Leif

I compare to Madrid because despite all of their playmakers, they'd be considered an even greater side, more capable of winning the CL again, by slotting Vidal into their side. As would City, as would Bayern as opposed to having Marco. Playmakers don't win games; strikers and defenders do. Your midfield can look however you want it to look. If we want to rule, we do indeed need players capable of launching attacks, but the idea that a 'playmaker' has to be a central midfielder who plays alongside the main destroyer just pinging the ball around beautifully is bogus. Far too many incredible players are & have been the playmakers for their teams from the wing, or as a 2nd-striker, and that's what we'd benefit from far more. Who was our playmaker during our best 4-3-3 years when we had Lampard-Essien-Makelele/etc? I understand, times were different, but our wingers did then what wingers still do now - they provided the opportunities, while the midfield tried to make sure nothing got past them. There's no coincidence that system brought us more success than any other. If we sign Verratti, sure, we'll have a great midfielder. But do you think Messi would still be hailed as the best in our team? He wouldn't. He'd go downhill, and his weaknesses would be most exposed in the Premier League, just like Verratti. Just like if you take the best action actor in the world, and put him behind the camera of some group & directors who really only have lengthy experience in making chick-flick comedies, you get half-an-actor. We are not the team for Verratti; he would fail here, and again that is why Conte will not go for him. He's not prey to PR. He already knows the player and we'd know if he was interested, which he isn't. As for the man Verratti on the inside; fuck a player who grew up supporting Juventus, wanted to play for them more than any other team, become Pirlo's heir even, yet didn't want to wait the 1 season it'd take for Juve to move some players around to get their funds in order, and jumped to PSG instead (Juve were more interested in him than any other player; he just needed to be rational in his patience.) What a damn weirdo. Even the great Xavi wouldn't work in this system in this league. He'd have his moments over a season but not consistently be one of the top 5 midfielders. So why on earth would the watered down technically, watered down physically, version be better? Because he's more capable at 2-footed tackles? Because the majority say so? The majority who championed Alonso & Bats as greatness?

-_-.....he is nowhere close to De Bruyne's bracket..De Bruyne is literally one of the best midfielders we will see while we are alive. Top 10-15. Bats is not one of the top 30 strikers we'll see while we're alive. My god. Letting him go would be much, much more akin to letting Salah go, come on. Or Cuadrado, actually. Average before coming here, average while here, and will be average once he leaves. Mentality makes or breaks a player, and Michy just wouldn't mind being a great striker - but he doesn't want it, however, so he'll never be it. I can't believe we pulled the trigger on a child who was only ever a starting player for Marseille when they had literally not 1 other senior striker around.

Rakitic to City makes so much sense that this feels like dejavu Bet he won't cost 70m

Based on the last 2 seasons, which most are using to measure Verratti's ability, Rabiot has been the one showing higher potential. Not necessarily being as consistently shoved down our mouths via PR (Marco doesn't get headlines in France, only over here), but at least more consistently, even though sporadically, being damn right bonkers with some of his vision & tactical awareness. He's already a leader, the type of leader who inspires those around him to up their game. That's another box Verratti doesn't tick; he's as motivational as a 5 year old holding a stick pretending to be a CEO. There's no question which one is up for derbies and which one sees it as just another game.

If you see a team with Vidal in their side, you expect them to be the league winners. If you see a team with Verratti in their side, you expect them to challenge for the title. We aren't investors, so I don't care about the fact these are different aged players, what we are is a football club which is expected to be at the very top, and this would go a long way to ensuring that remains the case for 2-3 years, which may be all we need to enter our next phase of dominance. Juventus do well without making sure everyone they buy is under 24, and so will we. Take both these players, and hypothetically, add them to Madrid/Barcelona/Bayern/City individually. I say without a shadow of doubt that all those teams would be more imposing with Vidal. I can't actually imagine Verratti making any waves for Bayern/City/Madrid. Like I say, all he is is a tidy passer, so he's a fine watered down version of Xavi for the 3 teams in Europe that play the style of football which makes him useful. 1 of those teams being PSG. Who are woefully underperfoming. If he's such a team-changer, why on earth does PSG's midfield look like it's made of tree stumps? If Verratti is the difference between a team (us) winning or not winning a title, why is the current team he's in, barely even going to get into Europe next season? Cavani is on form. Thiago is on form. Both the attack and defence are being lead properly. It's the midfield PSG are losing, but you're not going to see why if a tidy pass is enough to amaze you for 5 minutes. Put Vidal in PSG's current side and they'd be at least 2nd

