Greyco

It's hard to perform when only playing 90m of competitive football every 6 weeks. That's why a lot of Chelsea's fringe players move out so fast. Mourinho rarely rotates his squad. Great on the one side, because the starting players gain a lot of chemistry. The downside is that fringe players have it very hard. They only get a few minutes to waste some injury time and are then asked to step it up and show it during a league cup game. Some players are great impact players and can deliver straight away, others need a couple of games to get to their best form. Mourinho's handling of his fringe players is a just criticism seeing how many have failed to step up in the 2 years since he got back. De Bruyne was behind in the pecking order to Oscar, Schürrle and Ramires who was often used as a RW. Schürrle who has been struggling to get game time at Wolfsburg where De Bruyne has delivered.

Don't know where people keep getting that argument from... He was excellent during his season on loan at Bremen. Just read the recent quotes from Klopp and Zorc. CL-finalists that year who did everything they could to get him to come to Dortmund after his first season in the Bundesliga. Chelsea and Mourinho vetoed the move, told him he had a big part to play in the upcoming season and then benched him for 4 months. This with the first World Cup in 12 years coming up for a young Belgian side where he had been the main man, by far, in qualifying the year before. The final drop was in december when Chelsea had that month with 8 games and Mourinho stated that he needed KdB for the upcoming exhausting month and he'd get plenty of minutes. He got about 8 and handed in a transfer request and moved to Wolfsburg. After a month he turned it back on in the Bundesliga and got the most assists since new year in the league with 6. Looking back, it's strange to see Mourinho escaping with any criticism that season. He did well to temper expectations with the small horse stories but Chelsea had every chance of winning the title that season and were right in the mix until the end of the season. But Oscar went of the boil and Hazard had that injury. If he had kept either KdB or Mata more involved during the season, they could've made a difference. Instead Chelsea had to bed in a new Salah who didn't deliver. A lot of similarities with this season. Except the amount of points Chelsea were infront at new year. A Cuadrado that struggled and a team that was driven into the ground during the first half of the season and struggled in the 2nd half. All that said tho. I don't think KdB is a Mourinho player. He's way to aggressive in his passing. Which is fine in a team that excels in transitioning but hard for a team that plays against a handball defence most of the time and have to watch out for counters.

Bit late to reply but meh. I actually love it. Lost my interest in the Belgian league long ago. But since this system is in place I actually enjoy it. And others in my circle of friends do to. There's a buzz when the play-offs start and every season since the changes has been great entertainment until the last day of the season. I don't get the unfair arguments either. How is it unfair? Every team knows the rules and that the emphasis of the league is in the play-offs. There's not one team that benefits over the others. You just have to make sure you're team are at their peak in the business end of the season. And if your club follows a good policy, it's a great system. In the first half of the season you have the chance to focus on your European campaign as the points in the league have less value. Thus enabling the league to get sufficient points in the UEFA ranking. Since this system was introduced Belgium has risen in the UEFA ranking. The champions are directly in the Champions League group stages while the number 2 has a chance through the play-offs. A few years ago we had 1 team that had to play play-offs to even reach the group stages. Also, since the early part of the season has "less value", it's a lesser risk to give youngsters a chance. You've got 3/4th of a season to bed in youngsters or new signings when you're one of the top teams. Enough time to get them ready for the 10 game play-offs at the end of the season. A decade ago the Belgian league was mocked for being a league filled with African players and 3rd rate players from Eastern Europe. The youth education has definitly improved but it's easy to see why youngsters might get their chance sooner now. Even at the teams lower in the table. They might miss the lucrative play-offs. But they have 2 months at the end of the season to take that outside shot for a European ticket or give a youngster a few games to see if he has what it takes for next season before going on the transfer market.

What's up with Arsenal fans and Hazard tho? They're the only fanbase that are obsessive about discrediting him. Social media are filled with them.

Visiting his preggo gf and her family in Madrid. She's due in a few weeks.

How is that first one a dive? Don't know what those circles are meant to indicate. Freeze the images 14 seconds in, Hazard clearly gets caught on his left thigh.

Warped logic. Look at the Tottenham vs Fiorentina results, does that mean the Serie A is stronger than the PL? Hu? The PD far behind? Far ahead you mean? They've been outperforming everyone else is the last 5 years.

