Las7

I don't know if he is good enough to be first choice - but what I do know is that he should be given chances so the Sturridge fiasco is not repeated with another talented youth. Lukaku scored more goals in the EPL than our first choice striker has done in two and a half years, on loan at a club who don't possess Mata; Lampard; Hazard etc to set him up.

Those type of saves have been made by Ashley Cole numerous times, it's great to see Luiz pull off a save like that as well. The replay doesn't do the clearance justice because it's slowed down a bit - fact is that is easily the best Defensive Contribution a player has made during the Confederation's Cup. I've seen Luiz have stormers for us, but the English Media continues to treat him as a mistake waiting to happen but specially since January he has been one of our best players. I hope that he stays with us for many more years, one day wearing the armband - because he is captain material in the future.

LoL who is counting Mata's trophies at National Team level and worships him for the few appearances he makes with Spain, he is worshiped because he has been integral to us winning the CL and being our best player the past season.

Only clubs which can lure Mata are Barca and Real - they would be able to lure him regardless of how Floppes is treated

As I've said he is 100% Delusional or 100% Troll either way it's best he uses some of his money for a good psychiatrist and leaves the club

I'd prefer spending 50 million on Cavani than 30 million on Looney Anyway I'd want to see Lukaku as first choice if we can't secure Cavani/Lewa and sign someone like Remy/Bentake to rotate with him and Ba

He is more deluded than his fanboys, we need to get rid of him. Lukaku has more goals in the EPL in one year at West Brom - where he was not first choice, than Torres has had in 2 and a half years in the club. He has held us back cost played ahead of superior players like Drogba; Lukaku; Sturridge; Kalou; Anelka - as soon as he is dropped he will throw his toys out, like he did after the CL Final; like he stormed out when subbed against QPR. He is a mental midget who has no place in a club challenging for honors specially on the retarded wages we are giving him to score less than 15 goals in the EPL in 1260 days.

Carrollol was just sold to West Ham for £15.5m + £2m "Add-ons", considering they also probably paid some fee to take him on loan and are ready to pay 100k p/w for the Donkey - Liverpool only lost around £15m on the deal. Your move Torres

We can't even cover his monthly wage with what we make from his shirt sales over the course of a season, that myth was debunked long ago.

Well at least Andy Carroll is no where near 175k p/w - but still a donkey Besides it speaks volumes to the fact that Looserpool management decided Carroll is not good enough and tried their best to not pay his wages and sell him - while we had Torres torpedo our EPL season, after a season of awful football we even promoted him as first choice striker.

Lukaku is better than both Ba and Torres Ba is better than Torres so he would be a good back up Moses is better than Torres so he would be a decent emergency option Feruz is better than Torres Torres is good for a Championship level club about QPR's level.

Spot on Lukaku will hopefully be our #1 striker if we decide not to sign Cavani and Shurrle; Ba and Moses might be enough as far as back ups are concerned. Lets remind everyone that we started last season with only Floppes and Sturridge. Floppes 2012/2013 Season: Average of 1.8 shots per match in the EPL Total shots - 62 Shots on Target - 23 Total Time played in the EPL - 2569 minutes (nearly as much as the previous one and a half years at the club) Minutes per Goal in EPL - 321 (he actually had a better minutes per goal in the EPL in Season 2011/2012 with 317 minutes per goal) Lukaku 2012/2013 Season Average 2.8 shots per game in the EPL Total Shots - 93 Shots on Target - 47 Total Time played in the EPL - 2001 minutes Minutes per Goal in EPL - 117 Criminal if Floppes starts ahead of Lukaku this season just as it was criminal that he started ahead of Sturridge last season.

I think he would be good for depth, but if we do get any offers I'd sell him. Even this season we could have used a guy like Essien despite his injuries for rotational purposes. Kind of sad to write that for one of my favorite players but that's pretty much how good he is right now.

