CHOULO19

My granny looks good on youtube!

Gotta catch 'em all?! I'll reserve mu judgement on Thorgan till I see him playing, but I don't have my hopes up .

One chant we won't be singing for Eden is "There's only one Hazard" since there are two now!

It's not about the transfer fee but the wages we will be saving and freeing the foreign player spot he is currently occupying.

I think his seclusion from our last match says a lot about our intentions for him.

Just been confirmed on Blues News that he has indeed signed for the club.

^^ He can take Meera's Owngoals FC. Amazingly they've won the League One without a manager!

I've been looking for one for a month! Thanks a million

Conceded a 92min equalizer that took me to 3rd. Would have been 1st had I won the match. That'll teach me not to underestimate a team and play youngsters against them, even if they are relegation candidates.

Bruma, Kalas, Hutch, Chalobah...etc He's certainly got one heck of a job to do to make it here.

Heitinga, Rodwell and Jelavic

Cheers

Joined, but I must warn you, I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing! I'm not even sure how this works How do you change formations?

I think RDM will probably try a few more things in this match before putting a nearly full-strength squad vs Milan. Torres started training today, he probably won'st start but get 45 or 30 mins at least.

Cheers mate. Hmmm. Well I wish him the best of luck if he has indeed signed for us. Thank you for the insight mate

The Independent seemed to think the deal was done ( can't find the link now ). We have many young CBs, do you think he can make it here?

This was reported yesterday:

I know it's been 18 month and you'd think that I would be used to the fangirls by now, but they still get on my nerves every time

Not to mention Essien's high wages as well..

But is 12m pocket change with the FFP rules?

You are clearly arguing just for the sake of arguing, I am right now re-watching the match and none of what you said above is true. First, what is so amusing about what I said? Your lack of manners does very little to make your post credible. This attempt to belittle my opinion is a clear sign that you lack the ability to discuss and thus resort to such petty things. Onto the actual game, how was our first half squad weaker? We had half the team that won us the trophies last season and the likes of Hazard who is a guaranteed starter..etc No matter how much you say otherwise, RDM changed tactics the team started keeping possession in the middle. The back four kept on passing the ball between themselves and the double pivot till one of them found one of the front four in space unlike the first half when we resorted more to long balls or quick passes forward which often always ended in us loosing the ball. Funny thing, I did not notice this yesterday, I'm 20 mins into the second half now, and Essien played exactly 2 forward passes and over a dozen side or backward pass till now. You can't change that no matter how many exclamation mark you use(!) In the first half, none of PSG's chances came from build up play from the back but from counter attack when we lost the ball in the middle. In the second half we played safer passes, lost the ball less in the middle thus limiting their chances. The change in lineups of course mattered but so did the change in tactics. And finally, out of the names you mentioned, Mikel has always been a side way passer, why? Because he is one of the best DMs in the EPL. Lampard has always played a different position. Toure very rarely creates, he uses his strength to boss the midfield like Essien used to do a couple of years back. As for Pirlo, if Josh had his passing accuracy and vision at this age, he would have people worshiping him as a footballing God. Even Pirlo, when he was younger, played as much side way passes as Josh does today. On the other hand, you seem to have completely disregarded the likes of Xavi and co who has been labeled the best in the world for his ability to play intelligent and accurate side way passes.

Yes and in the first half when Mikel and Hazard were playing we created nothing because the passes either didn't reach the front four or even if it did reach Hazard he, more often than not, lost the ball due to the pressure. Because we lost the ball in the middle of the park we looked likely to concede with every PSG attack because the defense was caught out. As result we created absolutely nothing in the first half and could have conceded 3 or 4 goals. On the other hand, in the second half when the midfield was more composed on the ball and passed the ball around before looking to go forward, we completely controlled the game. The "scared" passing managed to break PSG's high pressure which we were struggling with in the first half; thus we were able to create much more chances. Moreover, since we played safe passes in the middle we only lost the ball high up the pich, so when PSG attacked, our defense was in position to stop them which is evident in the fact that PSG only had 2 shots on target in the second half. As a result we created numerous chances and were much solid at the back. I'm not saying that the change in the passing "tactics" is the only reason we did better in the second half, but it definitely had a massive effect.

Okay, so intelligent is a matter of perspective. Josh and Hazard play in different position that require them to play different types of passes. Josh is required to, first and foremost keep possession. A DM is not allowed to take many risks and the fact that Josh realizes this at such a young age is, imo, the main reason he was labeled as the next big thing. What I meant by he doesn't play the obvious pass, is that he has the composure to keep the ball under pressure and wait for a team mate to find some space, even if it is a side way pass. What is not a matter of perspective, however, is that Josh had 90+% pass accuracy while Eden probably had less than 60%.