Then again A player that cost £30m Needing a loan to Swansea to prove he's good enough Is already pretty much a lost cause. I hope we make our money back, somehow.

Also, this loan-swap would ensure Bats plays pretty much every game until the end of the season. That is what we want. We need to see if he can kick it in the Premier League for 6 months straight. But, we aren't in a position to experiment with 1 player and his personal potential. It's a move which makes more than good sense.

In the same way that Torres was terrible here, yet perfectly adequate and 'good' for Atletico upon his return, plenty of 'past it' strikers (I'm looking at Falcao) can flourish once they're with different players in a different system. Llorente would bring something new to this team, which Bats does not. With or without Bats, we have all the same qualities, he doesn't bring something new to the table, but Llorente brings a controlled, aerial presence which Costa does not, which alone gets you 5 or so headed goals a season; and in a season where we rarely lose by over 1 goal, that's the difference we can benefit from. Also, since his style is similar enough to Costa's, the players around him wouldn't need to change their way of playing once he comes on. Whereas when Costa goes off at the moment, suddenly we decide our replacement striker isn't worthy enough of having the ball fed to him, and thus it goes to either Pedro or Hazard as they become the main attacking threat. For 6 months of football we could do worse than use a player that Conte's already familiar with. He's averaged 1 goal every 2.5 games in both the Premier League and Serie A. This mostly being a sub. Wanting anything more from a sub is spoiled.

I'm sure the 23 games you've seen to my 20 has filled your history with amazing Verratti moments that I've missed. An above average player who isn't near greatness like Modric, Kroos, like Fabregas was, like others I'll pluck up who play to a higher level today if anyone asks. It is delusion to believe Verratti is worthy of a 70m price tag, even 'in this market'. There's no point trying to convince someone who believes to their core that the sky is pink, that it's blue. Similarly, I'm telling you, Verratti is a product of PR, like most players we're linked with. Because that's what PR is. We are not going to sign him because Conte is not deluded. I'd take him for £7m, but even then, I would not have confidence in him being a consistent starter for us. Technique is not enough. Fabregas has all of it in the world, yet gets benched for being too slow. Which we agree is a fair argument. So it is indeed just as fair to believe, a midfield duo of two 5'5 players is hilariously naive. I wouldn't bet on Verratti beating Fabregas in a race, either. 70m to bring absolutely nothing that we don't already have to this team. How wise.

Skipper, around 20-30 times. You? (If it was up to you and your imaginary cousin who existed on this forum for 3 days to give you a winning vote for 'Member of the month' we'd still have broken-legs Sturridge trying to lead our line. Let's not try and discuss who's better at judging a player here.) Angel, talk to me, not about me. Why would you take Rabiot over Matuidi? What do you think Verratti offers other than 'creativity' and tidy passes as I put it? Also, what do you think Rabiot offers? What are his strengths? I thought he looked alright during his first few PSG performances but he never set the world on fire. He'd do well in a system that's all-legs & huff-and-puff.

Conte was so frustrated with him. Shouted over and over and over again to stop being selfish.

Literally every game before today he's been terrible, and rightly slated for his lack of lungs, lack of motivation, lack of skill. Don't judge him as beyond decent just because he wasn't awful vs. a League One side. You can't take anything at all from a game like this even if a player scores 6 goals himself.

The mighty Peterborough. The true test. The real team to measure the quality of a player against. Immense that he bagged one against this great team. Definitive proof that he is indeed a mighty goalscorer capable of filling in for Costa when it counts most.

Ah, that explains him playing like a drunkard.

