JDY

My only concerns are the potential price and his injury problems. Still only 18 years old, does he ever age!?

Cahill went walkabout in the opening minutes vs. Basel, lost the ball cheaply leading to Basel's chance from the FK. Luckily Cech had a decent game.

The less said about this the better. Really poor from us for the majority, only sightly improved when Oscar went off for Hazard.

Shocking performance from the team all round but my God Frank, truly abysmal tonight.

There is no set rule that the position behind the striker has to be a playmaker, nor is Oscar being deployed as one. I to don't see him as a incredibly creative player. He's good at almost every aspect, but isn't a master at anything (which isn't necessarily a bad thing). More and more emphasis is being placed on having multifunctional players in today's football than players who are specialists in only one aspect.

The ball's flat, Dave! Great performance.

Whether he is better or not is irrelevant. In Mourinho's eyes, would Lukaku have even been first choice? Would he be having the same impact for us coming in and out of the team every week? Fantastic loan move for him and US in the long term, not to mention taking points off teams around us in the process.

He also went strolling when he assisted Hazard for the 4th. You win some you lose some

Great little cameo there. Really hope he goes to the WC!

If I'm not mistaken, the award is based on the calender year 2013, so bringing up overall season stats is completely irrelevant at this point. Messi has scored 16 goals in 2013, Ronaldo has scored 31. In the big games, Ronaldo has come to the fore (most of the time) while Messi has been struggling with injuries and has been poor by his standards. Ronaldo is also the current top CL scorer and was the CL top scorer last season. In no world should Messi win or be ahead of Ronaldo/Ribery this year. They have both been far more influential to their teams THIS YEAR. Ribery is a different case altogether. Let's remember that this is predominately an individual award. Most of the bearing should be on that, then team performances and trophies. If you remember back in 2010, Sneijder was outstanding in Inter's treble winning team, but still Messi won the award on individual performances. IMO, if this is consistent, Ronaldo should win the award this year. If the award now wants to start taking into account team successes, then Ribery should win.

Now that Southampton are doing well he's getting more and more recognition. Still very young and improving every season. On a side note, think he counts as homegrown to since he's been at Southampton since he was 18.

The award is already just a popularity contest but if Ronaldo doesn't win it then he probably never will again.

Fair enough! I can see your point to but it's just a bit too perfect for me. Typical Germans in a way This happens way to much at Wembley. It's actually quite embarrassing. I think the problem with our support to is that when the fans actually do sing it's all too disjointed and not together. If you look at Palace recently, or even Spurs, when they sing, they sing together and it sounds great.

Perhaps fake was the wrong word. Unnatural, maybe. If they want to sing, they will sing. You can't pride yourself on having a good support if it takes someone to stand there not even watching the game and getting you to sing. Although I dislike them, Liverpool on those European nights is far superior to Dortmund.

I've been going for near 15 years and it's certainly different now to what it was say 10 years ago (not that it was great then). IMO the poor atmosphere is down to two things; success and complacency. People now just turn up expecting us to win and probably find it hard to get up for or motivated for most games (except the big ones). It seems it's only when we go through a rough patch when fans actually start to be more vocal and create a better atmosphere. But saying that, it's the same almost everywhere in the league. Other than Palace I can't think of anything half decent. I like how German fans are very loud throughout games but something about it just doesn't feel right to me. Often they have someone not actually watching the game and just there to coordinate the singing. Just seems a bit fake to me.

We deserved to lose today. West Brom were exceptional defensively whilst carrying a threat on the counter (mainly set pieces though). Against the teams who sit with 10 men behind the ball it seems we have zero intensity in our attacks unless we are a goal down. It's getting to the point where it's actually easier to win against the better teams who will actually play more open than these type of teams. From where I was it looked like a really soft penalty. I thought the referee was going to book Ramires for diving and was shocked when he gave the pen. Haven't seen any replays on TV but the guys on the radio were saying it was a blatant dive. As a team I thought we were poor, individually poor to average. Lampard in particular was non existent when he was on, other than his yellow he had zero impact on the game. Considering the circumstances of the result I'm so much more relived than disappointed with only a point. West Ham game is a must win now if it wasn't already. Hopefully this is a kick up the backside (another one) for us to sort it out.

Dante was a horror show at Gladbach to, at 29 he was one of the finest ball playing defenders around & led Bayern to the treble. Barzagli was terrible in Germany in his mid to late 20s. Exceptional at Juve in his 30s. Defenders generally tend to peak later than other outfield positions. There's no problem saying Luiz still has potential to be 1 or 2 levels up from where he is at the moment.

Probably because it's the same members being critical every time but there's no sign of them on other threads or when that player in particular has played well.

Everyone was pretty bad today except for Terry. Don't understand the vendetta some fans have against Luiz

Just to clarify, have we signed him now that he's got a work permit or that we've signed him because we're confident he'll get one?

Again I feel you are being too harsh. Against Everton he was average, post 20 minutes vs. Spurs (when everyone was under the cosh) he was good, and against Norwich he was good. We all know what happened vs. Cardiff. His situation in that match wasn't helped when Mata did a needless turn and got caught leading to Luiz's yellow making it difficult for the rest of the match (given the type of CB he is). Very poor is very harsh in my opinion. I only say that because whenever I see you judging a player's performance after a match you've used whoscored 90% of the time to make your point. There's no problem looking and comparing the stats, but it's their rating system that is often flawed. I don't think many will disagree that he's been our worst player. But being the worst player doesn't necessarily mean that you've been performing terribly, just that he's been very average while the others have been better. 1. I don't think I've said once that he should or deserves to play. I was at the game when he made his debut vs. Hull and on the way home I was surprised that he was named MOTM. He doesn't deserve nor should he play based on how he's performed, especially now with our other attacking mids doing well. 2. Fair enough if you think that but just because someone disagrees it doesn't mean that only you are right and anyone who disagrees is just pretending or being dishonest. Anyway, as people have said I think a loan would be better for him rather than staying and fighting for his place, but it's obviously good to see the likes of Cesar, Juan, and Kevin coming out & saying they will fight for their places.

According to whoscored Luiz has been our worst player so far this season but in reality he's been solid in the majority of matches except vs. Cardiff. People need to stop treating their ratings like the bible on how to evaluate performances. On KdB he's been average at best, but to say he's been awful or 'dog shite' is just going too far. Also there's a difference between willingness to track back and actually being good defensively. Hazard, KdB, and Mata have been working very hard when they've played, but they are prolific ball watchers and often lack the awareness to read opposition attacks/runs.

Very impressed so far. Surprisingly good work rate, and with real quality on the ball. The majority of his passing is so crisp! Think him or Schuerrle will start on the right vs. Newcastle to help counter Santon's threat.

Was at the game tonight right next to the Arsenal fans. Expected it to be a bit hostile but then remembered it was Arsenal, and they just sat there all game. Our home support is usually quite quiet but they were just really awful. On the match, really professional display. Everyone worked hard, did what we needed to do to win and nothing more. Don't know how it looked on TV but I thought Bertrand was really good, and Schwarzer caught everything in the air. Really pleasing stuff.