robsblubot

there is a huge DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack against Dyn (DNS provider) taking place right now. It is affecting several companies and services. http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/10/dos-attack-on-major-dns-provider-brings-internet-to-morning-crawl/

make it later then. With that first touch - if you can call it that - I'm sure he will get a spot in any top team until he can no longer walk. Just drop deeper for more space... Fernandinho... D.Luiz got all the "praise" in the heavy loss to Germany, but Luis Gustavo and especially Fernandinho were the ones (in midfield) getting run past with ease.

heh if we do get thiago silva, you will find out how similar they are. same number of brainfarts - just different ones.

overrated player. Thiago and David Luiz form one of the worst partnerships in defense I've ever seen. Failed for both Brazil and PSG. They are the same player: very technical ball playing defenders which do not and ever will work together.

second that. Also, the team isn't almost ready, in which case a world class playing in a specific position, would take us to the next level. The team is being rebuilt, so the money has to be used wisely. My personal opinion has been that this club has always lacked in strength in depth; even at times when we have good performing starting XI, we don't have a starting XV: we don't have cover of the same caliber and that shows esp in the PL.

right but how can they write stuff like that with a straight face? sounds like a Juventus supported twitted his dream deal and someone a the paper took it.

good money is given for good players. According to the majority here, he's just another mikel... He should be going for 3-5m then.

Aside from very few moments including the nice finish for the goal I though he was pretty poor. hes just too weak and too slow (and not skillful enough) for a cm role imho he can track back ok but it's another thing doing that during 90.

This guy has been a starter for so long and been playing at a high level for a long time. He's been poor lately, but let's not forget how good he has been for us in the past. On his current form, I wonder whether he could've done more to keep playing at a high level. As players age they lose mobility, so they have to work harder and sometimes also drop weight to keep the fat ratio lower than usual - seen players do that which kept them playing for a very long time.

Either our defenders are as lacking as we claim they are, in which case it doesn't take much to vastly improve on them, or they are still good players and so we really need to go for 50m defenders. I think the truth lies somewhere in between: we don't really have to go that high to improve on them and they are not terrible players either - Ivanovic's round form aside.

Henderson is about the same as what we already have. He just plays in a team that is clicking so he looks better than our good/decent players. Ironically, I think Matic (or Kante) would indeed improve liverpool by a lot as they simply don't have a good DM (said good not great), Lucas used to be good, but not after the injuries.

Difficult to compare gk pat completely different stages at their careers... tibo is a lot younger than cech at the position where they peak in their thirties. our squad has several deficiencies and goalkeeping is not one of them.

Good game against hull! had one great player that did not go in, but that's OK. I don't need him to beat 5 player every game, but I want him to participate, look for the ball, link up and harass opponents: he did all that today.

Impressed. good game against hull good tight control and under pressure... body strength and good crosses on top of it.

Had a good game. still hard to think of him as starting material because if his fininishing. Still good player to have around.

Heh fair enough, but you are the one who specified "from above." consider that money and roaman personal preferences can exert influence on members of the staff who the manager relies on for information. in other words, the pressure can be far more subtle than pure briberies - same happens in politics: while bribing is against the law, more and more money flows into politics regardless (lobbying seems very effective).

Ok that's a difficult one to answer because it's down to perception. I believe there are very different kinds of pressure. Here's just some of them: The simplest one is availability: a manager, especially one arriving at the club, can only play whoever is available. Perhaps the club wanted to get rid of some of the deadwood, but there were no buyers (esp at their wages). Some of these same deadwood got more minutes last season than they've seen in quite some time, perhaps to attract a buyer. All speculation, but it is very difficult to sell players when the scouts don't see them perform (good or bad just talk about me). * I've heard a former Serie A club president in brazil, saying that no other than our beloved Scolari (way before Chelsea) was in love with this very grotesque (skilless) holding mid. Who would start in every fucking game. The president tried approaching Scolari directly and indirectly, until one day he (the former president) went to Scolari and told him that the player was gone, because he had received an offer the club could not refuse (the player went on a free transfer). Second, money! I don't pretend to know how these deals work behind the scenes, but I do acknowledge that money exerts influence in all areas, including sports. Does Cahill get a pass for being England international at times? Is it nationalism or simply just a subtle influence of money when a pundit spares him of criticism, so that he's a more valuable "asset" (to his employer, the media) when England plays? Information. This is a very unpopular thing to say and yet the most obvious (to me)... we simply don't have access to the same information they (club/coaches/managers/directors/scouts/agents) do. Perhaps the coaches knew that Sturridge was a time bomb, concerning fitness, and perhaps Liverpool knew that too - hence the lowish fee. Sometimes we ask for the manager to start a player who had a terrible week, for one reason or another, and would never get a start. Obviously the manager cannot let the opponent know what players are available, trained well, slept well, and therefore are more likely to start before every match - opponents would love to know that though. Take Iva for example. He's been a starter for so long, it's unfair to compare him to other players who had much lesser roles at the club. However, at this time he should, at most, be playing a much smaller rotation/backup role than he is now. And yet, there he is with every fucking manager that comes in. The last one is that Chelsea is not a democracy. It's really down to the owner and he is indeed entitled to his personal preferences. It's difficult to know for sure how much that happens, but like you said, there is evidence that it has happened before. At the very least it does happen when he sacks and hires managers.

