Leif

... This made sense before we had Mata. He tracks back lots but I couldn't see him being a winger for us due to his lack of pace & stamina which seems to have gone down since moving to Madrid for some reason, so unless he's an incredible luxury option for when we rest Mata, I don't understand this.

1 possible blessing in disguise from this injury - less chance of Barcelona using the buy-back clause which I believe will expire after next season(?).

Instead of splashing out absolute tens of millions on a striker, can't we just try snapping up Klose or Di Natale? They play like they're both 28.

If we discount personality traits, I feel like he's the closest player to Drogba I've ever seen. Obviously we don't want to always 'live in the past', but I feel like we're in need of a Complete Striker - which Cavani clearly is and Drogba clearly was for us. Cavani often has lengthy periods of being hot and cold though. Obviously it will be debated, but I genuinely believe that during his 'hot' periods, he's better than every forward in the world apart from Messi. He brings so much to the team including finishing better than most strikers on the planet. I'd pay Falcao-figures for Cavani - but not those Falcao-figures for Falcao.

HE WAS REALLY IN IKEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT IS CLEARLY THE BACK OF HIS HEAD! :blue scalf: :blue scalf: :blue scalf: :blue scalf:

I absolutely love it when news comes out that he's been in Ikea or gone out and bought some milk It gets me so excited.

Can I get my name changed to JuansBeard+? It just sounds sexy A.F. (Yes i'm being serious)

I WAS CONFUSED GUYS OK. I FORGOT THAT THE FACT WE SCORED, REGARDLESS IF ITS AN OWN-GOAL OR NOT, IT ADDS POSITIVELY TO OUR GD FFS

In theory, giving Mata an assist instead of a goal could, although very unlikely, make us miss out on the top 4 due to GD and that annoys me.

I'd rather Arsenal in the CL than Tottenham so hopefully that happens. 1: If Tottenham miss out on the CL, there's a higher chance of bye-bye Bale and Tottenham reverting to their former mid-table status. 2: It would just be incredibly funny to make them miss out on the CL yet again

He wasn't laying on the ground. He was brought to the ground by Rafael's foul. He couldn't fight gravity like Superman and stay up. So it was Rafael's doing which had Luiz on the ground. He probably experienced some pain so obviously grabbed his ankle as any normal human being would do, especially when it's the body part you've made your career out of. Smiling is a fine expression and should be applauded. If he knows that the opposition's player has just committed a red-card worthy foul and is about to get sent off, there's nothing wrong with expressing some sort of relief or joy, especially when you're minutes away from a huge win. I also didn't say doing whatever he's 'done' gets you a good rep. I simply said what other players do gets them a bad rep. Luiz didn't do the 'opposite' of other players; he simply did something different. Therefore it's not automatically 'good' just because what others do is 'bad'. It's just neutral depending on what you like/don't like to see in football.

Isn't this the first PL home game for Manchester United in many, many years where they've failed to score at home? Or was that record broken already and I missed it?

It's not quite as black and white as that. You know fine well that there's an always ongoing discussion in the Mikel thread. You also know there's people on here who always preach that he 'helps the defence' and 'does his role well'. Well I'm just reminding everyone that since he's been dropped, injured, whatever - Since he's been out of the team, we've gone on a consistent run of beating teams. We're consistently average with him playing. We're consistently above-average when he's where he belongs.

Rafael fouled Luiz. He got the red card he deserved for what he did. You don't give out red cards based on how much pain, if any, the other player is in; which is why so many red cards are given for small things like pulling the opposition's clothing or giving them a slight nudge when you're the last defender. You give/get a red card simply down to what was committed or intended by a player. People say it was unsporting of Luiz to smile - so should he have faked serious pain, put on a crying face and lied to us all? No. He wasn't in pain (from what we can see) and thus didn't express any fake pain like so many players would have done which gets them a bad reputation.

That we've gone on a run of games where we've won when Mikel hasn't played, where-as when he had lengthy periods of starting in the team we were dropping lots of points. Point made.

Another game without Mikel... another win. Just.. yeah.

Don't you fucking dare score you pea.

Balotelli could go down an all-time great for Milan despite not having any standout technical qualities about him I feel. His 9th goal in 9 games. Good for him. Milan really need to start investing in better midfield and defense players though. Juve to win the title again next season.

Pogba reminds me of Viera lots but he's even more dynamic. I want him. (At Chelsea, I mean.)

That skill from Pogba was sexy.

You're welcome Well just because we may disagree with some (or a lot) of eachother's posts or have some differences doesn't detract from what you bring to the forum. You seem to have given it an injection of new life. A few popular members started posting less and less, then you came in and quickly went quite a way to filling their voids.

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I wouldn't say Figo was/is slow. At 34 he only had around half his pace left yet was still doing this: Ribery is more of an actual winger, not a goalscorer and assist machine. You don't ever see Ribery deployed behind the striker. You do with Hazard and we used to with Figo. Ribery is very good but not special like Hazard or Figo.