Jype

50th start actually, today is his 69th PL match overall.

First of all Di Maria has only been playing at a top club for four years. Whatever he did at Benfica doesn't really matter because the Portuguese league is so much below the quality of the top 5 leagues in Europe. During the four years at Real Madrid his goalscoring record has been pretty much underwhelming (36 goals in 190 games) and he's never scored more than 10 goals a season in all competitions, although I'll admit it's hard to shine at Madrid with Ronaldo scoring as many goals as he has. However with assists he's done reasonably well. In the first three seasons as a Real Madrid player he was always hitting 13-16 assists in all competitions which is a decent return for a guy who plays around 50 games a season, but then again it's nothing spectacular and at the time I could have thought of many players who'd have been capable of doing the same. Now last season he had the best year of his career and got 27 assists, which is miles ahead his second best season to date. If doing pretty well for three years and then having one perfect season is your definition of being consistently brilliant throughout the period, then fine, but I'm not really buying it. Now let's take Hazard. In the same period of time from 2010 to 2014, he has scored 64 goals in 212 matches. Regarding assists, while he doesn't really reach the heights of Di Maria's 13/14 season he hasn't been bad either and last year was the only season in the last four years where he hasn't hit at least 15 assists but he made up for it by scoring 17 goals which is much higher than Di Maria's highest ever scoring season. He can have games where his form is inconsistent but everyone does, and looking at the bigger picture he's been just as consistent in the last four years as Di Maria has. It's also worth noting that in that time Hazard has been 19-23 years old while Di Maria has been significantly older at 22-26. Basically Hazard only now needs to start being as good as Di Maria was back in 2011 to make this an equal comparison.

1. I agree, but NT performances are still not to be overlooked completely. 2. I watched it. Some shocking missed chances and misplaced passes there but also shows me exactly why he was bought, he's got some great attributes and he offers an entirely different dimension to our other AMs and can make a huge impact on a game when he's on his day. He's still young and can improve massively over the next few years and if he does, there's nothing stopping him to become one of the best wingers in the world. 3. So basically you're judging his overall game based on a single match, which happens to be probably his worst performance in a Chelsea shirt. Everyone has games like that every once in a while, I'm pretty sure we would find plenty of similar performances from Hazard if we started going through matches one by one but really, what's the point? Works the other way too, Torres is still shit even though he's had a few magical performances and individual highlights from those games make him look like a real world beater.

He never had it. I've been disappointed way too many times with these rumours of Torres leaving and I don't see why it would be any different this time around. Milan are not the same club they were a few years ago, they can't afford Torres' wages and even if they could I don't see why they would want to.

Maybe he would develop more by going there but that's not why he was bought and I'm pretty sure going to Sunderland for the 14/15 season was not on his mind when he decided to join Chelsea last January. He's more than ready to be an impact player for us and as the 5th AM he will get plenty of chances throughout the season. Even without injuries he can get a good amount of games, at least as a substitute, and he's only one injury or suspension away from playing in every game. I seriously hope there's nothing in these loan rumours, same goes for van Ginkel. If we need to free up that one foreign player spot we can easily just leave out Schwarzer at least until January because behind Courtois and Cech he's hardly going to get a game.

Nah, at least then he'd have one familiar face in the team so he wouldn't feel so left alone anymore.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/article-2730307/Malky-Mackay-Iain-Moody-investigated-FA-sexist-racist-homophobic-text-messages-time-Cardiff.html A racist, a sexist and a homophobe. Shocking stuff, good luck ever finding another job in football management Malky Mackay. I remember being surprised when Cardiff gave him the ultimatum 'resign or be sacked' because I thought he was a promising young manager doing a reasonably good job with the squad he had but now it's all starting to make more sense if what I just read is anywhere close to being true.

Eva and Jose Drogba is a God amongst men.

Costa Hazard - Willian - Schürrle Matic - Cesc Filipe Luis - Terry - Cahill - Ivanovic Courtois Oscar and Azpilicueta weren't at their best against Burnley so I'm hoping for Willian and Luis to come in but other than that I don't see a reason to change a winning team too much.

Not most of his wages but rather all of it. For a €20m fee and letting Sporting have Nani, who's on €6m a year, on loan without so much as a loan fee that's not so good a deal for United. Decent player based on the World Cup but Woodward's getting shafted once again in the transfer market.

That was two years ago when there was still a glimpse of hope that he might yet come good. A lot has happened since then.

Hasn't had much to do. Burnley's goal was pretty much unstoppable and that's the only proper shot they've had on goal, caught a few crosses though.

Exactly. His only real experience of professional football was a mediocre season at Bolton three years ago and after that he's done nothing but sit on his arse and his development has stalled massively. Boyata is already 23 years old so the age argument is out of the window as well with Mangala and Nastasic both being younger than him.

Doubt they'd actually get rid of Nastasic. He's miles ahead Boyata and this season he can even be registered for the B-list in the Champions League so they won't have to worry about the HG quota. Kompany, Mangala, Nastasic and Demichelis is a solid set of central defenders but Kompany, Mangala, Demichelis, Boyata is a disaster waiting to happen. Would be glad if they did offload him though, anything that weakens our rivals can only be a good thing.

"Is it true that Stephen Hunt is a legend?" - Liverpool fan in the replies Joke about a man nearly getting killed in a football match, Scousers keeping it classy as always. Fucking cunts.

Looks like 55 points was better than I thought it would be, the average score so far is just 22. I’m currently second with just one point behind the leader in a league where the prize for the winner of GW1 is a trip to England for a PL match including all costs so shit’s about to get real. I still have Costa and Hazard to score me some more points but it remains to be seen whether that’s enough to beat my competitors who have some different players left (mostly one or two players like Yaya, Dzeko, Fabregas etc.). None of the others have Hazard so a hat trick for Eden on Monday and I can start planning for my trip.

Shush, we don't want her to get a competitive edge over us.

I have both, Ramsey is even my captain. If I checked correctly I will have 55 points once the bonuses have been added. Not too bad for the first day.

For £5.5m I would go for Debuchy or Jones and at £5m there's also Ben Davies. For some reason Davies isn't playing today against West Ham but should be Tottenham's first choice ahead of Rose this season.

That's a pretty good looking team you got there. Doubling up on Everton's defense is probably not the best of ideas given their tough early fixtures but the midfield looks great. Won't be enough to beat me but you can take second place.

Time to quote myself.

http://imgur.com/B13ZDJ1 Now that the deadline is near I might as well post my team. Switched the armband from Rooney to Ramsey in the last minute, hope the decision won't bite me in the ass. Edit: I sent the codes for TX, Polo7 and jmarlow because the deadline is so near and there's no point for them to join at all if they miss the first round. I hope you won't ban me, Steve!

I think Matic could give a decent return for his £5.5m price tag. He's a guaranteed starter for a team that often gets clean sheets and will occasionally chip in with a goal or an assist. Haven't really checked the revised bonus point system but I would guess Matic will also get a pretty good amount of interceptions and tackles so he could be receiving a bonus point or two every once in a while. He's almost certain to score somewhere between 100-140 points over the course of the season and there are not many similarly priced options who will score more than that, maybe Sigurdsson, Shelvey, Henderson, Puncheon and Adam. Definitely not going to take Matic myself but I can see why he will be a tempting option for some.

Rather he'd take 9 after Torres is finally gone.