argument that the situation is bound to get better that we will inevitable regain form is that it gets less and and less likely with every passing week. Eventually you'll have to start thinking that any change and shake-up of the team will be a much better attempt at saving this sinking ship than the status-quo.

It's not just where we are, but that we completely deserve to be there. Yes if we can put together 3-4 consecutive wins the situation would look differently, but as I said to Tomo, there has been absolutely no sign of that and that is the main problem. Also, it's pretty easy to put all the positives on Jose and all the negatives on the board, but remember that Jose did 'splash' on Cuadrado and Pedro and the board was willing to 'splash' big time on Stones. Also it was Jose who did not want to go for a desperately needed fullback (in addition to Baba) and insisted on Falcao; both of those are biting us in the ass right now.

Yes, and the fact that this one is adds pressure and changes the whole situation. Also having a bad run in the middle of the season means that at least the team has showed that it can play decent football. For us this season there has been no sign that we can improve or that we are heading in an upward direction.

You can't seriously be comparing City dropping to 3rd with us sitting 15th in the table in November! Moyes' united came close but we've managed to out do them. There's no two ways about it, we're in phenomenally deep shit! I'm sorry, but it's pure denial if we don't realize that.

The board is only backing him so far because they fucked up with that 4 years deal at the start of the season. The 30+ million pounds aside, the board of any top English team in our position would have fired their manager by now.

I think, at this point, Schrodinger himself has committed suicide because of the lack of logic and is dead too!

ASK @Barbara....AND STOP SHOUTING AT ME!

If we go undefeated in November and win 2 or 3, I'll do the bunny dance! (No, that's not promise, just a figure of speech! I don't dance. EVER!)

To be fair, Lionsden just calls/called everything bad He's bound to be right about it some time!