OneMoSalah

Remember when people said Ramires would be Matic's direct replacement if he was injured/suspended? Can't say I didn't tell yous all Mikel would play if Matic couldn't. He was a controlling figure in the game for us I thought, when we had the ball he kept it and moved it well in comparison to Cesc who had a bit of a weird day with some poor passes and a poor completion rate for him if I remember correctly.

If Salah and Schurrle don't start this one fuck knows if they will ever start much more this year.

Honestly drop Oscar or Willian and give this boy a chance to play because the two of them were pretty poor against Newcastle and Sunderland.

Yes we have Ramires, Mikel and Ake who is a young lad. You don't need fucking 3 world class midfield players in a set up where you predominantly play with 2 central midfielders. Rami and Mikel are happy to play less regularly as say Pogba would. Pogba wouldn't even be a direct replacement for Mikel so it shows exactly how much you know about football as hes a box to box midfielder.

Needs a rest but also needs to up his game at times still a bit inconsistent. With Ramires back fit maybe he will get a bit of a rest and we will use Cesc higher up.

It is posts like this that make me laugh at some people on this forum. Mikel has a good performance, his only PL start this year and gets criticized by some moron who wants us to sign Paul Pogba to take Mikel's place on the bench when we already have 2 class players who will start ahead of him. Fucking brilliant idea son. Too complacent, not enough urgency until we scored. When we were on top of the game we really had to score, it always has to happen. All this talk of not being known as the Invincibles?? Since when did that make a difference, teams always try to beat us, its football for fuck sake.

Really this result makes it much much more of a title race, City are gonna hammer Everton now likely no doubt this result will fire them up even more. Makes it much more interesting though and for neutrals exciting. Also anyone thinking we can now kick on from here now that we have lost this potential invincibles tag should be feeling daft, it was hardly pressuring our players or coach...

Blowing teams away? The last three games we've won once. Hardly blowing everyone away now are we? Drawing against Sunderland isn't too bad yes and neither is beating Spurs but losing Newcastle away and to be honest looking quite poor in long periods of the Sunderland game, the start of the Spurs game and todays game doesn't exactly convince me that we will blow everyone away. To be honest I agree with Term-X about Lampard joining City, to me its a bit of a kick in the teeth, its like he went there to prove exclusively to Chelsea he's still good enough when in reality the last 2 years he put in some sub par performances here. If you cared so much about a club and were a legend here, why would you join City who are our direct competition in the title race?

Typical Mikel starts one PL game this season and he would get blamed by some fucking idiot.

Malouda was much much better than Willian in tight spaces though but Flo seemed to play a bit more centrally as opposed to what Robben and Willian do and in all honesty he didn't dribble as often as Robben did, he had a bit more of a footballing brain and seen passes that you would expect a number 10 to see like little ones round the corner or between someones legs etc.

We have a player like that when he plays, who is more involved in attack and does defensive work as well and his name is Ramires but he sits on the bench. For bigger games if we are to go for a more athletic, balanced and dynamic midfield, using Rami at the expense of Oscar (can't see us dropping Cesc in favor of Oscar to get Rami in the team tbh) is essential if we play say Man City where they have a very powerful midfield as well as a technical one. But Matic is not a box to box midfielder who can do both things say as well as Ramires because quite frankly he's a 6 and his best attributes are probably reading the game, intercepting and tackling. He's a very multifunctional player though with a rounded skill set which makes him so good as he doesn't just tackle or always play it safe and pass sideways/backwards (like Daley Blind has done a lot of for United recently before his injury) he can dribble players while under pressure pretty well, he has a decent ping on him and sees things going forward be it passes inbetween the lines to Oscar/Hazard/Willian or long passes like the one for Salah in the Arsenal game but if he is given more freedom we lose that protection he gives us as he will then have more of an emphasis to go and play higher or play more as a box to box player when he normally sits a bit deeper than Cesc to sweep anything up and give the team a platform to build on.

