Moros

Personally I think it isn't the position we need a transfer the most, but it would be more than welcome. I don't think Willian or Oscar (currently) are up to standard for a team that wants to be the best. Our AM's are okayish for a title contender in the PL, but not even that when we compare it on an international level. Bayern, Barça, Real, City, ... have even better AM's on their benches than we have on the field. The only one to really shine was Hazard (and sadly not the full year). While Oscar still has a lot of growth and development in him Willian and Shürrle aren't really the type of player one would expect in a club with our ambitions. However at this moment a striker and full back should be more important, certainly.

I'd rather not have him. He's just an older version of lukaku but with less talent. He's strong and fast, quite the athlete but doesn't really have the agility or balance Lukaku has. Nor does he have the technical and finishing skills we really want, and should aim for especially considering or playing style. If we want to play counter attacking football all of a sudden, sure bring him in as our 3rd our 2nd choice striker, but then sell most of our other players. If we want to be dominant on the opposition half we should rather go for one with more technique and footballing skills. Bony on that matter out classes him by far, while being at the least his equal in strength and size, as do many others (Benteke for example).

Certainly the rules of boxing and MMA apply in the streets.

Went off injured, hopefully nothing serious.

Actually to be fair, I don't think he did play that badly. Yes he made a defensive error, but then again what do you expect from a player that's pretty much specialized in attacking? Forwards just don't do well there. An interesting statistic was said on Belgium tv when Eto'o committed the penalty error, the 5 last penalties Chelsea conceded in the CL were caused by forwards. You just don't want them to do too much defending. The first goal was certainly an error, but it's a typical error for an offensive player in that position. You see those often enough. They just don't have the concentration and just aren't that used to man marking. Still it was certainly an error. But to me one that is understandable. Especially when you lack games. However I do not agree that Hazard played badly at the other side of the game. When you say he was doubled up by defenders you're actually not telling the truth. Most of the time he was ganged up on by three players. Even if got past the first two the third would have positioned himself so that he could recuperate the ball. Also even if he got past three players he still didn't have anyone to pass to. Are you seriously suggesting that he should be able to get past the double layer of defensive players on his own , especially when pressed at the sidelines, with very little else distracting Athletico's players? That's madness. Chelsea never dared to commit to attack, and hence could barely ever attack effectively against a strong, dangerous side who itself is good at defending and counter attacking. Atheletico was both committed to both attacking and defending. We only to the latter. Which means you've got a lot more defending to do. Which means a lot of players who aren't defenders need to do more defending. Which also means the other side feels safe committing to the attacks and tend to be able to get the ball back quickly if a clearance is made,... Seriously I'm not saying that we per se had the wrong tactics to start out with, but when you need to chase a goal or more against a team who's specialized in counter attacking and perhaps the second best in the world at it (I guess RM showed they are truly the best). Well then you know it's going to be difficult and luck would become a bigger factor than tactics. Hazard made 5 succesfull dribbles (most of all our players, actually it's one dribble away from being the total amount of dribbles made by all our other players). Ge made a few crosses after reaching the backline on his own. But as we usually only have one player (Torres) in the box , he sadly couldn'y reach anyone. Often when ganged up on by multiple players he got free kicks or corners out of them. Which is if we're being honest the best he could do. Even Messi and Ronaldo wouldn't have pulled off dribbles followed by shots on targets from there. Perhaps they could manage a cross, but then... to whom? Except for that he had a passing accuracy of 87% which is the second highest percentage of the players who played a full game. Terry had the best of these lot, but he only made half as many passes. William who played for 77 minutes had 89%, but he as well had about half the amount of passes. Add 4 crosses, 3 accurate long balls and 2 key passes and we can only conclude that his passing game even against such a defensive team was more than good enough. 5 dribbles and 9 times fouled means his dribbling was as well. Cause let's not forget often when he got past players they took him down, so what could he do? He also managed 2 shorts on target, which is again the most of all our players. And while William was involved with the goal, I wouldn't say he was better at attacking on average. No doubt he is better at putting on pressure, tackling and backtracking. But I doubt these were the qualities we bought Hazard for. Whoscored.com one of my favourite sites to go to for post match stats, rated hazard as the best CFC player and the third best man on the pitch. Now that might be a little exaggerated. But I think the site who bases everything on statistics rather than emotions probably gives a better view on reality than our disappointed minds. Was this truly a good game for him? No. But considering the context he did rather well and was far from one of our worse players. Nor was he the only one making defensive errors. And if there's one guy that doesn't need to be criticised to harshly for a defensive error, it's the team's attacking talisman. Who made it possible for us to be at these stages of competitions. Does that mean he shouldn't get any blame. No. But let's not get crazy either. Or are we letting ourselves get mad because he said we are better at counter attacking and compared us to a CL finalist and favourite? Cause that'd just be plain silly. Edit: Note I'm not directing this personally to Didierforever. The you was directed to people in general or in other words the reader of this post.

