themightyblue

As I said, Falcao's link up play is absolutely fine, that's a reason why he was able to function in Avb's fluid system at Porto. It's not as good as Torres, but it's good enough and that's made up for in the fact that if you give him a chance he'll score. Also for as much we go about system, ours doesn't exactly a require a striker of a specific type, we only say his this because the only striker we've seen play in our formation and system is Torres. Falcao also has incredible movement and drags at least two defenders at a time due to the fact that managers are afraid to give him space, that'll leave a lot of space for the likes of Mata to make his mark on the game. See his general play is often overlooked due to the fact that he's great in the box, but believe me the guy contributes more than enough. Cahill is as imposing as they come, he's massive. Also how can you say that he won't cause them problems? Torres came to England as an incredibly skinny guy and he made Vidic look silly a number of times. Oscar's come into the physical nature of the PL and done just fine. If you have the ability and skill then you'll do fine. Also where have you got this myth that he's rubbish back to goal? This simply isn't true and his goals pay testament to this because of his ability to make a yard of space for himself and test the keeper which all top strikers have. In fact a lot of the arguments being given against Falcao remind a lot of the one levelled at Rvp and his move to United. Many said he needs a team to be built around him in order to be effective and score goals, However, world class players can always adapt and Falcao's been around the block from league to league and flourished everywhere

Just found a video of Falcao goals last season Now please...........watch this and tell me this guy can't play with his back to goal and solely reliant on service He's an absolute genius if you ask me, a common theme is as I just said, he makes that yard of space and slots it in. Also worth noting is that the crossing stat that was earlier highlighted, a lot of those goals have actually come from crosses from corners and free kicks which we seem to be good at with Mata's excellent delivery. Not just purely crosses in open play

You've gone and seriously underrated Falcao's ability. As is well documented, Falcao is probably the most deadly striker on the planet and in a sense is a pure 9. I'm not going to try and claim he's the greatest all round player out there but to say he's only good with both feet and his head is doing him a huge disservice, much like when people say Lewandowski is purely a target man. Falcao doesn't sole rely on his team mates making his goals, watch his goals from last season and goals so far this season. The perfect example I can give you is the europa league final, if i remember correctly Falcao picked the ball up in the box made a yard of space for himself and curled it beautifully into the top corner. Rvp does this time and time again and falcao is the same he can make goals out of nothing and so to say he is solely reliant on service is and assists is nonsense. The way you've described Falcao is how you should be describing Hernandez and not the best striker in the world and to answer your competing with big strong, dominant defenders, Cahill and Luiz aren't exactly small are they. There over 6ft and physically imposing yet Falcao made mincemeat of both of them. Falcao's weakest area is probably his link up play and its probably weaker than Torres', but that doesn't mean it's poor. Falcao's link up play doesn't get enough credit because half of time rather than just getting the ball and laying it outwide, he'll take it, make a yard of space and shoot at goal which is what you'd expect your striker to do. I could go into more depth about Falcao's game, but I think you can see where i'm going with this. Is Falcao the perfect striker for this system? No. Will he grab 25-30 goals playing in this team? Fuck yes. A striker with his ability and form definitely will

Don't think it's unrealistic. I remember reading somewhere that Avb wanted Torres and Falcao as the strikers as part of his project. Roman is also keen to see us become one of the top sides and if a chance like falcao presents itself like it has, Roman will go for for it. We spent 70 odd million in one night in January before, roman only does the unrealistic. Also on falcao I've just read a Roberto Mancini interview where he's talking about his 352 formation and where he says 'top players can adapt themselves to different systems' and that's precisely the point. Falcao is world class and one of those players who works hard on th training field until something is perfect. I think there's no doubt he'd be fine here actually. Before we bring up Torres, Torres had been on inconsistent form before he joined us and suffered numerous injuries. We'd be getting a Falcao at his peak

How many of falcao's goals at Porto came from crosses? For all we know he could have just adapted his game to suit atletico. Do Colombia play with a lot of width? Judge his goal scoring exploits on his whole career rather than just his time at A.Madrid because as I've said for all we know he could just be one of those players who can adapt to any sort of system. I am not completely sold about falcao here as I'm worried about any big name striker that joins us, but look at the chances we create for Torres. I could guarantee that falcao would finish off most of them. Look at Rvp he's playing in a different system currently to the one at Arsenal, but he's been able to adapt his game and still scores goals. Falcao strikes me as the type of player who can do the same. Can't just use that stat about crosses to prove that 'he won't be successful' as great strikers like him adapt P.S I've said the word 'adapt' a lot