Imagine if he went to QPR - and lets be honest since it is Harry Redknapp in charge there - didn't get a game ahead of that crippled cunt Richard Dunne who seems to score an own goal every 500 minutes and Rio fucking Ferdinand who funnily enough QPR don't even want anymore apparently. QPR would be a bad move, if he can't get a PL or Bundesliga move put him to Spain, different culture for the lad and if hes gonna be a CB at Chelsea hes gonna have to get more and more comfortable coming out with the ball.

Yeah but Neuer made a few poor mistakes notably by his standards last season, think two of the goals against Real in that 7-1 aggregate lose he could have done a lot lot better with and then in 2013 the Super Cup against us Eden's goal was very savable. Courtois was absolutely colossal for Atletico and I can't really recall him making a big mistake. Sure Neuer is a better keeper but it should be picked on how good they did for their clubs and country in 2014 not on who's the best on FIFA or something. Also players like Godin and Miranda should be nailed on places in that team because they had magnificent seasons.

He wouldn't even get in the 25 man squad so unless hes willing to play for Vitesse I doubt he'll come here...

Quite frankly I think it should mainly be made up of Atletico Madrid players due to the great year they had and most of their players had. Guys like Courtois, Felipe Luis, Godin, Miranda, and Costa surely have to be in it? They were huge for them. Their back 5 was probably the best in the whole of Europe last year to be fair.

Thank god you said that and not me, was about to type every fucking swearword under the sun there.

If Schalke are in anyway similar to Di Matteo's Chelsea team we should beat them. We couldn't defend to save our lives before he got sacked and Schalke nearly blew a 3 goal lead the other day against Wolfsburg. Jose will have had a look at that and probably sussed them out and if they are like that and we do play like the first half vs West Brom it could get messy. When everyones playing 110% with a purpose instead of half heartedly like the previous game against Schalke then theres no reason why we should lose this, Di Matteo in charge of them or not.

We play like we did first half against West Brom and they have no chance. None at all.

Hardly injury prone. He will recover. In Germany they have a winter break too so he will definitely get an extra bit of time on top of whatever he needs to recover as well which could help him a lot. Barca can't sign Reus in the summer due to a transfer ban and Real surely will struggle to comply with the FFP rules anyway without having to go buy Reus so I'd imagine they'd need another big sell before even considering buying Reus, even if it is just for 20M euros or whatever.

Hes only 22, theres still a lot of room for him to grow. Also 20 goals in 35 games on the international stage is very very impressive no matter how old you are but hes 22, so it makes it even more impressive. We are coming up to the busier bits of the season, he will get more games.

Khedira doesn't make sense for Bayern to be honest, hes not exactly a direct replacement for Schweinsteiger or Lahm who are much more rounded players than he is and they don't even use Javi Martinez as a box to box midfielder anymore as well as having Thiago, a few promising youngsters and Sebastian Rode so I'm a bit baffled to why he would go there or why Pep would want him.

If we can get someone who roughly scores a goal every game (more or less) to come be our third choice striker for something like 6-8 million euros then I think its fair to say hats off to Jose and the board again. He is a goal scorer, he might have been playing in Croatia but he is clearly a goal scorer and sometimes having someone who doesn't do much else other than score goals is not the worst thing to have in your squad. I mean if it was between a guy from Croatia with 72 goals in 97 games and Patrick Bamford, well no offence to Bamford but I know who I would rather have as third choice.