Unlikeley again couldn't join training, but indeed he did travel to Madrid. If he plays, which I doubt, he won't be a starter.

We already have a team with many young players, some being quite important. But talented as they are they are still working on being more consistent. But as they are young they need to be backed up by other more experienced players, whatever their future potential. The fact that they already fill in important roles in our squads makes it even more important. You just can't have that many young players in a squad, especially when the squad isn't as well balanced and build up yet as it could be. That or we shouldn't make such high demands (finishing near or on the top spot of the PL and getting far in the CL). If Hazard and Oscar grow in their roles for one, that will leave us space to implement new youngsters. Perhaps next year we'll have a Hazard whois even more influential and hopefully a quality striker that will ease our scoring problem, then we'll have much more breathing space and more quickly decided games in which young players can collect their first minutes, integrate into the team and system, earn more experience and show what their worth and work towards a starting spot.

Was absolute beast today. By far MOTM. Who'scored even gave him a 10.0 for his performance. He's getting in form it seems. A bit sad he never was able to get match rythm at the bridge, though it's understandable. A team like chelsea perhaps just can't afford the time to get him performing his best.

Personally I'd be hoping for Lukaku to become the second choice striker. Usually as a supersub, when things are going bad. Occasional starter to rest the first choice or when we expect to not have too much possesion and might want to score on a counterattack. (City away for example) Also Lukaku works pretty well in a 2 striker system, Mourinho often puts on two strikers when we go behind, however it hasn't been working much lately. With Lukaku I could see that change. Piazon however I'd loan out some more for his and our sake. While he starter of pretty well at Vitesse, he's now still in the process of learning to deal with being marked much more (often being doubled up). So he is still learning a lot there and doesn't seem to be yet at a level he could really help us.

Swapping shirts? Outrageous!

Ooh and Traoré. That guy is so young but he's already far better than most of our players out on loan. That kid is going to be a big star.

Welcome Mohamed! Hopefully he can break into the squad in the not too distant future. It'd be a bit sad if too many of our transfers would never have a change at firs team football. That could also only hinder future transfers. Anyway he looks lightening fast and more direct than any of our current AM's and much more of a winger. I hope he can cranck up his stats a little though. But he's young, can grow and has good teacher. Fingers crossed and good luck to him. Also number 15 is a good number for him.

I wish we had 2 of the best 4 strikers on our payroll as well.

Why would you want to loan out someone of that age? Regardless of his talents or possibly being mature for his age, that's not a good idea.

Which is exactly what we needed most. Also Great coach or not. If Belgium goes through the first round, they did well. If they can win the match after that they did very good. But that would already be unlikely any further and they'd have done an amazing job. Face it this tournament is just for them getting to know the feeling and the experience. 4 years later, when the foundations are made, experience is there and the players have grown, then they need a tactician and possibly go far. Now they should just have some fun surviving the first round. And so should we.

Krisof Terreur posted on twitter that Kevin's manager has denied Man Utd contact.

Eden on the left though, he so much more dangerous on that side.

Yes the gap is huge. Ask Debruyne. His brother will win the golden boot though. He's by far the best player of the league.

No this is bull. The man quoted said it in jest. They were talking about how some of Belgium's NT players weren't getting enough playtime. He just said well KDB is always welcome. And of course if KDB and Chelsea would ask, sure they would say yes. But everyone knows that there are enough teams in both the Premier league and the Bundesliga who wouldn't mind loaning KDB. Even if they wouldn't want (small chance) him Chelsea would be more inclined to send him to vitesse to secure the title in the Netherlands. Helping to increase the value and experience of some of the Chelsea players there. And of course there hasn't been no talk of loaning out yet.

Shouldn't we expect that kind of stuff from Oscar, Mata, William,... as well?

Yes Hazard had nothing to do with both goals.

Was phenomenal today, only played like half an hour or something, still man of the match. Well at least my man of the match, not sure who got official title, if there is one.

Gutted. Just gutted.

Here are the highlights: http://nieuws.vtm.be/stadion/60388-krc-genk-zulte-waregem

Bloody frustrating. Also can we get Lukaku back in january?