robsblubot

No, they are not the same... esp this one would rather RLC stayed and Baka never came. Though sometimes players request playing time that the club cannot provide, hence loans are inevitable. RLC is 21 and bats is 24. One can improve a lot, while the other should already have been playing close to his potential. Let me present another example to illustrate my point: Bats consistently shows too much of the football when he plays; far more than Salah when he was with us. That's not decision making, but poor technique.

Haha fun list! ok Carlton cole may have a say... Should have said, in recent memory. No, Torres was better in his overall play even if his lack of pace hurt his ability to score. sheva had no pace left when he joined us...

We are just not very good at the moment. Too many players playing below the required level. Which I always think is one of the downsides of having a small squad: not many options for tweaks. playing hazard as false nine makes no sense to me. Pedro would potentially work better as he has little else to his game than finishing and pace. agree with many who said our midfield lacks creativity and that shows. i actually think we are missing David because his attacking flair helped balance the team which is a tad defensive considering the level of most opposition in the pl. @communicate I think exactly the opposite: aside from good overall technique which produces linkup play, the main thing Alonso brings is a threat (goals).

hmm not sure what else to say... I've watched him play enough times and think he's terrible: a no-skill player who can only run and shoot. The worst striker I've seen play for Chelsea without a doubt and one of the worst players too. I really can't comment on what I don't see or hear, so my opinion is indeed based on what I've seen of him thus far. Wow! For me Morata is literally twice the player. And I also think Morata needs to improve. Ball retention, passing, heading, turning, dribbling. Morata is better at pretty much every technical skill you can think of. The same reason you can say I have not seen enough of Bats, I can suggest Bats finishing stats might be misleading too, because starting games can be very different. ^^ Lukaku is still far better than Bats though. Although they share similar technical shortcomings, Lukaku still resembles a footballer. * Belgium really deserved better striker options IMO. Such quality team missing in a key position.

Disagree. I think he's completely out of his depth and the sooner we sell him the better. His value will only decrease as he plays fewer and fewer minutes esp if we sign someone in Jan. He's just not a very good player and does not belong at this level. And he's 24 now and should've been approaching his best years as a footballer, esp a forwarder.

nice of Rudiger to make the mistake for the Huddersfield goal - good way to support the youth. Agreed ^^ He does look composed and good on the ball, esp at his age.

yeah get a faster LB and move Alonso to the middle - transition should not be difficult considering his passing and overall technique is good. Can be cover for both positions... done thousand times before. Now do we want defensive LB in our current 3 cb formation? That usually doesn't work. Sandro of course is a top player, so that's going to a diff signing.

shamelessly and sadly quoting myself here... yes, from 2014... Sadly because I don't understand how this club loses so many good players.

well there is more to being a striker than goals. Morata can contribute more in tightly marked games than lukaku who thrives with space for runs and overpowering players. Lukaku's struggles are not really surprising to some of us who have said his characteristics are more adequate for smaller outfits, who see themselves countering a lot. He won't see much of that at United. He's not a terrible player, but he's not great either considering his overall poor technique. To your point Morata is not great either, but his good overall technique might suggest a higher ceiling.

The key player thing is very nuanced. Argentina, despite good overall quality in the squad had been playing like shit in WCQ, like Italy level of shit. Then Messi shows up and qualifies them with 3 goals when needed. Still, I cannot say that argentina would not have qualified without messi. Because without him, they might have had more cohesion, and become a better team without depending so much on a single player. It is a team sport. Now, of course they would be more likely to win a WC with messi on the team. well we agree on the last point for sure. Our staff like big strong players - technical ability does not seem as important to them. On Mourinho, I don't blame him for losing the players; I blame the club. He's known for rarely rotating and rarely giving minutes to youngsters. If a manager refuses to give play time to promising youngsters, he should be sacked even while bringing the results. Long-term vision should always take precedence... do we have one?

Fair enough on city. yes but the how much the key player may depend on his teammates varies a lot, not only by quality but also characteristics. Sorry I just cannot bring Messi into this... different world imo. Neither would I bring WHU as many of the players we criticize at chelsea would be key players there. even Hazard would not come to chelsea at this time. The point I always make is that you have to sign them young and keep them. imagine if we had kept KDB and Salah? Say instead of keeping hazard... would it be worse? I don’t know. Better keeping all 3 but perhaps resources play a part too. The club has no talent to build a quality squad though.

While you make a good point around the importance of the key player, I don't think the answer is all that black and white. Tottenham, the club, is not a good example because they haven't really achieve top tier status just yet. They've been working towards that goal, but it literally comes with trophies and knowhow as of how to repeat that. Liverpool is interesting in that, their issues stem from poor defending as they've always managed to find talent up front. City is a more interesting comparison IMO: they also don't have a particular key player. Wouldn't say any of their players is better than Hazard, but they have many players in their squad who are not far behind hazard in terms of ability to influence games. And yet they are the vastly superior team incidentally because it's more difficult to stop them. I honestly don't think this club is capable of filling the squad with quality players in every position and every time we add quality we lose some. So my questioning of Eden's usefulness to a side like ours comes from your own point of him being dependent of having quality players around him, which we do not have and will likely not have in the future. A different type of, or a better, key player might be able to do more on his own, with long shooting for example, creative passing, direct dribbling, but the point (whether accurate or not) was that blaming the overall poor quality of the team points to the fact Eden depends on teammates to play to his potential. Unless of course, it was just an excuse after a subpar performance.

