Moros

The highlights of the match, with a lot of praise to De Bruyne by the commentator: http://rutube.ru/video/bdaa0d331fa9eeccc0b46df249c89b61/ Espescially check out the nice move on 1:17! He's certainly grown. I didn't expect he'd grow this much. I think he should and hope he does get his chances next season. Perhaps he will not be the first one on the team sheet, but he is at a level at which he should be able to get a decent amount time on the pitch. (fingers crossed)

Also nominated for young player of the year, as is Lukaku.

Well if you did some reading you, may had noticed he had time to watch 2 full Chelsea matches last week. So what are blabbering about? Yes sometimes he doesn't have the time to to watch the game. Is that so strange. I don't always manage to watch every game chelsea plays, do you? Sure I can watch the summary or just goals later. But that's not what he was talking about.

Hart is in my eyes better than Courtois, he's a world class keeper. Courtois is certainly becomming one. Hart has a better aerial command and I've seen him do a few thing I've never seen Courtois pull of. And I've been following Thibaut since his debut. The central defenders for me are obviously all Belgian to me. Verthongen is defensive if not better at least on par with all of his English competitors. Attacking wise he is such a plus. Both as a header on corners and indirect free kick as well as a taker of direct free kicks. And then we even forgot to mention his trade mark attacking runs. Kompany might be the best CB in the world, if he isn't he's damn close to being it. Sadly Mancini doesn't allow him to show of the rest of his footballing skills. Johnson and Cole are the obvious contenders for the back positions. Belgium doesn't have any true, natural backs of high quality anyway. Plus Cole might be aging and not be one of the best backs in the world anymore. He still is outstanding. For the DM position it would be Witsel if you ask me. He's actually better at most physical duels than fellaini. Well I guess heading would go to Big Marouane. He's world class potential, sadly he is ruining his growth in Russia. He should've waited for a big English team or something to make a bid for him. CM's I'd like to go for Wilshere and De Bruyne. Both are such great footballers with great vista. With those two in the midfield our passing and possession game would be world class. And like the wise Cruyff said: 'if we got the ball, they can't score.' Wings would be Hazard and Mirallas for me. Sadly the latter hasn't really been able to show how good he is in the BPL yet, due to injury. But he will and he should. CF well there's no one who stands out to much so I'd leave that open to form of the moment and possibly opposition tactics. Hopefully in a few years the answer would be an obvious Lukaku. Thus: Hart Johnson-Kompany-Verthongen-Cole Witsel De Bruyne-Wilshere Mirallas Hazard ?

Liverpool actually if I remember well. He saw the last two games by the way. So it's not that he isn't following us. Like rambo said he just doesn't always has the time. He rather focusses on Werder Bremen for the moment and in his free time he tries to spend time with the family, going to Belgium every time he's able.

To my personal opinion Neymar will likely need a bit more time than Hazard to adapt. His potential might be better than Hazard's, it might not, I find that hard to say. But the way he plays currently wouldn't work in almost any somewhat decent European competition. You just don't get that much space and time, except perhaps in the Netherlands. The ligue 1 is defensively quite a bit better than the brazilian one, not only when it comes to the quality of the players, but even more when it comes to tactical organisation. It also has a higher pace. However there are few players (and we already have two of those!) who are considered to have the potential to become a Messi or Ronaldo level player. Neymar might have it and even if has not, he certainly has talents in abundance. I'd be overjoyed if he joined. But he will need time. Probably more so than Hazard if you ask me. But it would indeed be mouthwatering to have Oscar, Mata, Hazard and Neymar in one team. Especially as time passes and them growing to their potential. They might make us a new Barçelona in a few years as we have multiple possible world beaters. And sure he is marketable, and that will only increase in time. And even at the beginning it will pay of quite a bit as well. Brazil is a big market on its own (it has a population comparable to the US or Europe).

It seems that Bayern Munchen are the most likely the biggest contender. Their two top priority transfer targets are Falcao and Luis Suarez and they have about 280 million euro's put aside for the summer.

Yeah but not chelsea material at least not for the first few years. A physical beast though. Shouldn't go to Twente though they already have enough holding midfielders/defensive midfielders. Twente needs creativity really. But a team of that level and stature wouldn't be bad for him.

