Leif

I don't think the injury will be bad. The club website will likely say it's a 8 week or so injury but I expect him to be back in more like 6 weeks if not a week or 2 sooner. Regardless when he comes back it is absolutely clear he will end up being a vital player.

Yep. Lukaku keeps waiting in-line with the opposition's defenders trying to break a non-existent offside trap. He's waiting for the defenders to step forward and leave space behind them but they're not doing it. That's how both Lukaku and Torres play. They need loads of space to exploit and that is space you don't get vs. small opposition. He got this at West Brom however since they are a 'small' club who don't perform great and thus were pressed by opposition teams much more, which lead to them leaving said space behind for him to take advantage of. He's refusing to adapt and just keeps waiting, waiting, waiting. When he does get the ball, he's losing it half the time - against this weak opposition, as you say. One of Rooney's best traits is working with the ball in tight spaces, where Lukaku often fails due to a less-than-good first touch and ball-control, and often does that whole 'make something out of nothing' magic which only some strikers do consistently. Lukaku and Torres are both blueprint strikers for a counter-attacking team. We're a possession-based team - something Rooney is the blueprint striker for.

I didn't write him off.

Lukaku is killing this system. Torres wouldn't do too much better but he'd be more used to this style definitely. It should be blatantly obvious to everyone right now why Rooney is wanted. This system though is basically built for a player like Oscar. Central, of course. None of that 'pivot' rubbish.

Traore grabbing his chance (much like Wallace in our last game), something the likes of Piazon, McEachran etc. continue to fail to do.

Lukaku is piss when he plays for us.

What do you mean though 'since Chelsea youth'? He kinda still is Chelsea youth. One loan in the Championship doesn't change that. He also continues to play in the heart of defence for the England U21 team.

There's plenty of choice. Terry, Ivanovic, Cahill, Chalobah who is a defender, Kalas. This is pre-season. Typically where players are tested in the positions they're expected to play in. Hence why you won't see Wallace as a winger or Moses as an attacking midfielder. Everyone's being played in their position.

Looks like me and Jose share the same opinion that Chalobah's future will only exist at this club if he plays in defence.

Who the fuck in 2010 would have thought we'd one day have Rooney and Torres in our team with Drogba potentially returning too in a player-coach role. Regardless how much any of these three players may have declined it is quite surreal if you reflect a little bit.

Like Torres, he will repay the transfer fee in kit sales & merchandise alone. Also all his 'independent' deals (which he has a lot of) have stipulations where a certain percentage of whatever Rooney is paid from them goes to the club. Something like 20%. The only potential issue or worry worth mulling over is wages. The transfer fee quite frankly is irrelevant when you sign a proper top player who's a brand themselves, regardless whether they're at their peak or not. We could have (potentially) signed Beckham from LA Galaxy for £20m and would have made that money back.

Bertrand has over 200 professional games and Kalas plays for the senior international team after over 60 games in Holland. Wallace was arguably our best or at least 2nd best player in our last game and Chalobah was one of the best players in the Championship last season. He's captained at every single youth level, usually in age groups much older than what he actually was at those times. Inexperienced Lacking leadership

Figo. Laudrup. Luis Enrique.

9 & 26 are Torres and Terry, both likely to be in a Sun story saying they're not in Mou's plans.

I'm actually really curious as to how Ivan will be deployed now. My memory is awful, but I'm pretty sure he never got to play under Mourinho as he was bought after his departure, yes? All I know is Jose is smart enough (I hope) to not partner him with Cahill - ever. I'd rather a Schwarzer - Cahill/Ivanovic partnership, as unorthodox as that would be.

I'm guessing Rob will say something about possible interest in Torres from a foreign club which will never materialise.

If Rooney is on this 'decline' so many people talk about, why are the Premier League champions so apprehensive about him leaving?

Won't be surprised if his legs get broken in this league.

While some feel he's overrated I feel he's horribly underrated. It's actually sad. The move to Madrid really affected him. They made him a much more static striker and the inconsistency of in-and-out of the team mentality which was used with the strikers means he had trouble finding his feet and thus missed some sitters when coming into the team after being frozen out for 5 or more games. That said, despite being used so much as a back-up or rotation option, he is Real Madrid's third highest goalscorer since Emilio Butragueño who broke into the Real Madrid team in 1983. Since Butragueño's time with the club ended in 1994, only Cristano Ronaldo and Raul have more goals for the club than him. Yep. In 5 seasons Higuain has more goals than the Ronaldo had at Real Madrid in the same amount of time. Difference is, Ronaldo arrived at Madrid being one of the best strikers in the world whereas Higuain arrived from the bloody Argentinian league. Messi has 35 goals in 82 games for Argentina. Aguero has 18 goals in 45 games for Argentina. Higuain has 20 goals in 32 games for Argentina. That's a huge difference in goal-to-game ratio in favour of Higuain who's been in the team for 4 years less than the always prolific Messi and 7 years less than Aguero. Higuain should have been Argentina's answer to Spain's Raul. He's been mismanaged by both managers and members of the Real Madrid board who always favoured Benzema for some bizarre reason. If he arrives here and starts to play consistently again I'm quite positive he'll regain that once-electric pace he possessed in Argentina and his crisp finishing which is amongst the best in the world should follow.