It's funny because my read of the many posts here is that Chelsea should sell Hazard, which is probably not the intention of the authors. There are obvious drawbacks of playing with a centralized key player in a free role: it's a single big target to be stopped. It's even more of drawback when the team lacks overall quality esp in attack. The problem: some think (I do not) that Eden's genius is being limited by the poor overall quality around him. So, considering that the overall quality around him hasn't really changed that much over time, which perhaps suggests the club has reached its limit in terms of spending, then we have to fix the problem in a different way: controversial, I know, but wouldn't the club benefit more by having 2-3 quality players, as opposed to one key player? Now (wildly) assuming our board has the talent to sign 2-3 quality players by selling Hazard (plus some cash lying around). If all were true, and we ended up with more quality players in numbers, then it could be indeed beneficial to the team.

Is it half a second longer to make decisions, or half a second longer to fully control the football? Isn't the latter more likely, that his first touch is not great and that his overall technique is making it harder to adjust to a faster paced league? Players with better technique can more easily adapt to new leagues and their peculiarities.

he's not there to really shoot, even though he would be a more complete player if he could shoot esp from outside the box. He created very little for the team. Wide, centrally, I don't really care. That's for him to figure out during the game. it's part of being creative: finding out solutions when things are difficult. In the PL we mostly have all possession agaist the shitty sides like WHU. PL games are fast and competitive, but these smaller sides have a lot of really technically poor players. fair, we disagree on real and barca because when people make these comparisons, like you are doing, they don't mention that there are far fewer players doing the dirty work in those teams, esp barca. All have to pull their weight and I happen to be believe that is the most glaring weaknesses in Eden's game... I guess we may find out if he ever makes it there. Of course not! The fact that our best player (key player with the most freedom) created very little for himself and for his teammates while we had 70% of possession for over 45 minutes, had nothing to do with our failure to score against a very poor side... It's a team sport. They all lost, including Eden. And it's not like he produced assists and hit the post twice, right? He was poor considering his level and what he normally does.

Heh thought I just did that in my previous post. outpacing players wasn’t possible since you said yourself they were defending deep. I for one, would like very much if he could shoot on target and with more power. That’s a skill he lacks esp long shots. His finishing really lets him down sometimes, he could also have tried to be more direct and beat players, running towards the. goal and not so much sideways... sure way to beat a deep defense. Perhaps I am wrong and expecting too much from him. i just don’t buy that he is genius among poor players, which prevents him from showing his true potential. Almost makes me want him to move to Barca or real just to find out how much of that is true. I honestly don’t think his game would drastically change.

This, WHU, was a very poor performance by hazard, and most other players, with perhaps only Kante playing at a normal level. he does not get a pass from me though. should’ve tried to be more creative mixing things up when his usual dribbling game is not effective like today.

we will likely open talks with him and his agent in january - by then even his dog will be wearing Barcelona's jersey.

decent performance in the video where he looks more like Kante, but we already had one and better (kante). And now have another player in the same mold in Drinkwater. What we don't have is the pogbas, iniestas, Verratis. Fabregas nowadays is backup, rotation at best. Those type of players (skillful mids) are indeed difficult to find, so you either buy the expensive proven, or you make bets: we do neither.

https://twitter.com/EiFsoccer/status/934497704478208002 Seriously though, even though atm the above isn't that far off, we've been discussing different things here: a) can he become/conte make him a good player? perhaps. Not great, but good. b ) even if he becomes a good player one day, what type of player would he be? A lesser Kante, or a Matic type with less technique and more physique? I am personally more interested in b ) above. We bought the wrong player IMO.

regardless of how you feel about him, being good enough or not, he's been poor lately and def not as good as last season.

So, Gremio beat Lanus 2x1 in argentina to win libertadores cup with Arthur Melo as MotM until picking up an injury and leaving early second half when 2x0. Commentators said that Arthur was unplayable in the first half. They will be playing WCC (perhaps facing Real Madrid) in two weeks - hope arthur is fit again. Luan (24, also target of many clubs) scored a beautiful goal and was chosen best Libertadores player. I hope we are serious about this target... I always say this, but you cannot buy quality players: either they don't want to leave or their clubs don't want to sell them. Have to make bets on the likes of this 21 yo prodigy.... arthur is out of the WCC with an ankle injury and heavily linked with Barcelona.

Was trying hard to avoid making that comparison, unfair to the kid, but yes that’s what I’ve heard.

great striker quality is never available - you'd need to either break the bank to steal one from a top club, or find one still a bit green and develop/bet on him. out of the bunch, we did very well considering price, age and overall technical ability. End of the day, we still play with 11 players when Morata is not scoring... Lukaku is the simplest of the bunch and perhaps (IMO) a player more suited for the PL.

I am a gremio supporter, but haven't seen Arthur much aside from highlights tbh. I've heard a lot about him from the southern brazilian press: he's quick, mobile, and very technical mid. A bit on the short side, but fairly strong and is not easily outmuscled out of plays. Seems like the all rounder we've been asking for a long time. Of course, he's only 21, so lots to learn. He's been doing well in the libertadores cup, which is far more physical than the Brasileiro. Gremio will play Lanus in Argentina tomorrow for the second leg of the final (first was 1x0 in Porto Alegre). Personally I think that the 1 goal lead might not be enough esp since they will be missing their Argentine CB (suspended). We shall see.