not only that, but whether they were really mistakes or not isn't really certain. He has made a few questionable decisions, some of them we can assume have been forced by the club. Others are the wishful thinking of pundits and fans who say player Y would have done so much better than player X. Even though when such changes actually take place, the outcome isn't much different. So, even if Y would've been a bit better, would it have been enough for a different outcome? Our performance against Arsenal was so bad, that it's difficult to pin to specific players... as bad as cahill and iva were, Arsenal would have prob scored in different ways, by sheer pressure.

I certainly agree with that, and like I said before, Chalobah should be getting minutes. What if Conte has already tried Chalobah in practice along with Kante? What if Chalobah has been poor in training, or Matic wins every dispute with Chalobah in practice (just making stuff up as I don't know). Or what if Conte is worried about winning some aerial duels esp in set pieces in our area with a squad that is on the short side? I am sure he will make changes and try new players, esp the more ready one like Chalobah, but i don't expect this jump in performance some do. I think if you play Chalobah instead of Matic, for example, the differences would be subtle.

I wouldn't call Mata a youngster or a player I miss terribly unless as a rotation option for whenever hazard is skulking. I do miss all others you mentioned - perhaps Bats will prove to be at the same level or better than lukaku though (pretty young too).

After carefully listening to Conte, I have to say that he's both 100% correct and his strategy, by stating that publicly, is very risky and at most will work once, and only once. If he does reiterate that he will lose players, and with a squad as small as we have, he'd be in dire straights very quick. I don't share the belief that most youngsters can replace senior squad members without a drop, not necessarily in technique but in all other aspects of the game.

I'm not forgetting anything. I don't think Hazard is in the same league as Messi, nor do I think he's an average player who should leave. I call it the way I see it: currently I just don't see much difference between the much maligned players and hazard, because they all look alike when on the pitch. Well Eden is the one doing the least amount of running, that is. which one of them would perform better at Real isn't really something that interests me to be honest.

that's the problem with the grass is always greener... it's a causation that is simply not there. Same thing happened just this week with Fabregas... Honestly, there is an ageless saying in football that when a team has bad results, the best players are always the ones who did not play. Because in the mind of the supporters, this or that player "couldn't possibly done any worse than X." Did you not see how well Oscar did against Arsenal?! Note that "not done any worse" is also not good enough... we need players who would do VASTLY better than the ones currently playing... including Matic.

yes that is the blueprint to play arsenal and we did try following it. We played 10 players behind the ball, let arsenal have the football at all times and hit them in counters. That is the blueprint. One of the issues was that we conceded (gifted) very early which essentially ruined the strategy. We were also not aggressive enough and not incisive enough in counters. Arsenal attacked us with a lot of players because we simply weren't threatening enough in counters. Hazard and Willian were particularly poor helping out the middle - Diego being the only attacking player doing enough in both defense and attack. There are a few questionable tactical decisions and of starting XI to discuss (e.g. why kante sits and matic moves up), but the players selected should be good enough to start and play at a certain level.

players like Neymar, Suarez, lewa, and a lot others Are picked because they did play at a very high level while not surrounded by top class footballers. by stating that he needs more support, you are automatically saying that he's not that great. Bale scored tons of goals playing alongside mediocre players. there is simply no excuse for a performance like this (arsenal). He needs to do more! Not even saying better, but more. btw, barca and Bayern employ players with high work rate who are always involved n the play - not really what hazard is known for. Madrid? Yes he would prob do a lot better there, but then again, anyone would.