Praet is certainly a talent but he's not of the same potential as a Musonda or Bakkali who according to experts have the talent comparable to the likes of Hazard. Musonda has been compared by Boskamp to Iniësta for example. Praet will certainly be too good for the Belgium competition very soon, but I think he'll be more European subtop then real world class. Of course while Musonda and co might have the potential, it also remains to be seen if they will fulfil it. Praet for one has lost personal devolpment due to his move at Anderlecht, he should have gone to a bigger team and get decent experience and better competition in the youth squads or stayed at Genk where would have broken into the first squad a long time ago.

Out of that year there's only one player who regularly played above his age and that Siebe Schrijvers. Who has been dubbed the future's best European striker. I hope they're right. He plays at Genk (who already brought us Courtois and De Bruyne) and has gotten hist first few minutes of play time in the sernior squad. Perreira, Bakali, musonda, Bossaerts and Schrijvers all are very very promising and are all players who could get the level required for Chelsea. Perreira and Bossaerts are at Utd and City, but Bakali and Schrijvers are still at smaller clubs. Bakali is a realistic prosect indeed considering he wants to leave PSV. Schrijvers is unlikely to leave the first few years as he wants to take it step by step and first wants to make a name for himself in tiny Belgium. Which likely will not take that long. We don't have that much talent in -19 and -18, but our -17 is mouthwatering. And I'l not being chauvinistic, okay maybe a little. Edit: almost forgot to mention Allesio Allesandro who went from Genk (which becoming the most productive youth academy in Belgium) to M. City. Who also seems to have a big future.

This type of player? Rather go for Demba ba or Benteke, who's not at Ba's level but already better than Mbokani. Also as has been said many times before horrible attitude. We all wanted to see a new Drogba in Lukaku, well Benteke can fulfil a "Drogba role" on the pitch. Though for January I'd go for experience first. A more targetman is a profile we currently don't have nor do we have a youth player that could take that role. Lukaku is not a targetman. I think we should buy this type of player, but not Mbokani and not (yet) Benteke. Then finally throw out Torres and replace with Falcao.

Dutch journalists and annalists love the guy and think he might indeed have the potential to play at a top club, but they also think he needs at the least a step in between first. Also note that Dutch defending is not quite that good (lately it has even become worse) and due to his physicality he had it rather easy. A bit like Lukaku, though I rate Bony better when it comes to technique.

He is a young player indeed, one who's not that used to the role of CM as much yet. Though it is probably his best position when it comes to potential. But in a team that needs to perform as much as Chelsea, where players as Luiz gets as much critisism as they do, you can't have anyone on the midfield losing possesion as often as he currently does. Especially considering the diffence of level between a team as Düsseldorf to our main competitors. He'll get there sure, but one year is really short to learn and improve as much as will asked of him.

