manpe

You're welcome I've worked hard to make this place enjoyable with my presence.

Marin - Danny hasn't gone anywhere, Marin isn't his replacement, he's an addition, so I don't see why you even mention that he isn't as good sa Studge in your opinion. He's more of a replacement to Kalou. If he's better than Kalou or not is for you to decide, but I think he will turn out to be. Kevin - Not sure, I won't judge him on 2 pre-season games (didn't see the last game yet). But as far as visible talent goes, I can see a bright future for him, filled with less frustration than Malouda's or Kalou's. Oscar - Won't argue, I won't lie that I haven't seen him play at all. But as far as we not knowing where to play him, I wouldn't worry about that, we don't have to know, the coaching staff have to know and I'm pretty sure they will figure it out. You conveniently left out Hazard from that list. Does he deserve some critique as well? Our midfield is nowhere near as good as our opponents'(Manchesters) - "Nowhere near as good" is a bit of a stretch. We're pretty equal imo in that department, it remains to be seen how our double pivot shapes and keeps up. And midfield isn't the only position on the field, you can argue that we have better defence than either and that our attack is at least as potent as United's. Our coaching staff has not convinced me yet either. we finished 6th last year and won cup games parking the bus most of the time last year. We certainly have the most unproven staff in compared to the Manchester clubs. - There aren't many managers you can compare to Ferguson in terms of experience or whatnot, so naturally we will fall short in that department. But Mancini is a different story, has he convinced you at all? He has Agüero to thank for saving his reputation in the last minute. He has constant fallouts with his players, makes knee-jerk decisions and can't keep his word. We have 2 true blues at the helm, one thing we can be sure not to lack, is that their hearts are at the right place. Besides, our current coaching staff are holding European champions and FA Cup winners. Yes, they did what they had to do to succeed in Europe given the circumstances, that's encouraging more than anything... far better than stubbornly playing openly just for the fuck of it. And we didn't park the bus in FA Cup, what are you on about? Chelsea 5 Sperms 1. And to top my shit post off, I would just like to add that we have more than a month left in the transfer window. Our team could still be strengthened, so it's too early to start making definite conclusions.

No. You can leave out Josh and Kevin from that list since they'll most likely go on loan, and who is Hazard #2? Thorgan? Why would you even put him in the first team list? And Piazon isn't going to be a first team player either. And Malouda is useless of course. You left out Meireles and Oscar though, and you named Mikel twice.

Who are we crossing to? Torres? Hazard? Mata? With the new team we should start avoiding high crosses from now on, they won't feed much. Long time? Forgetting about Hazard, are we?

Good news. Shame we can't see him in pre-season though.

Seems the spuds aren't fans of his high line either. Seems all too familiar..

@CHOULO19 I got a notification of you having mentioned me in this post, but you didn't... weird. Also, the popup doesn't appear when highlighting text till the end of the line.

@capriccioso, works in Firefox though, fuck Trying to be as non-mainstream as possible @Sh0n3x, did you get the notification?

I don't get anything. I use Opera.

How do you get this quote popup? I highlight some text but I don't get anything and when I click 'quote' at the bottom it quotes the whole post.

I don't think anybody is scared, I think there are just different opinions on him. As I said, it's difficult to evaluate defensive mids, so opinions about them will naturally be the most diverse. It's easy to assess if a striker or a goalkeeper is shit, but DM is a more tactical position, which I think can be most objectively judged by experts. I will trust Robbie and our coaching staff in this matter. I do like him though, I think he tends to be our coolest player in high pressure situations. His passing is accurate most of the time, which is offensively one of the most important things for a defensive mid, since their first and most important task is to get and retain possession.

Exactly my thoughts. The moment I entered the [compare with an awesome barca player] zone, my face was palmed. One of my favourites was: Lukaku vs Seattle - the new Drogba Lukaku vs PSG - the new Heskey what a difference one game makes

Have you forgotten about the likes of Bosingwa, Kalou, Malouda, Anelka, Turnbull, Hilario, Lukaku? Evaluating defensive mids is the hardest, since they don't stick out, which for them is actually better than sticking out. Anyway, there is definitely a Sloth trying to break free from its shackles here E: shit, it's the "general transfer talk" thread, for a moment I actually thought it was the Mikel one. My derailment will stop here. It's such a repetitive argument already, it seems it comes with waves for Mikel (and Torres).

So with Kevin, Kakuta and possibly Benayoun and Malouda out, we suddenly don't look so packed anymore. Marin, Hazard, Mata... and that's it. Oscar will fit in perfectly, still no natural right winger though, but it's not as important as right-back at the moment, since right wing can be covered by Hazard or Ramires. E: wtf, why doesn't it display the first line? Anyway, it says "So with Kevin, Kakuta and possibly Benayoun and Malouda out, we suddenly don't look so packed anymore."

I see they put the wrong date on the site then.

Why hasn't the game been played? On official site it says the date is 25 July 01:55, so it should be over already.

Who are in MLS team?

"There's only one Hazard" wouldn't suit the tune at all, but "There's only one Eden Hazard" would perfectly

It seems we aren't short of fanboys as well

I'm not, but Torres is. If he wholeheartedly believes in this stupid shit, then it can actually affect him subconsciously.

He plays better when he's blonde

Hopefully there will be no reason to blame anybody anymore

Not surprised at all tbh, look at the team we were playing. It was worse than the team under AVB and the players obviously had no understanding between each other, but it was expected. We can't expect much with Ferreira at LB and Kakuta, the last one has really disappointed in the 2 games, I can see why he's been ignored by the first team. If we play like that consistently with Mata, Hazard, Oscar, Ramires, Torres and Cole, then we can panic... but I doubt we will. Malouda's liveliness can be explained by him wanting a new contract or trying to impress the clubs scouting him. It's a typical pattern for him. But in that particular game he was one of the best in 2nd half, true. Marin, Cole, Malouda and Ramires improved our game massively, which is a good sign, because we still weren't playing full strength and highlighted that the team in 1st half was just worse.

Saving for his pension fund probably

Same here. Read Cole's twitter and a bit of Piers Morgan's... who in the hell, if anybody, gave that guy PR lessons? Celebrities shouldn't have twitters, it makes them look stupid for whatever reasons, although it's fun to read and laugh what some of the braindead smudge (*cough*Rio*cough*)... like watching a kid trying to write. I hope Terry and Lampard never make twitters, or do they have already?