Sturridge hasn't played as a main striker for us, those goals came from the wing which is completely different to the CF position. Often he'd just be taking on the opposition full back, whereas as the lone CF he has to contend with 2 CBs. A lot of Sturridge's goals also came from arriving late at the back post from the wing position, he won't be able to do that anymore as CF. Once again while at Bolton, played in a two striker system playing of Kevin Davies who'd act as a target man and win flick ons etc. This is what i'm trying to say, there is no evidence for saying 'Sturridge should be number 1 striker'. He should be given a chance which I think everybody wants and Di Matteo will do, but if we're going to base making him number 1 striker on football ability and being younger then it'd be an incredibly silly thing to do and luckily Robbie isn't doing this.# Once again, playing as a striker at Bolton in a two striker system is completely different to playing as a lone striker at Chelsea and your telling rare sub appearances are enough to make somebody your lead striker? All i'm saying what Sturridge deserves is a chance, which he would have gotten by now if he hadn't been injured, but say he's number 1? Don't make me laugh mate

The one thing I don't get about this Sturridge vs Torres debate is that people call for Sturridge to be number 1 striker on the basis of nothing. As things stand Torres deserves to be number 1 for the fact he's been playing this season, grabbed a few goals and linked up well with the trio behind him. Rather than make outlandish and baseless claims, we should wait and see what Sturridge can do as a CF and then make comparisons and judge. ONTO THE GAME I really get the feeling that Fergie is going to go with the Diamond formation as he has an on form Hernandez, RVP and Rooney and this will play into our hands as Carrick will most likely be the base of that diamond and Rooney the tip. Using Ramires and Oscar, we could really shut them out of the game and nullify the United threat. If Fergie went for his traditional wing play, then we could struggle, although it means more space in the middle for us

The funny thing about Van Persie is that despite us saying he's 'clinical', he could easily be in double figures this season if he took his chances

Parker wouldn't be a starter under Avb, most spurs fans say the same thing. They know Sandro and Dembele is there strongest midfield two and Ekotto being a starter is also debatable seeing as though Gallas is there club captain and Caulker and Vertonghen have been two of there best performers. Your also underestimating the loss of Terry massively as well, in a normal game maybe it would be fine, but this was a fiery London derby in a hostile atmosphere. To lose a Terry in a game like this is huge as his experience and cool head is necessary in games such as this and so despite Spurs missing key player we also had a key player missing too. No doubt about it. This is completely off topic from the Man United game anyway, but being the better team 70-75 minutes of the game i would class as 'dominating'. On the United game, I get the feeling we'll see a similar sort of game to the one at OT last season with both teams having numerous chances. Although it does have to be said for our defensive vulnerabilities, United's defence is much worse than ours and the fact that they are most likely to play Evans and Rio at CB with Carrick and Scholes in front of them means that they will be susceptible to pace, which funnily enough we have in abundance. We can definitely win this game easily, but then again we could just as easily lose it. I said before the Spurs game that 4 points from United and Spurs would be brilliant and so i'll happily take a draw. However, I think it'll be 3-2 or 4-2 to either us or United

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11668/8193549/La-Liga-outfit-Valencia-say-an-agent-has-offered-them-the-services-of-Chelsea-skipper-John-Terry Club sources told Sky Sports: "We are working the market and we have received many names, Terry is on the list we have received via an agent, but nothing is decided."

