OneMoSalah

Maybe Del Bosque could have called him, I'm trying to read up to see if I can dig anything up on when he gained Spanish citizenship. According to something of the BBC website, Del Bosque would of had to wait for FIFA to clear him to switch his allegiance from Brazil to Spain anyway as he had to in the last international break but the fact stands that Scolari only used him twice last year and basically threw him aside despite the obvious fact that Brazil is really lacking a good striker. Well Diego Costa in 2012/13 scored 20 goals in all competitions, playing at a much much higher level of football than the regular strikers picked by Scolari (Jo and Fred), how does that not warrant a call up for Brazil? I would like to know how 20 goals in a single season from a good player playing in Spain's top flight and European football, shouldn't result in a call up? Are Brazil such a footballing super power that they shouldn't be calling him up? No. If you have a player scoring 20+ goals in a single season and he's playing for a good team in a very high standard of league you should call him up. Brazil may be his home but still do you think that he appreciates being picked for a game or two games maybe a year and a half ago and then not being called up against despite having a successful season? Hes been living in Spain for something like 7 years now, its a second home to him, Brazil basically shut the door on him after not picking him for the Confed Cup, Spain became interested and he obviously felt he wouldn't get many games for Brazil after not being picked for the Confed Cup so why can't he accept Spains proposal of playing for them? Scolari isn't being made out to be a villain, just everyone making Costa being out to be a complete cunt is uncalled for. Hes doing what he feels he should do, he obviously wants to play international football and feels he will get more of a chance for Spain. Just my two cents on it anyway.

Well me, if I were in Diego Costa's situation, I'd rather play for someone who appreciates me more. The fact Scolari has constantly picked strikers like Jo and Fred ahead of him for however long is ridiculous. Why would you be patriotic if you feel that country hasn't neccessairly wanted you despite being one of your countrys top performing strikers?

Brilliant offensively and more importantly defensively against an Arsenal side who have more of the ball than most of their opponents.

Well he played well last season and scored what was it 20 goals? Where was his call up to play at the Confederations Cup? He didn't get one despite you could say a good CF, or a different sort of CF to Fred, being the Brazilian national teams weakpoint. Obviously he has to wait to gain Spanish citizenship so perhaps he couldn't have played for them or perhaps he could have but still by picking Spain he obviously feels he is valued more and wanted more doesn't he? Why else would he pick to play for them?

How is he doing anything wrong? He has the choice to choose to play for Spain or Brazil so why shouldn't he be able to choose? Brazilians are just annoyed because they lack a class striker and he is choosing to play for Spain because they obviously wanted him more. He played in a friendly for Brazil but still, its not a competitive match so if there is a problem it is with FIFA's rule and not Diego Costa. All I am seeing is certain Brazilian members annoyed because he has the ability to choose, Scolari hasn't show any sort of major interest in him since he started scoring goals at the start of the season. He obviously felt like an outsider because he had a pretty impressive season last year where Scolari could have called him up a lot more but he didn't.

Willian and Bertrand joint MOTM for me.

Don't get how Hazard or Jose are up for both awards. Hazard didn't play at a very very high level consistently for us and Jose had a shocker in 2013. Baffled really. Heynckes & Ribery should win the awards comfortably. Ballon D'or isn't based on just talent, its based on talent and performance, Hazard didn't perform to his full potential, I can count on one hand how many games he had where he looked worth 32 million. It was his first season but still he shouldn't be in that short list. Mata should be though.

Ancelotti and Madrid would be idiotic to try and even make Mourinho consider selling Rami in the first place, never mind to Real Madrid.

Yes Fernandinho maybe only completed 77% of his passes but his influence in the game grew in the second half, he was controlling the game for most of the second half until about the 75th minute or so when we put much more pressure on them.

Well Jose did say when he was at Real, when he leaves Real Madrid he won't be managing Malaga but a top club in England so yeah... I'd imagine they aren't the best of buddies

Yes but looking at how his seasons probably gonna be going, playing say 10 plus consecutive games at 35 years old with little rest means you can pick up little injuries. Doesn't matter how fit you are, if you don't have a sufficient amount of rest then you will pick up niggling injuries. Older players are more fragile, Jose will have to eventually rest him just to make sure. He'll rest him on Tuesday which is good.

Still has to hit higher standards to be the player he was at Liverpool but honestly if he plays like this for the rest of the season fuck his Liverpool days, this sort of standard is good enough for me and good enough for the team.

Still cannot beat the first man with his crosses 9 times out of 10. Needs to change. Good solid performance defensively and very good at providing overlapping runs for his winger.

Rami has been excellent for Chelsea since 2011-12 season under AVB. Its not about him playing next to Lampard or anything, he's just gotten better and more consistent as a player. Anyway when City started to press us more in the second half Lampard was invisible at times, Fernandinho was getting too much space and time to pick his passes despite the efforts of Oscar to try and stop him and that allowed Silva, Nasri and Toure to get more involved. Lampard was alright in the first half but in the second half he was quite poor. When Mikel came on we had that platform that we needed, he was just doing what he does best and it allowed us to regain control of the match. Still surprised Lampard started against City, he won't start against Arsenal for sure but I have no idea who will to be honest. JT will get a new contract but I don't think Lampard will because I think he will retire. If he is our starting CM at 36 then somebody at Chelsea needs a head check. Jose said he was going to handle him like Makalele in his last year, playing him in the bigger games but hes been overused already and I'm surprised he's not picked up any niggling injuries yet due to playing near enough 90 minutes every game.