Sativa is now my favourite pre-workout, err, 'supplement'. It gives such energy and euphoria. If you're naive you'll overdo it though. It almost completely eradicates pain for 2-3 hours. Obviously it's not for most people, but it is for me. Glad I decided to start vaporizing. Helps with pain, anxiety, depression, laziness, pain, headaches, stress. For this post let's say I'm in California or Amsterdam so there's nothing dodgy about it

What I see in De Bruyne is a more versatile David Beckham with more pace, not quite as good set-pieces (but close enough to that godly level Beckham once possessed) and better shooting. Both were never very good defensively but manage to make it work if deployed in a central or deep role. Both are gods at crossing. Both are magicians with long passes. Both have an awareness and vision which is oh-so rare. Only 1 inch difference in height. Both are incredibly 2 footed. Sure, Beckham was deployed as an actual right-sided midfielder where-as De Bruyne has been deployed as more of a proper winger, but I really think they have uncanny similarities. Feel free to compare De Bruyne to another 'great' if there's someone he's more similar to, but I think it'll be a struggle coming up with someone.

Just want to say for anyone who cares, I've kinda been reading up on AS Roma's whole transfer policy and business model for around a season now (it's very easy to do, ask any Roma fan). Like us in the past, the manager gets little to no say when it comes to transfers. Their manager could say "I'm not going to sell Pjanic" and then the next day he could be sold to Arsenal in exchange for an U12 player. Their transfer dealings are amongst the worst in Serie A. Or at least, they were before this transfer window (they've made some smart signings in Benatia, Strootman, Maicon.) That said, and my point is, regardless whether their manager says he wants to keep/sell a player, just dismiss it. It means absolutely nothing at the club. Whoever the board don't like will be sold or frozen out of the team even without the manager being told. While it's true that De Rossi's problems were mainly with the previous manager, he does have direct problems with the people on the board and, like Osvaldo, they want him gone. De Rossi unlike Osvaldo however has a lot of self respect and won't let them give him the Osvaldo treatment, thus he is likely will leave.

Monaco apparently set to sign Hulk.

The exact reason I was originally against the Schurrle transfer was being repeated over and over by the co-commentator (who was rather pessimistic it must be said) throughout the first half. Predictable player (cut inside to get on his right every. single. time.) and constantly tried too much when he should have just made such a simple pass. It was infuriating. I hated it. It was like watching Sturridge during his time here with less flair but more work rate. I am not having a jab at him. It's just my view from this one game. I know someone will pop up and mention a fancy flick he did within the opening 5 minutes but if you look at it with a broader view I think it was a below average game even for a pre-season game for him. That said, I did welcome his tracking back. Cole looked incredibly comfortable with Schurrle ahead of him because of the cover they gave eachother. If this game is a preview of a pattern which will repeat itself, I'm thinking Schurrle should be a squad player with our '3' being Hazard - Mata - De Bruyne. Anyway, My top 3 from the game: 1: De Bruyne 2: Wallace 3: Essien (more because he surprised me with his performance than anything else) 3 biggest let-downs (from least let-down to biggest let-down): 1: Moses 2: Schurrle 3: Ba

(Sorry if this isn't allowed to be discussed. If so just throw a potato at me or something.) Warrington council have released their "it's not just a joint" campaign. It contains a lot of misinformation, including "Cannabis is now stronger than heroin". I can't believe they actually went and said something so dangerous. What if kids see that and start to think heroin is safer than cannabis? What if someone comes up to some 16 year old guy and says "I've got cannabis and I've got heroin, which one you want?" and he chooses heroin because this told him cannabis is more dangerous? As soon as this got out there was a HUGE backlash on Facebook with hundreds of cannabis users going onto their page requesting proof and studies to back up their claims. Needless to say they couldn't provide any and they actually shut down their Facebook page temporarily. They said they're going to "review" the campaign.