robsblubot

Lavezzi seems like a Mourinho player alright the only minor detail is that he's no longer our manager...

That to me translates to less purchasing power - you are just providing the reasons. i agree with you that these changes are necessary, but we need to get used to how things are Atm.

The signs are there: our purchasing power isn't the same. need to used to the new norm

You guys just don't get it. oscar does a job - it may be a stupid job - but it is his and his alone. Oscar is Mikel... he keeps things ticking ... His game is just too subtle for some folks here. now I'd begin my sandwich analogy, but just don't have the stomach for it

Very similar to Torres... with us he did not suffered any injury, but all those injuries had already taken their toll. Same with Pato... The only thing he has over Torres is that Pato is younger and can recover some of his power and pace still. I don't think he can ever touch that original amazing potential though. Another expensive Bet.

sure it might work out great, but my point remains it's fairly wild bet... just like Falcao and Torres before that. Wages don't matter so much when they aren't good enough - the average cheap player ends up playing and producing nothing.

The selection of a player - of course! - depends on what options are available! Would Matic be an automatic starter in every top team in the world? Of course not! But he'd fare well in many... can't say the same of others... and it's not mikel only - Ramires too. That's exactly how I feel about your opinion about him... Good to know you also don't care about market value... that's precisely the part I found illogical about your opinion. Once again, Ivanovic has not been great, what does that say about the ones on the bench? So, you trust the manager for selecting Mikel - despite his pretty low key history at the club - and then you say he is wrong (both him and Jose) for selecting Ivanovic? I have to believe they all see that there are no other viable option for the position... otherwise the club would be a joke.

despite fantasies running rampant, Azpi on the left and Iva on the right are still lour best fullbacks. Iva will never go back to the good player he once was, but he is no longer the walking liability that he was in the beginning of the season. WHether we should do better - different discussion.

Right, but there are certain tiers in market value... some around here completely ignore it to qualify a player and I personally find that a bit silly. Messi has the highest market value for a footballer on earth for a reason. Oh helping the team to ... what exactly? What are we aiming for? not to drop? then yeah I should be grateful to the legend Mikel and his fantastic football; I can't see or remember anything remarkable he does, but hey the fault is certainly mine. Please spare me with the Mikel rhetoric of key player and key role - it went stale 5 years ago. Unfortunately for me, because I have a hard time watching us play like shit over and over again against mid and smaller teams at the bridge and then coming here and celebrating draws and 3 goals against. But I forget I am required to praise both Hiddink and Mikel who have the easiest job on earth. You can't keep a player who's market value is in the 30-40m on the bench because he won't stay on the bench. He will hand in a transfer request eventually so why bother? Mikel accepts his long absences because he has no better option. Matic, however, does. That's another place market value matters: pecking order. Jose was right in one thing: you recover your best players on the pitch. Worked with Ivanovic and would've worked with Matic and Hazard.

no of course not, but reading some posts on this site would led you to believe that nonsense. I was not referring to your post, though you did kinda imply it with your 'shocking' statement... but since you quoted mine, you also kinda negated your own point within the same post: Matic positioning was nonexistent perhaps because he was not supposed to hold position... having a player next to him who can do nothing but hold position seems like reason enough for Hiddink to tell him to roam around. my point remains we were crap before Matic and we were just as crappy after he left (results only show how crappy we've been). And yet this thread remains pretty busy. of course after 10 years and one pl goal Mikel has become the answer to our problems... I jsut can't take this very seriously. I think Matic must be sold right now! I mean in Jan. Because if he is not good enough to start ahead of mikel then he needs to go. And since other clubs and managers are not as crazy as well are, rumor has it they may actually pay good money for Matic... gasp! So, why not sell him if he is not good enough? now now... don't go asking 45M euros for him, because that'd be insane... According to TC Matic is worth around 10m. I mean it's going to be just one more mistake the club makes. Letting talent go and sticking with the average... the filler. We do love our consistent fillers around here.

Yeah we defended so much better after he left... By only conceding 2 more goals... ths forum...

Oscar was average - at least he played at a high intensity. Oscar coming on changed the shape of the team. It's not a difficult concept to grasp... another CAM might have done the same, more, or less. There is no way to find out. Most of the time it aint about individuals, but tactics and intent. BTW, we lost the game - just got a lucky point at the end with refs help. We are Everton.