I actually think he will not be completely ready to play for Chelsea, well not as a genuine starter anyway. I think he needs one more year to actually seriously challenge a place in the starting eleven. I think if we could loan him to an EPL subtopper next year that would be best, at least fo his development and even Chelsea's further future. Sadly he can't be loaned out to Werder again, due to clauses in his contract that he can't be loaned out to a foreign team anymore. At least that's what I seem to remember. While De Bruyne has a lot of potential and already can be decisive, he is far from a finished product. He has plenty of bad and average games and can be rather incosistent within a single game as well. Take his last game against Düsseldorf. True if you read Belgian media or read these forums it looks like he was the hero of the game. But actually his first half was rather awfull. He was the person losing the ball, causing Düsseldorf to score. Now while this goal made Bremen start to play better and control the game they still didn't get many chances. To little direct play, to much lateral passes and slow build up (where have we seen that) and De Bruyne who gave the ball away too many times. While Kevin is a bit similar to Hunt when it comes to qualities and role in the team, one clearly sees a difference due to Hunt's maturity as a player. He was outshining De Bruyne in every aspect untill the final minutes. Kevin's second half was better with some good interceptions and a few good passes and possible assists. But only when he scored in 81th minute (if my memory serves me well) he started to play better and show confidence. So while he scored the winning goal, he only played well for 10 minutes. I can't see him playing much here that way. If he loses possesion that often and not help making the team play well as a cm he wouldn't have been on the pitch for that long. Wouldn't have scored either. Also consider Düsseldorf being just promoted. If he can grow a lot by the end of this year then perhaps we could actually use him. But I expect actually that he needs an extra year to actually have good impact. Note I'm not baing this soley on the Düsseldorf game but it was fresh in my memory and accidentally a very good example. He's a good player and I like him very much, especially as I'm a Genk fan as well (and hence see him play for years), but I'm afraid were overrating him a bit due to a few good games/moments, biases media and frankly because we want to see him play well and become good. In his prime I don't doubt he could be a new Lampard. Just don't expect him to be that kind of player yet. In the long run he probably will, some rate him higher than Hazard's potential. Though I find it hard to compare such different players. Judging ones potential is hard enough as it is, is it not? What I think Chelsea needs to do is buy a really good striker, one that can easily adapt to many systems. Possibly a CB as well as they can adapt to many kinds of systems anyway. Sell Malouda which is a no brainer and see if they can put Torres in the deal of the striker they buy. Keep the rest for the summer when we know who will be leading us and how he actually wants to play. We can also better evaluate our recent buys and asses the progress of our young players. We should go for a CL place. You can't go from 6th place of lasr year and become champs right away. Especially when swapping an old team for a new and one that needs to play completely different as well. If we just add a goal getter we'll get our top 4 spot and that's the most important then we can try and take the next step possibly winning the league, if not at least a real title challenge and surviving the CL's group stages.

We're never going to play in a two striker system. One or no strikers. Why would we use two strikers if our midfield is our strength and ball possession is our game? De Ceulaer is not bad but, Mirallas can play the same role as lone striker and would probably be better at it. As a RW or LW well, lets be fair we've got better guys there. Igor doesn't play much, doesn't have a future with the team so that's silly. Better try to integrate our young talented strikers or get used to a system with no real striker. Not change the team for one of our lesser players who will be over 31 in 2014 and likely not even play anymore in the next tournament. Benteke is as good a header as he is, if not better. Also Benteke is much faster. With Hazard, Mertens, Mirallas and Dembele we have people who will get freekicks already anyway. Anyway we're getting way off topic. This is an Hazard thread not a Belgian national squad thread. Sorry for the hijack guys.

Benteke was bad? Uh no. He wasn't. He won most of his duels and played well as a target man. The problem with Belgium was that we may have a lot of possession there's just isn't enough depth. Everyone runs towards the ball instead of finding space or trying to beat the backline. Benteke didn't get many real chances, both of which Lukaku wouldn't have made much use of either. Even less considering his first touch and the little space the striker had. With almost always two or more defenders at him. Only that back pass from Witsel after his little magic was he free to shoot. You could call that a miss, but it was also good defending on the goal line. You're supposed to strike those safely with the inside of your foot. With our playing style and often lack of getting the final pass in, we get a lot of corners. If we put Fellaini and Benteke up on the pitch, we could score quite a few goals by corner. France won in 2000 with their corners, we could do that too, especially considering our players. DeBruyne who has kicked very good corners, long passes/crosses and freekicks and Mertens as well. Add Kompany, Vermaelen, Vertonghen, Fellaini and Benteke and you're set to score a few. Lukaku isn't that bad at this either, but not quite as much as Benteke. More on topic Hazard was good, especially at the beginning of the second half and at time in the first as well. Sadly his little touches of magic didn't result in a goal. Was he the best man on the field? Well no. Witsel from Belgium was better and one can't say that the central defenders of Croatia were bad. Also Gillet strangely enough might be one of the best playing for Belgium especially if we take Wales into account as well. De Bruyne was really excellent when he came in, almost immediately did he play decisive passes and won a few headers as well. Which tells a lot as that is a rather rare sight, it's his weak point. Perhaps he improved that one at Bremen. Courtois wasn't bad either had little work though, but what he did, he did good. Picking out some of the corners/crosses and doing a great rush out of his goal to get the ball before a Croation could. Hazard tried to dribble a bit more, a fantastic back heel and one of his famous turns were almost put to goals. Still came asking the ball to deep at time, didn't always use the spaces efficiently or cleverly and was invisible at times. But when he was, he did good stuff especially on the middle of the pitch. He clearly isn't as effective on the wings, especially not compared to Mertens who put in quite a few good crosses and corners. Perhaps with Fellaini as an extra aerial threat we might have scored one extra.

