OneMoSalah

I'm a huge fan of his too. I'd say if he had the experience Cole has had here and at Arsenal he'd be nailed on to start for England. Still think Ashley's experience edges it perhaps. He'd be an ideal replacement for Ash but I think we'll look at Luke Shaw as Baines is 28 this year IIRC.

In a way I agree that he'll probably become the new scapegoat haha although there have been moments where hes gotten a lot of abuse for the right reasons, Marcelo's goal against Madrid, Benteke's goal vs Villa and Kenny Miller's goal tonight shows that he is really average. Decent back up defender nothing special.

I suppose Baines is very consistent... he just lacks that goal line clearance ability Ashley has..

130k p/w in pounds, I can't see Gustavo getting that at Wolfsburg.

It is but you can understand if that was say a 90-100% fit Rooney (who knows Sir Alex said he struggled with his fitness last summer and he could have again this summer) because if we are gonna sign him for anything over 30m then it will look really bad haha.

Incredible feat for the young guy, hes what 17? 2 goals vs Morocco for Burkina Faso... man I just hope we do sign him

If thats a fit Wayne Rooney he can stay the fuck away from Chelsea.

Scotland can be proud of how they played. Don't think if I was English I'd be celebrating a 3-2 win over Scotland too much though, England were quite shocking. They tried to play through the midfield and it doesn't work when you have 3 players who are all really box to box players of sorts (Gerrard, Lampard/Wilshere, Cleverley), with no Carrick there was a big problem in there for England, no penetration from midfield really except for Walcott's goal. Wilshere couldn't get between the lines as Scotland were so deep and well organized, Gerrard sat deep most of the time and Cleverley was just Cleverley (useless really). England lack a leader in defense... (cough JT, COUGH) Yes Scotland weren't quite Spain but when we got possession some of play was good, it was nothing spectacular but it was encouraging to see as the Scotland I remember all too easily played crappy long ball football to Kenny Miller but still we are a country ranked outside of the top 50 in the world, England are in the top 10 maybe even top 5.... Anyway from a Chelsea point of view, Cahill had another shocker loool, Lampard came on didn't do too much bar a very good shot which McGregor saved. I hope to god Cahill doesn't play as bad as that for us this season because against anyone and I mean anyone (Kenny fucking Miller.....) done him too easily. P.S how good was Leighton Baines btw?

Yeah Oscar seems to suit that #10 role more than anybody in the squad. De Bruyne is decent there, its just he doesn't work hard enough off the ball and some of the times he doesn't drop to get the ball as much as Oscar. De Bruyne's crossing is superb, he should play on the right, especially with crossing like his.

I don't think we'll play much games with a holding position tbh. We'll play with a box to box midfielder (Ramires) then a deep lying playmaker (van Ginkel, possibly Mikel?), can't see us using an actual DM, 4-2-3-1 with an actual holding midfielder these days is very rare. Bayern used Martinez as the box to box and Schewini as the deep lying playmaker last season, Real used Khedira as the box to box with Alonso as the deep lying playmaker... I think Gustavo was used more as a box to box midfielder last year with Bayern anyway (going on the evidence of his game vs Real Madrid)

ter Stegens was worse I'd say haha, that was another great goalkeeping fail. have you ever tried doing what De Gea did against Fulham lol? p.s the music is shit mute it

Welcome to the forum. The player development business you intend on starting sounds interesting. P.S. I think to say you are 'rated' though is very arrogant of you, if you were so 'rated' you'd be a pro, if you love football you don't decide you don't want to be a pro, you're either good enough or you're not. If you wanted to be a pro you'd have played in any league, also your school record and pub team record means nothing really, its effectively the same as youth level, its a different game when you play in the first team for a senior professional side. I mean sure I scored 6 goals in like 6 games for my primary school team when I was like 12 but that doesn't mean I'm amazing and that I could play in the Bundesliga hahaha. Anyway stick around..

I never laughed so much at any other goal Chelsea have conceded ever hahahahha. Just looked hapless, was unlucky but still hilarious.

Wait so the Benteke goal wasn't Cahill's fault? Can I have some of whatever your smoking mate?

Moyes has basically banished him by the looks of it. What a muppet. Sure he wanted to change that United team but basically banishing Rooney and trying to sign Fellaini is just laughable. What a fucking idiot hahahahahahaha. Hope United don't even finish top 4...

Doubt he's going to Arsenal, it is the bloody Metro reporting it. My shoe speaks more sense than that bastarding journalists.

Hes not turning him into a defensive midfielder. Hes playing him as the deepest midfielder, the one who controls the tempo, he is effectively sitting in as a third center back at times to receive the ball and start attacks when we line up 4-2-3-1, with Ramires playing the box to box role.