We were not in the relegation zone. you have an opinion that not changing managers would cause us to go down - I disagree. I agree that changing managers marginally improved things, because some players did not want to play for Jose - which also empowers them now. Jose did not create this mess - the players and the club did. He is partially responsible, of course. players were unfit at the start of the season - they've been slowly getting into shape with or without Jose . Some of today's 'improvement' comes from Jose training sessions. Hiddink is using the same players Jose used before at one time or another. Btw I see no drastic improvement under Hiddink. Just the same shit I've been seeing under Jose. Chelsea is barely watchable these days. if you are not a fan u don't watch us play. we are wasting precious time.

sure put city, liverpool, and arsenal in the same bucket as Everton and smaller sides... like I said you compare completely unequal things to make a point. The difference between Chelsea and these smallers sides is just too great for me to accept that Hiddink was necessary - a pretty average manager these days at that. and how much of the progress we see now was from Jose work? I am not making a point now - just disagreeing with you and the whole idea.

That's even more pointless... Mourinho was also improving the team... so if you skip N games from the start of the season, his numbers would also be in the right direction. If HIddink was hired for that goal he got the easiest job on earth. BTW, you keep saying Matic is not world class, but that's really not the point is it?

sorry but these stats are pointless... you are comparing unequal situations. do you know how Hiddink would have fared when getting fat players at the start of the season? Because I don't, but suspect that it would have been pretty much just as bad.

Very difficult to buy that though - u buy a prospect like stones and hope he develops a sense of when to do what. Reckon with ball playing defenses Kompany is as good as it gets - still not good enough for some.

Gotta decide if we want another row z defender or one who plays football like Stones. You can't go both ways... Without going I I extremes like luiz, ball playing defenders will incur into more risk and that's expected even welcomed. Complaints like that Kompany makes more mistakes than Cahill make no sense to me. Stones is very technical - that's the type of defender he is. And a very good one at that esp considering his age.

That'd be giving way too much praise to people's opinions around here. There something called reality out there: pecking order, transfer market, valuations... There is a reason Hiddink career has been waining. There is really no comparison between Jose's and Hiddinks career especially lately. And I am hardly a fan of The football Jose usually produces. We are making no progress. We are playing 28yo squad players while the youngsters get no minutes or are loaned away. We are not finding solutions to our problems merely creating new ones. One of the few good players we had will be leaving soon opening yet another hole in the squad. dark times ahead.

Although I agree that his passing is, and has always been, subpar, he plays in a very high tempo. Everything becomes more difficult, including passing, when you are always on the move and always running/sprinting into contested areas - getting bumped along the way. In that regard we got exactly the player we bought - he has not changed his style over the years. Now if he demands to be in the starting XI, then he needs to go. Rotation would be OK, but we don't really rotate at Chelsea.

he's in top form as Torres got in top form for us... after 50 muscle injuries his top form for us was about 70% of his top form at pool... Pato at Milan could be any player on pace... not anymore. And yes, the brazilian league is on the slow side - seira A style - so Pato will struggle.

Must be a Spanish thing then BTW, I am quite certain that if Matic doesn't play enough games he will hand in his transfer request. So, I hope we know exactly what we are doing, because he will do very well at Juventus or elsewhere - perhaps another PL club? Sought after players don't stay on the bench for long because they (and their agents) know that their market value will diminish if they don't play.

Indeed! It does not establish correlation (one out of 11+) much less causation. take the last match as an example: the double defensive cms was a manager option and it did not work. had he (manager) opted for not replacing fabregas and things might have happened ... in the exact same way, because we were under pressure and that was the main cause! We might have even lost the match had Fabregas stayed on. we just don't know and it's also silly to pretend we do. Now, why we cannot impose ourselves is a team discussion, not about an individual. Personally I would not field any player wearing that stupid mask. I don't believe they can play at the same level wearing it - unless it's Torres.

his story - injuries slowly chipping away his blazing pace - is scaringly similar to Torres'...

agreed - waste of time. However, Rodgers would not take an interim job. I'd still hire him as a manager at much lower wages than a top manager and see what happens. If he fails, replace him as usual, otherwise it's a big win. Of course we are playing below our level, but the squad is pretty bad (numbers and quality) - it has no business in Europe. Concerning your discussion about Matic, I wonder how they explain, logically, that the same player they call shit played so well for a whole year and a half, is priced in the 30+ millions, and is sought after... then I stop wondering because perhaps there is no logic to it.