manpe

I wonder if two hands will be enough to count our defensive prospects if this happens... apart from Davila I don't think we've signed any young attackers.

Why isn't twitter on the list of "banned sources" or smth? or is it?

Lamps was training in regular sneakers... wonder why :tophat:

he'd be a great signing, I like players who make manu feel inferior

So, it begins...

IF Willian signs, he will probably come by the time when Drogba is nearly back.

Tbh it's kinda undeniable that he's been one of our best yet this season, without him our midfield looks weaker. Although I agree, ideally most of our starting XI would be squad/rotation players, but we don't have better players that's just a fact. And Meireles should never play together with Rami imo, they should be each other's backups for the same position.. but that's not possible all the time because of the shortage we have in midfield - we have 3 defensive mids (Mikel, Romeu, Essien) while only one who is a natural CAM (Lampard, and we all know his age).. so Meireles is a backup for 2 positions (Lamps's and Rami's). If to think about it, AVB's options in midfield are rather limited and none of them seem to be ideal. We are playing on fumes and it shows in many performances.

good point

I don't understand, you guys are talking as if the deal has been done and confirmed. Is there any source confirming that we signed him and are loaning him back, or are we criticizing the board in advance for the heck of it? Talk about the influence of rumours on people... Anyway, if this is true, then I imagine Genk themselves have asked for this option. Maybe it's for the better, he seemed raw in the games against us, and a Belgian fellow who's keeping us updated on him, keeps saying that he hasn't been playing very good lately. Better he came here on a high rather than in shaky form to face new and tougher challenges.

Two good games not that it makes a lot of difference. I wikid him and this caught my eye. It says he plays striker, yet he has 66 league apps and only 3 goals for Palace... eerrm?

@CJ Revo: I'd rather put Mata in the middle and Willian on the flank, while giving them freedom to swap positions. And you seem to be making Torres an automatic starter, why? For example, in the second formation you say Studge would get left out of the team, when in fact he could play CF instead.

it would matter in the sense that if he went now we'd get and save money from that

If he doesn't make the first team ahead of Kalouda right away then it would be a sign of worry

sooooo are we being linked or what?

I thought they were going to try and figure out if he said what he allegedly said, but it seems they've taken it a step further and are now trying to deem JT racist or non-racist.

exactly, I highly doubt we'd be able to find 11 of them

I think it's pretty much established that Lille are the one stopping from anything happening, because if they weren't, he'd be snatched up already. Up until now we've heard only rumours based on AVB saying "we won't sign him" and people wishfully twisting his words to "we'll sign in". Well, that and quoteless goal.com/daily mail.

anything related to Neymar and us isn't worth mentioning UNLESS it's official and confirmed

lol sounds like something off those propagandistic anti-smoking websites

how do you know Willian truly is mediocre and has no potential? I am interested to see how you argue that. Drawing comparisons with Meireles will be void, every case is individual and they are as different players as they can be.

People, I'm not fucking with you when I say that I'm more excited when Kalou is on the wing than Malouda.

or that he's content with his paycheck. He's 31, he's lost his main attributes... there isn't anything to give up on, he simply isn't the kind of player we need. We milked everything we could out of him, move on. imo this thread is just wrong.

Not sure which forum you've been reading, I find much more criticism towards the whole team (and Bosingwa) than on Torres. I haven't seen people blaming Torres for all of our misery, but of the lot we have, he's by far the biggest underachiever/performer (not mentioning Bosingwa, his standards have never been high). For all I know, people here realize that the problems are much more extensive than only Torres. Out of individuals, he's the most noticeable one for obvious reasons, but haven't you seen cries for overhaul, ®evolution? Concerns over the whole structure of the club. And out of individuals not only Torres gets stick, but also Bos, Sideshow, Malouda, Kalou, Drogba, Lampard, Mikel, Villas-Boas... in fact, most of our shit defensive displays are put on Bosingwa's shoulders and he gets blamed for losing us games much more than Torres. The thing with Torres in the Norwich game was that he missed a golden opportunity which would have been the winning goal, hence 2 points rolled behind the goal not into the net where you want it to be. Blaming him for the whole team's miserable performance is over the top, but blaming him for losing us 2 points is peoples' way of showing how important that miss was in the game. Had it been any other striker, he would have got as much as stick... it's just that Torres gets analyzed more because he's been doing shit like that for a year now, that miss wasn't a fluke but a regular occurance, which makes people worried and rightly so.

Torres and Sturridge situations aren't even in the same worlds.. one is a 50 million striker who has probably worse goal record than Bendtner over one year. The other is a young striker turned winger who just has started to shine and managed to score more than Torres could ever dream of. A couple of expected anonymous performances are forgiveable, the issues they have are completely different. Current frenzy over Torres is a consequence of being goal-shy for a year (a YEAR, we're not talking about weeks as is the case with Danny). I'm sure that Sturridge will go berzerk mode once again, you can't be outstanding all the time, and most people here realize that it isn't the end of Sturridge, far from it, he's just starting.... but it could well be the end of Torres, and it's a question of whether he finds his shooting boots or not, that's why every game he goes dry more questions arise.

It wouldn't be a grand signing like he's done before, it's actually a pretty humble signing, people who don't play FM or aren't fans of Shakhtar don't even know who this Willian is. At least it's a signing that would be made out of genuine need.