Think Jose will be desperate to win this so I think that Cech, Ramires, Torres, Terry, Cahill, Cole, Oscar and Ivanovic will all start. Maybe Hazard will, maybe not. Still see us going for a strong team since its against Arsenal and they will use a weakened team but with some starters as Wenger won't want to roll over. Cech ---------------------------- Ivanovic Cahill Terry Cole ---------------------------- Ramires Mikel ---------------------------- Mata Oscar Willian ---------------------------- Torres

Showed his striker instincts by getting into a great position. They always say the Germans are very good at tucking in for crosses to get into goal scoring positions and he did very well, obviously he wasn't as good on the ball but you cannot fault someone who will work their arse off when hes out of possession.

Absolute monster of a performance, was the best player on the park by a sheer mile.

Good to see him not let that miss go to his head, his confidence is good right now and he's playing at a very high level. Obviously now that he's played well in a sequence of games against Tottenham, Schalke and now Manchester City hopefully he can keep it going against the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool, United, Everton and also the smaller teams. That drag back he did in his own half just shows his confidence. We've seen this form before under Robbie and Rafa so we need to hope it keeps going on for a long while and Jose can do what they can't and keep him hungry and wanting to play at that level.

Ramires absolutely monumental today. What a fucking performance.

Same but I suppose most German wingers are more than capable of playing as forwards in some capacity like Muller, Schurrle, Podolski, Reus etc. Anyway has he played any first team football with Wolfsburg?

I was just using the fact Varane was playing regular games for Real Madrid against the case of Kenneth Omeruo realistically playing against City or Arsenal just because he was training with the first team. Jose played Varane (whos very talented) when he was 18 or 19 (cant remember how old he was when he made his debut) because he was ready. Obviously then he's gone into the France team a year later, who are a very good team too. The same with Balo after but he probably would have gotten an Italy call up sooner if he didn't have to wait for Italian citizenship as he was always eager to play for Italy and they had tabs on him for a while. I was meaning though, Jose plays the youngsters who are exceptionally talented, who are ready physically ready, mentally ready and at a level where they can contribute straight away which is the Balotelli's and Varane's he has worked with. Obviously Omuero is a decent young CB who can go far but he has a lot of work to do, Balotelli and Varane were miles ahead of him in their development which ultimately was why I was saying that using Varane playing regular games as a reason for why Jose might play Omuero is totally different due to the level of talent of the players. Yeah Jose will work with youth, he started to give Morata minutes at Real too but he didn't give Jese or even use Carvajal at Madrid when they desperately needed a RB. Probably because he had to develop a bit before his game was at the level Jose felt he was good enough to start, so he sold him to Leverkusen and they brought him back in the summer.

Madrid are a project right now, they are undergoing a change of philosophy from counter attacking to a more attacking style of play. Ancelotti has to integrate Isco, Jese, Illarramendi and Bale into a team that was already full of world class talent, it will take time for him to find his best 11 like it will with Jose. W ill Perez give him time? After Jose's last season at the Bernabeu, you'd think so because I honestly though Jose would get sacked. Perez gave Ancelotti a problem, albeit a nice problem, having talented players such as Isco, Bale and Illarramendi to add to an already talented midfield section that was pretty much settled with Di Maria Ozil Ronaldo with Alonso and Khedira behind them. Anyway I heard Varane made a mistake for Barca's second goal, my twitter TL was going mental, everyone saying Varane is a bad defender for making one mistake, the lads 20 years old and has world class potential but one mistake and people are saying Marquinhos and Papadopulos are better than him when they aren't.... bit of an overreaction.

Comparing Torres to Drogba is unfair. Drogba is a better striker, although he may have hit his peak later, comparing any Chelsea striker of the last 10 years to Drogba is unfair because hes been one of the best players in our clubs history. Its like comparing Mikel to Maka, its unfair because Maka was arguably the best holding midfielder of the last 20 years. There is no way Torres will get to Didier's level in terms of the goal record and goals in big games. How many strikers will score that many big goals in big cup finals? Torres had big shoes to fill, in fact he had a lot of trouble to get out of his shadow as he was still our best striker when Torres arrived, hes got a better strike rate now but hes still been terrible for us for the fee we paid. Also Eto'o is doing great for not being 100% fit, he might not hit his top level until after Christmas due to rotation and the fact hes been playing very casually for the last 2 years basically.

Really impressed with the work Martinez has obviously been doing with him, hes looking better in terms of link up and holding the ball up. He praised Rom's link up play a few weeks ago and I feel he will keep getting better under Martinez because at West Brom he was really playing in a counter attacking system which we really don't play and now hes playing in a team that like to have possession similar to how we want to play and he is a vital part of that Everton team. Martinez will help him tactically as well as he had done with Moses and McCarthy at Wigan who are now better footballers for that. Next season he should be part of the squad, for sure. If he'd stayed with us for another year and hadn't scored as many goals as he is for Everton then people would be saying hes a one season wonder or hes shit like they did in his first season after he struggled to get used to English football.

Why the fuck is everyone saying Mata is going to leave? Honest to fuck what's Jose gonna do sell Mata and sign Sneijder who isn't anywhere near his level? or tempt Luis Figo out of retirement? this thread is hilarious at times