Think this a weak argument. Firstly the way this number has increased from '2 key starters' to '4'. Bar Dembele and Bale, that was the same Spurs team that beat United at Old Trafford and we also had our captain and arguably best defender missing for the game. Also having more shots, doesn't equal to having more chances to score. A shot from 25 yards that lands safely in the keepers hands counts as a shot on target and with Defoe they have a guy that shoots at any given opportunity and so that stat was always going to be high when playing Spurs. The 'ball falls a little better' argument could also be applied to us, the amount of times Hazard and Mata played balls that cut through the Spurs defence but were a yard to fast or Torres wasn't sharp enough to get too was unbelievable. We completely dominated that game against Spurs except for a 5 minute period before half time and that period after half time. A London derby is always going to be frantic with teams looking to score but we coped and as i said dominated the game, which is why Journo's, pundits and even Spurs fans have said we deserved the victory. One thing i would agree is that our attacking players do need a lot more work defensively after the Spurs and Shakhtar game, but what we also have to remember is that they are all apart from Mata just coming back from an international break. They had minimal preparation time for Spurs and Shakhtar and so need a bit of time to re-adjust. In the Arsenal game, one of the things that impressed me was the fact that they all recovered back into positions and tracked back and so are capable of it. I have no doubt that we'll see them getting back to that level of workrate once again

Thats not really fair on Terry is it? The last year must have been absolute hell for him, he's been villified by the Press, now known as a racist despite being proved not guilty in court, he can't even play for the country he loves anymore. Sometimes things just become too much, and i wouldn't blame him for leaving. He's done everything he can

Very VERY surprising read. I hope this agent is talking rubbish http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/chelsea-transfer-gossip-john-terry-1398191

Apparently he competes with Ramires for a spot in the pivot for brazil as romulo is injured. So he'd probably be in competition with Ramires and lamps rather than Romeu and Mikel

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2218375/Chelsea-eye-Brazil-midfielder-Paulinho-Florent-Malouda-ponders-Santos-switch.html?I Don't have a clue about this guy in all honesty, but the rumours have picked up over the past couple of days. Anyone know much about him?

Think we should stick to our guns and go for: Cech Ivanovic Luiz Terry Cole Ramires Mikel Mata Oscar Hazard Torres Ramires can still help out Ivan with bale by playing on the right side of the pivot. If Ramires gets dragged outside then Oscar will compensate by dropping deeper which is what he does anyway as he's intelligent like that. Then in attack we just rip them to shit

Going to try and look at team selection as realistically as possible Robbie tends to ease the new signings in with some sub appearances rather than starting them right away Mata has started 4 games in just over a week Ramires has done the same Unlikely he'll start Sturridge after being injured for so long Think he'll go Cech Ivanovic Cahill Terry Cole Lampard Mikel Moses Oscar Hazard Torres

Have some people forgotten that we probably could have been comfortable had we taken our chances in the first half. Not saying that we played well, but we were hardly lucky. Let them off quite a bit

Any injuries? Cech Azpilicueta Cahill Ivanovic Cole Lampard Romeu Moses Oscar Hazard Sturridge Turnbull, Terry, Bertrand, Ramires,Mikel, Marin, Mata

Where the fuck are those Rdm haters now?!?!?! FUCK YES! I'm sorted for this weekend

Lol why do people even think guardiola will want to come here? He'll go to United as they'll actually stick by him and give him the time he needs whereas with us we'll get threads like this after 5 games and roman will monitor his training schedule every other week

Cech Ivanovic Cahill Terry Bertrand Romeu Mikel Moses Mata Hazard Torres Pretty sure Oscar and Sturridge are injured and so I'd go with this lineup. Would go with Ivanovic over Azpi purely because we'll need some height and physicality for corners and throw-ins against Stoke

This is a new season and as I've said so far this season he has 2 goals in the league and could have had more. Until Danny gets a chance to play and can show he can step up to the role of CF then Torres is number 1.

It's got nothing to do with a Torres agenda I've just noticed it whenever you comment on Torres. No....the reason Danny isn't playing is because Torres has been scoring goals. 2 goals in 4 league games to be exact. The Torres support annoys me but your not looking at it fairly. To label Danny as the number 1 striker really makes no sense

I know you try to come across as though your not being bias or that you don't like, but after seeing a few of your posts regarding this Torres situation it appears that you are indeed pretty annoyed at him. What has Danny done to warrant being the number 9 whatsoever? I'm pretty sure yesterday is the first time he's actually come on as a CF so your saying he's done enough to warrant the CF spot based on that ten minutes? Don't make me laugh mate. He's done enough to warrant a starting place in some of our next few games to see how he does over a 90 minute game. To say he's number one atm when Torres is scoring 1 in every 2 games is ludicrous imo. Let's see how he does first before making judgements like that