Really this makes no sense so if you could explain that would be useful. Anyway heres my 2 cents on Reus and his next move. For sure Real Madrid, Bayern, City, United, Arsenal and ourselves are linked with him but surely as a player he has to consider football wise: 1) Where is he gonna be a first team regular so he can continue to be picked for German national team 2) Will he be able to play Champions League football at his next club 3) Which coach does he feel is going to improve him the most I think at Real and Bayern he will struggle to be a regular which could jeopardize his national team place, sure he is a brilliant footballer but look at Podolski at Arsenal. Something like 100 caps but has been told he won't get picked if he doesn't play regularly. Even at Arsenal they have got Walcott, Ox, Podolski Sanchez, Cazorla and Ozil who all play in that band of 3 so unless they offloaded someone I doubt they would consider him as a priority. Realistically ourselves, City and United don't have the competition or strength in those attacking areas that Real and Bayern have so he'd have more chance starting here over Willian, Schurrle or Salah or at one of the Manchester clubs over one of Milner, Nasri and Navas at City or Valencia, Januzaj and Mata at United than at Bayern - where they have got Muller, Robben, Ribery, Shaqiri and Gotze - and Real Madrid - where they have got Ronaldo, Bale, Isco, Jese and James. All the clubs linked with him will play Champions League bar United who I don't feel will play Champions League next year which could have a bearing on his decision although Di Maria made a big high profile move there without them being in the Champions League so who knows? I think its fair to say Mourinho, Guardiola and Ancelotti are better coaches than Pellegrini, van Gaal and Wenger too so if he wants to improve he'd probably like to work under Jose, Pep or Carlo more than Pellegrini, van Gaal or Wenger (although no disrespect they are good coaches but not at that level that the other 3 are) but really who knows what move he will make and how he really will decide it. I hope he comes here though.

They are in the same ball park, both are holding midfield players. Sure Matic might be a better player than Mikel but they are both similar players. The point is teams that want to win league championships and compete in 2 or 3 other competitions as well need a strong squad with players who play in similar positions but of varied quality (example: Salah, Schurrle, Ake, Mikel, Zouma, Remy in comparison to Willian, Hazard, Cesc, Matic, Cahill, Costa). You can't have a squad of 23 world class players or 23 great players where everyone would walk into every team and keep everyone happy. It doesn't work. I mean we couldn't even keep De Bruyne, Mata, Hazard, Willian, Schurrle and Oscar all happy, seeing as they would of all gotten regular games in most teams in the Champions League except for Real, Barca and Bayern. You need reliable players who can step in for others if they get injured/need a rest and can do a job. Maybe Schurrle isn't Hazard or Salah isn't Willian but you'd imagine if they were needed they could do a decent enough job. Having a man like Mikel who has won everything at Chelsea and has played in various big games is worth keeping around if he's content to be a squad player, because who says we won't get injuries???

'They figure out he's shit and then he gets benched -then they sacked?' So are you now indicating in the slightest that Mikel has gotten managers sacked? I mean cmon, talk about ridiculous posts. I mean sure people can complain about things like his lack of ambition while passing and that but to say something like that is daft. Also 8 managers of different philosophies and playing styles had constantly been picking Mikel up until 2013 on a regular basis since he joined the club so I can't exactly see how we are still debating whether he's ever been good enough or not. His appearances under a variation of coaches, who collectively have won near enough every trophy in club football prove he is good enough at one of the biggest clubs in the world. Ex-players like Michael Ballack, said on Sky Sports in a game we played in Europe at some point last season we should have been playing Mikel in the game because hes a good and very important player. I can't see Jose setting up with a Ramires-Cesc midfield duo. It would be too easy for teams like Man City or even Man United to come in and use bigger powerful athletic players and overrun us in there. Matic gives our pivot that physicality part against the bigger players like Toure, Fernando, Fellaini etc. He's said in an interview Mikel and Matic are similar players and I believe that if Matic gets injured Mikel will come in. Also the bit in bold, why would he replace Matic if he doesn't need to? You want your better players playing so if he can keep Matic playing every game theres no need to sub him off. Also if you're protecting a lead why sub one holding midfield on for another ahead of subbing on a holding player for an attacking midfield player? Subbing Mikel on for Matic, instead of Oscar/Willian/Cesc or whoever to protect a lead would one of the stupidest things you could do, imagine Jose did that 'to protect a lead' honestly what would you think? I'd certainly be wondering what was going on in his head. Questioning his ambition, I kind of agree but he's someone who owes this club a lot. Managers have constantly played him and helped him develop and grow into a better player than what we got when he first arrived despite people constantly criticizing him. Maybe he feels he owes Chelsea or maybe he doesn't mind not being a regular at a huge club but he doesn't kick up a fuss about it either way which I think is worth a bit of respect given the power modern day footballers have over their clubs these days.