It's on ROja directa, but not worth downloading. Only got the ball 4 times, during one the referee whistled for a mistake from before. Two good interceptions though. Offensively the only thing to see was his penalty. But he barely played ten minutes so that's quite logical.

I'd be happy to buy back Hazard, KDB, Lulu and Courtois for a few quid, if you really need to get rid of them. The other Belgians "we dubbed" talented did do quite good in EPL, no? (dembele, Fellaini, Kompany, Vermaelen,...) They were older and more experienced though. There aren't many 21 year olds and younger who can take such a big step that quickly. Well except Hazard, but he had a smaller step to take. Seriously though, Lukaku isn't ready for this, you're right. I think he's got the potential though, but he still has a lot of the basic stuff to learn. Anderlecht really failed him in the youth Academy ( thank god Genk does a better job ) where they learned him nothing and just let him use his strenght to boss other youth players around. I remember his former coach, now coach of Copenhagen, he still needed to teach him the very basics. Now playing almost no games and having even less training due to the amount of games Chelsea plays, it only hurts his progress more. I think he should go on loan, but the team should be picked carefully. If they can't help him progress again, he might never really get there. KDB is also not completely on schedule as he just lacks high level experience. He didn't do too bad in CL though, but he did play it safe in those games. Give him playing time and so and he might make some impact already at the end of the season. If not give him a year at right table team in England or a high profile German team and I'm quite sure he comes trough. In other words you're right. Only Hazard seems like a real contender if not guaranteed part of the new starting eleven. But have some faith in youngsters until they have had enough time, experience and chances to impress.

Kevin DB usually needs a bit of time to get his level up, Long passes and shots is one of his specialties normally, Check some of these goals out: Exciting times for Chelsea, especially if you're Belgian as well. Edit: seems I've got to get up in an hour and a half. Better just do all nighter then.

Thorgan had potential to be great, but I guess he didn't make the right choices or in the end didn't really have it in him. Eden Hazrd was ripping through the Ligue 1 at his age, consider what he would have done in Ligue 2. Maybe he will come there eventually, but he sure hadn't developped like his older brother. If Chelsea was to buy a brother of Eden, I'd rather recommend them Kylian.

Hazard would be my first choice. It looks like doesn't feel stress at all when kicking one, you can't tell where's gonna kick and he rarely if ever misses. He scored all 9 penalties for Lille last year and scored two on international duty. I posted this at the Hazard thread already, but it might be worth checking out for you guys as well. from Hazard in the Belgium vs Montenegro international game.

On penalties and Hazard he calmly takes two directly after another in a Internatianal friendly (just a few days before the game against England), as the first was dissallowed due to Belgian player running into the box too quickly.

Kevin De Bruyne isn't a winger. He played there and quite successfully, but that's more due to the low quality of the Belgian league than due to his traits and abilities. For the PL he really doesn't have the speed nor the explosiveness to run past most players in this level. Sure he has technical abilities and skills that would help him do it some times, but he will not have a big impact on the game. Best thing for him would be a central midfielder role, with a somewhat more defensive player with him in the midfield. Play a bit like number ten but not as high up the pitch? Which he is playing now. While he was a great player at the wing for a Belgian club, it is since he's been playing this position that you can really see that he's ten times better than anyone else in Belgium. Though we might indeed be underestimating his defensive capabilities. Currently he has grown quite a bit stronger and has great stamina and helps out much in defence. There are two things that make him a great player. Not his physique, skills, or anything but primarily his ability to think two steps ahead, always finding the best solutions, reading the game, pure creativity. And secondly he just has a great pass and shot, which make him a true playmaker. While I think he could fit into a PL team. I think it would be a bit rushed to give him a place in the starting eleven next year. I'd loan him out for one year to another PL team, but only for one year. Then he should probably be ready to either be part of the starting eleven or to at least play regularly. Though he could possibly be a substitute next year already, I think a loan would be best for his development as playing a lot is so important for young players. At least that's just my opinion, not worth much but whatever.