Vertonghen rules you haters. One of the most genuine players in the Belgian squad. He did tap Hazard on his shoulder after that foul, you can even see Hazard give him the thumbs up after he gets back up. One of those players you love when he's in your club and hate when not. He's incredibly popular in Amsterdam because he doesn't have any diva-behaviour. Actually appreciate him more because he's genuine and honest and not one of those media-trained robots that know how to play the masses. (cough*Kompany*cough*Mertens)

Instead of laughing you might want to look deeper into the fact that Fabregas has such a low defensive score. You might have discovered Fabregas is the leading player in the category "dribbled past" in the whole premier league. I'll add ridiculous, laughing, joke and a couple of ? in for good measure so you won't need them in your next post. Might save you some time typing and me reading next time to get to the point.

Well you might want to contact every topteam in Europe to explain to them that they could save a load of money because nearly every club has a data-analyst and head of performance analysis on their payroll. They all use statistics, highlighted by video-evidence, in preparation for the next game. The difference in the ratings is easily explained tho. And luckily they aren't exactly the same or they'd be a lot less interesting. Most use the same source material but give different weight of importance to some of the statistics in their calculations. Haven't come across anything contradictory tho. I guess if you run them through a program like SPSS you'd find a huge correlation. I guess it's the same reason a forum has smileys? A fan-forum is hardly a place you'd find crawling with coaches carrying an UEFA A license giving a thorough analysis.

Don't see why they should be nonsense. They give a clearer picture than most of the mob just looking at goals and assists which do exactly as you have in your signature. Most of the players in those list are actually pretty accurate. There are surprises in there, like Downing, but he's been the standout performer in a team that sits in 4th. They give a pretty good picture as to who has been doing well this season.

http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/players/ea-sports-player-performance-index.html?paramSearchTerm=&paramClubId=&paramSeason=2014-2015&paramPosition=&paramEaBreakdownType=ACCUMULATIVE&paramGameWeek=1&paramItemsPerPage=20&paramSelectedPageIndex=1 http://www.squawka.com/football-player-rankings#performance-score#player-stats#english-barclays-premier-league|season-2014/2015#all-teams#all-player-positions#16#44#0#0#90#16/08/2014#19/12/2014#season#1#all-matches#total http://www.squawka.com/football-player-rankings#performance-score#player-stats#champions-league|season-2014/2015#all-teams#all-player-positions#16#39#0#0#90#16/09/2014#19/12/2014#season#1#all-matches#total#desc#total http://www.whoscored.com/Regions/252/Tournaments/2/Seasons/4311/Stages/9155/PlayerStatistics/England-Premier-League-2014-2015 http://www.whoscored.com/Regions/250/Tournaments/12/Seasons/4333/Stages/11564/PlayerStatistics/Europe-UEFA-Champions-League-2014-2015 All those rankings have him in the top3. And still there are fans on other boards that claim he isn't in the same bracket as Aguero, Silva, Di Maria and Sanchez or claim he hasn't been anywhere near contention for being Chelsea's best player this season which has been Fabregas or Costa.

Fulham away 2nd half last season.

Uncalled for. Do you need that opening to give your own confidence a boost? It's absurd claiming I'm arguing conspiracy theories here in my posts. I'm arguing semantics used in the press and how such statements shouldn't be taken too literally but more with a balanced view. As this is my field of work, and my company gives workshops to professional sportteams in the Benelux and big companies and how to make statements to the press while limiting ones risk, exposure and responsibilities, I hardly think I'm retarded in the subject. Could you also point to me where I've stated that Mourinho wanted to get rid of Lukaku? I think I've already stated that I'm sure it was Lukaku who wanted to leave Chelsea.

When Guidetti returned to City, Negredo and Jovetic hadn't joined yet. They had Balotelli and Tevez who by that time had become fringe players and where on their way out. I'm not comparing Lukaku's situation with Guidetti tho. Just used that example for illustrating what can happen to promising young players at a club of that magnitude instead of keeping yourself on the pitch and earning marketingdeals and boosting your profile for future contracts. Lukaku may respond to Mourinho's comments in the near future aswell. If he states that he didn't demand the starting spot but a genuine chance to have a significant amount of minutes on the pitch, would that make a difference? Or would he simply be called a liar on here because Mourinho stated otherwise? Like I posted before. People should take a more balanced view on the comments of managers. They make promises to fringe players for gametime to keep their squad well stocked. After a while those fringe players become disillusioned and are replenished by some new young hopefulls hoping to have a nice stable career at a topclub. Most will stay fringe players and will be replaced again. And so the cycle goes.