Happy Birthday Robbie

It's silly to think that you can't win with a bunch of Kids, but United and Arsenal(before 2004) have proven that you have to have the right environment of older and younger players in the squad and the right attitude and even average players can contribute to Title wins. Whether those youngsters will prove good enough for first team football during their time rotating or coming on as subs than than obviously they would become key players over time. But looking back you can't really say that in recent years anyone has come from relative obscurity to a part of the team member of the squad. Mikel; Kalou; Sturridge; Bertrand; Diarra; were possibly the only players who started playing young here. Now most of those were highly rated before actually signed, and none really became integral here(Mikel being the most important, which I know doesn't say that many good things about how we signed an attacking midfielder and molded him into a player who is unable to score a goal). I felt that most of those players given enough time might have gone on to become more important in the team but those opportunities were lacking. Based on that track record I hope Lukaku; KdB; Joshua; Courtois; Ake; Bruma; Christensen etc are treated different and are given more chances rather than playing older players simply because they have higher reputation. Hopefully we have changed the way we work - but I want to see some results from our investments in the near future making it into the first squad on a regular basis.

The whole flawed logic behind somehow justifying his wage and transfer fee due to selling shirts and merchandise is a load of crap. Real signed Beckham for marketability instead of Ronaldinho - look how that turned out for them. Any club that wants to be taken seriously doesn't sign and make players automatic first choice due to the amount of shirts they sell. Fact is that for 2 and a half seasons Floppes has done very little to justify his selection. If we were to sign the most well known Chinese or Korean player just to sell a lot of shirts I very much doubt anyone apart from Chinese or Korean posters will be calling for him to start every match. That is the footballing reality the moment we start considering who sales a lot of shirt when contemplating who should have a starting position at the club or justify a person astronomical wages due to the fact we make some money back is just silly. We make around 8 pounds per Floppes shirt sold - that would mean we would need to sell 21000 shirts per week or 1 million Offical Floppes shirts per year, just to cover his wages. That whole myth has been debunked http://www.weaintgotnohistory.com/2012/7/30/3201349/how-much-are-shirt-sales-really-worth

Ruining purple nose's farewell - Jose is going to take one look at Lukaku and make him into his super sub to turn games. 17 goals and 4 assists in the EPL from 20 starts and 15 sub appearances. The only players who have scored more goals were unquestioned #1 at their respective clubs and had more than 30 starts(RvP; Michu; Suarez; Benteke; Bale). He should be here next season, specially if we buy a big name striker - having Lukaku as second choice will be miles better than either Torres or Ba.

History repeating itself, Now is our last chance to sell him, the amount he generates with the sale doesn't matter - allow him to go on a free if that's what it takes as long as some other club is stuck paying his wages for the next 3 years. Does anyone without the memory of a goldfish actually expect him to get better as he enters his 30's, a player who spends more time losing the ball and falling to the ground than keeping possession. Fair play to Floppes - he played the biggest part in us winning the Europa League! Congratulations to him for that but it's far too late - he has been by far the most disruptive onfield influence we've had on over the last decade and as soon as we sign a big name that displaces him from the team I'd fully expect to throw his toys out - just like he did after the CL Final or at Liverpool.

FSW should be making subs, Ramires is doing absolutely nothing as usual on the wing other than loosing the ball

We are the European Champions, instead we've been playing like a pub side out there

Lucky to not have conceded on a couple of occasions now, we don't have any sort of shape at the moment - very disappointing start from our lot

How many times are we going to watch Ramires be ineffectual on the wing? It's just a waste of a player who is very effective through the middle

Would be the biggest signing we've made, paying a huge sum of money for a striker who is at the top of his game rather than shattered shells like Sheva n Floppes - always had huge reservations for Sheva, and reservations for Torres(mainly due to the amount which I though was ridiculous at the time). For Cavani there are no doubts in my mind, so just thinking about it is making me existed - although personally I would not mind a smaller name and to actually give a chance to Lukaku to develop into our own Cavani, with Ba; and a third striker as possible alternatives(as long as that third striker isn't a 175k p/w passenger) .

There are extremely slim chances of either playing tomorrow night

I'm very sorry for Hazard; Terry and Mikel missing out on the affair all together. Must be pretty tough specially for Terry who missed out playing in the CL Final and now will miss Amsterdam. By all accounts this will be the first really tough team and European Giant we will face in the competition - no offense to Basel; Rubin; Prague but Benfica have a European Pedigree about them even though they haven't won a trophy in Europe for a while. Hopefully Benfica are effected by their crumbling in the League against Porto this weekend in the title decider but I would not bank on it. Should be interesting to see Matic back - playing against us, one of the few players we have sold who I has done wonders since moving away and getting a chance in Portugal. But hopefully Luiz the player we got when we gave Matic for them makes the difference. Sadly we are going to have Poorres up top but we can blame the board for that decision, this time unlike the CWC hopefully he doesn't miss any sitters.