He scored 10 last year thats all I seen haha. He got 9 or 10 assists too..

Already close to becoming my fav player in the team. He does all the dirty work that Lampard can't be fucked doing. Just gets stuck in and passes it on. His footballing intelligence is great too; he knows when to pass, how much weight to put on the pass, when to dribble, when to sit back, when to cover, when to go into a tackle etc. This guy with his current ability and his potential could be an absolute steal for 9m in years to come. Hes been the biggest surprise of the summer so far, glad United didn't get him. From what I heard at Vitesse he was also a regular goal scorer last season, so hopefully we'll see him score some golazos too!

I think this game will be difficult, not as much as the Madrid game but still a step up from the Inter Milan game. Roma have some cracking players in Pjanic, Totti, Lamela, Strootman and De Rossi. Totti will probably be their key man, everything seems to run through him still, he seems to have gotten better with age. Will a great experience, there is a reunion for Hazard with Rudi Garcia, his Lille manager, so I'd imagine Roma will know what they are up against on the left if he plays (which he probably will). I'm also hoping to see a bit more of Andre Schurrle, on the left or right wherever, want to see him running at players taking them on one on one using his pace, not seen that very much yet. Also using van Ginkel in midfield against with Ramires against another team with some quality MF players (Pjanic, Strootman, Bradly, De Rossi) will be a good test for him and Rami, he has done very well so far so I'm hoping it continues. Defensively they are there to be gotten at, they were the top goal scorers in Serie A but had a shocking goal difference, mostly due to their all out attack footballing philosophy that Zeman had looked to instill but sure they are still there to be gotten at. Their full backs like to go up still and they probably aren't as good at defending as they are at attacking, I watched their MLS all-stars game and if a team with quality on the wings looked to exploit the spaces behind them then their is a chance we could hurt them from there. Also Lukaku could cause problems with his strength and pace, hopefully he'll be more effective than against Real (posted in another thread that I felt he was nervous and looked inexperienced against a top top team with his runs and use of the ball) who had 2 top center backs as opposed to Roma who will probably use Leandro Castan and Benatia (who is actually a pretty good center back in all honesty) so hopefully he is much more effective. Also we might end up seeing Tin Jedvaj (17 or 18 year old Croatian who apparently agreed to go to Spurs/Arsenal) get some minutes at CB for Roma and by the looks of him Lukaku will have a fun day against him competing physically. Going for 4-1 Chelsea tbh. Bit optimistic but haha yeah.

Think I seen the talkchelsea twitter account, or possibly a link from google.... cant remember

Torres has that bit of experience of leading the line against big European teams like Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus etc. which Lukaku doesn't which is why Torres was much better out of the two when he came on. You look at the difference in how Marco (21) and then Romelu (20) performed. Romelu wasn't confident enough, he looked disinterested and struggled to get into the game whereas Marco started badly but grew into the game and became much more confident because he decided to play safer passes and safe dribbles when in possession. Sometimes thats the difference with young players, can they be confident enough to turn it around after a bad start against big teams? Or do they struggle and crumble? You could tell they both started nervously which you gradually expect both to get rid of with experience. The fact Romelu was also isolated didn't help but as we seen he wasn't effective enough when the team had possession, he stood still, when Torres came on he chased back, looked to drop deeper to receive the ball, which sometimes your striker needs to do to help your team out. Its stuff like that Rom needs to improve. Also theres times where if he doesn't get the pass when he wants (like when van Ginkel dispossessed Khedira and broke), he just stops as opposed to keep looking for the pass. Defending from the front as well is vital in teams. Torres does this quite well sometimes (got to give the fucker some credit) so at least Romelu can learn from him a bit (please do not try and learn how to finish from him though ). Its really an experience thing though, when things aren't going well for your team or striker you've got to try run about, put yourself about and help the team out as well as you can. Romelu didn't win much against Ramos and Pepe tbh which I'm disappointed in actually but I suppose both are regarded as top class CBs. I'll probably edit this later and add more as I've got to go Actually can't be bothered I'll leave it as this.

Maybe for 5-10m and then make the guy take a 250k wage cut. I remember Jose said he wanted to sign him years ago when he was still in charge the first time round so maybe he might have another shot at signing him for us. Who knows.

Well Marin helped ruin Cuntinands testimonial..... recall him

We made Madrid look like Barcelona in the first half, not good.... second half was much better just a pity that cunt Ronaldo scored. Where was the defense last night btw? Cahill was shocking and the marking for Ronaldo's goal? van Ginkel or Ramires who was following him? Lukaku struggled evidently but I suppose against top international defenders like Pepe and Ramos it was likely. Madrid 1 Mouirnho 0 he will even the score eventually...