BlueLyon

Such players are sadly outdated in modern football.

He missed quite a few one on one chances here. I dont think he is half as good as people say. Schurrle is not good on the ball, but far more efficient.

Mate, Pep is full of talk. He said chelsea needs 10 new players. Guess what? Every team Pep joins needs 10 new players. He brought 5 (or was it even more) in the summer to city and he will do again next summer, no doubt. He still has to play big games this season and we will see how he does. Im not even a bit certain that he will succeed as people point out. Cl is a different beast and he will struggle against english top sides too. City is playing nice football and they are taking pep philosophy well, no doubt he will crush average sides in premier league more comfortably than any other team, but he will have his time to prove how good he is against better teams, starting wiith Spurs which dominated them whole game. It could easily be 3:0. But everyone goes "it happens" and "it was expected". Meanwhile we lose 3:0 to arsenal and everyone loses their shit. Pep today is a good team builder, but to get on very top, I doubt he will make it in CL, while PL is very possible since it doesnt have as strong teams as it had in past. Not to mention he spent 180 fuckin mio and will spend around 150 next summer Im absolutely certain and then we hear he creates good teams improves teams and results etc. No shit sherlock if he can buy whole new squad. Even Bayern, who won CL and he still bought Thiago, Benatia, Lewa, Douglas, Coman, Xabi, Vidal, Bernat and failed to win CL again. Talk about efficiency. Anceloti bought Hummels and Sanches at the expense of Gotze and Benatia. He didnt go and buy bunch of italians to suit his style personaly and to get players he coached/knew before. Pep gets all the cash in the world to build his squads, he is obviously very smart too, but regardless he has long way to go to be best. He is consistently good and forces his style anywhere he goes, he is regarded modern tactician with great play, but he got barca on very top, which ended bad with Pep not having any plan b, continued with bayern where in 3 years ultimaltely failed to win CL with the squad he built and now with city, another club with shitload of cash to built team he wants. I like Pep and if he was here with cash given, he would balance us, make squad younger, better, quicker, etc. But I doubt he would make us win CL in few years or dominate PL. Big games have to be won not played and Pep ultimately fails with that because he cant adopt to situation on the pitch. He forces opponents to play his game and it works with 90% of clubs, but the very best will exploit his play, wont get scared and wont respect his play. I find it ironic that he said Chelsea needs 10 players when every team he joins, he brings 10 new players and replaces half of squad who dont fit. Long story short, he sold Kroos for Thiago (I know its not all black and white, Kroos felt he wasnt respected by bayern, but at same time Pep didnt give him the role he should get. No wonder he left). Kroos is now two time CL winner and Thiago was always injured when Pep needed him. Ribery was injured alot under Pep and now he is playing very well under Carlo again. Coincidence I think not.

True, he is commited, but he will leave sooner or later. I bet my head he wont stay in atletic more than 2 summers. Tbh I think he is waiting for a move to bigger spanish club, but wants to improve himself first, now he has a place at atletic and just got back after injury, many reasons why he refused city. If there was something realy extraordinary in his commitment he would decide to play for spain if he felt such passion toward basque culture and club, but he chose france. It would be difficult move to pull, but football is football. When time comes, we should at least try because he is a very good CB unless we fix the defense by then.

And yet they are still here...

well things are not always black and white...

He did well at euros indeed, but he was poor in milan for past two years. Poor defending, average when going forward. He can run I admit that but everything else, not so much. He can improve, but he is far from player I expected he will be a few years ago.

Since Laporte refused city, we should be all over him.

True. He is good player, but he would need a bit more ball control and passing to play in midfield. Even Lahm struggled there.

Why is that

De Sciglio is Ivanovic 2.0 I dont want him anywhere near chelsea.

Nah but they will turn up against us for sure. Also one of them will probably score a goal of the season contender. #justchelseathings

I been saying that before it was cool bro. Back in january 2015, but no one believed me. People are now realizing that, slowly.

Fact that he is second in scored goals like you said says alot about the rest of the squad, little about Willian. I will lay my criticism toward Willian for now (after hearing the situation with his mom), but there is no denaying the truth. Considering he is a winger, his work is to create opportunities, cross, dribble etc. Just because he scored second most goals in the team, doesnt mean he can now be excused, because he didnt score 20+ goals to justify his poor overall play. He is still very poor in transition of the ball, which stops most of our attacks. He has his values and when in form he can be a realy good player, but generaly in the time since his arrival, he improved little if any, so the discussion is definately not out of place. Sad thing is, there are other problems we have to face, and if you look at Ivanovic, Cahill, Matic, Oscar, Cesc, Tibo's thread you will see plenty of criticism there too, in that case Willians criticism in this thread is fair too.

Thats true. Tibo had realy good defense in atletico and first season here and did well. Eventualy Cech shown he can do realy well in team with not so good defense, its now on Tibo to show his true worth.

Cech arrived to us at 22 and did well from the beggining.

Tbh Hull conceded 4 against arsenal and 5 against pool and they played poor against us too. Lets not get over with excitement. Its good to see Iva benched and reshape of squad, but we have a long way to go.

People throwing Cesc back in...IMO he is done playing first 11 against top teams and will soon be against smaller ones too. We play Leicester and United next, Cesc should definately not start any of those two games. We would need two Kantes and still, Cesc would not cover enough ground to keep team in balance. Anyway we will need to find longterm solution for our playmaker spot, so its pointless to adjust the system fitting to Cesc. Cant wait to see Zouma and Terry back, then we can start with improving our back line.

Just lost 4:0 to Schalke

Once again it shows you must press teams that like to play possesion football instead of defending against them. Why letting City or barca even more space and time and basicaly invite them to run riot against you. Press them and attack their defence because defence is always the weakest in possesion based teams. Also regarding Stones, I just dont see him as reliable CB yet. Way too physically weak for my liking.

Just in the amount of consecutive poor games... Cech had some realy awful games, but some fantastic aswell in those two years. Tibo is just poor for a very long time. He might not have such terrible games like Cech vs arsenal, but no good ones either. Just poor to average for a while now. Even in certain games when he made some realy good saves, he did a big mistake and concede in the end.

I agree he was below his performances in certain periods. He had brainfarts and he realy went off with Scolari in 2009, but generaly I think he was not that poor as Tibo. In 2008 (2007/08) season he was arguably top 3 GK and same in 2010 (2009/10). IMO, Cech had periods of poor months, inconsistency, but also periods where he was realy good. His performances in CL in 2007/08 were great and like you said he got back to best in 2010. But Tibo had been poor in straight line since last summer. He was injured too, but I dont rember realy good run of at least few games from him since last summer. Since we talked about loss of form for longer time and then coming back to best, yes you are right, Cech was kinda off during those two years (well, IMO he put several brilliant games then still, thats why I wouldnt say he was off for whole 2 year time). But Tibos poor form is on entire different level to Cech.

Which two seasons might that be? (Not that I dont remember his decline, just wondering if we mean the same time)

GG

Well Tibo was poor for season and half now, so its not realy same thing to Cech and Diego. He was good today though.