Before Azpi was brought on, I was going to make a comment like 'Jose would bring on Kante in this scenario.' Hmm. There's no need for us to be bringing on our best players with less than 20 minutes vs. a smalltime team when we're leading by 3 goals. This is not very smart nor safe when you consider our aspirations this season. I wonder why Matic wasn't in the squad. Of our 2 midfielders, he's clearly the obvious choice to be a sacrificial lamb.

Hazard is almost as adorable as Pikachu. I wish we were sponsored by a Tokyo-based firm instead of Yokohama so I could find miniature Eden toys when I go on a trip there.

Case in point, that beautiful assist to Michy

Let me emphasise again as I've done somewhere else on the forum. Bats is not a goalscorer and he never has been. He's the striker who supports the goalscorer. Yet we've brought him in under an incorrect evaluation, told him/the fans/the media that he's supposed to get goals, so now he's of course going to try and do that (how else will he prove his worth?), and fail, because his experience and strength is in giving the final pass to the likes of Gignac & Ayew, who were the goalscorers in his team. Giving an assist-maker the responsibility of being the goalscorer is very much backwards. We bought the wrong player.

http://vidi.tv/embed-player/korvalol4 No idea what language it's in, but the guy commentating sounds friendly enough to be invited to post-match tea & biscuits.

I feel less hope with Cahill on the ball than I did with Torres on it.

I wish we had the type of players who'd break legs when the opposition risk breaking one of ours. They'll keep trying it again and again until you hurt them.

Pedro was a cup-game phenomenon in Spain, he must start all of our cup matches.

I don't see a triangle of Pedro at LWB, Ivanovic at RWB, with Chalobah/Willian centrally & RLC up top bringing many goals, but at least we'll still surely win. Fabregas to Bats looks the most likely avenue.

I'd honestly much sooner buy Matuidi. I understand we need someone who can control the game like when Fabregas plays, but, Verratti assists a lot less than the average playmaker, and I don't think his defensive contribution he's making in France would transfer over here. So we'd get a tidy passer, for 70m. Stupid. Instead, get another creative forward to flank Costa, and this guy will have the responsibility to hit those precise passes like Fabregas does, and pair our 2 destroyers, Matuidi - Kante in the centre, giving us without doubt the strongest midfield duo in the league. With Verratti - Kante as the combo, we would not have the clear #1 midfield duo. It'd be argued they're too weak, too short, too slow. 2 out of those 3 weaknesses become strengths with Matuidi. I know that I for one want our own version of Yaya Toure, and that's what he'd bring. Plus, we'd still have around 40m leftover this way to combine with the sale of Mikel, giving us around 65m for whoever we want up front, from Sanchez, to Dybala, to Martial (would be random, but i'm just saying.), to Griezmann. The alternative is, spunking loads on this player, which is much more of a gamble than my proposed route, and having to be conservative yet again with whoever we bring in as reinforcement upfront. Probably Callejon this time. I want the best team around, not the best individuals.

I agree with every word of yours. I think that bringing in the youth, is like a cherry on top of the cake. It's very pretty decoration. But, we still need a strong enough sponge/foundation first. And right now, our sponge is not completely ready. It's crumbly, and while it resembles a cake, if someone were to bite into it deep, they'd see that the core is not yet good enough to be leaping ahead to adding the decoration. Maybe this wouldn't even be a conversation though if we were looking at our other youngsters. We do have some talent that I genuinely believe are already 6.5's, ready to be made 7/10 players very quickly under Conte. Those are Jay Dasilva, Musonda, perhaps Christensen, Tammy Abraham (he was already an absolute monster for the youth teams; the fact that he's now averaging a goal every 2 games in the Championship makes me think he's capable enough to be our next Demba Ba or whatnot.), & Kalas (still only 23, and when we played him, I thought he was truly superb. It confuses me why we don't use him). Those are our gems. Those are all players who'd be good enough for the top 6 or so Premier League teams, right now. No other team in the top 6 would take Ake, Ruben or Chalobah. We and City would both be better with Christensen, right now. Arsenal would be better with Abraham (he's perfect for their system; just stand up top and score, don't do much else.) Kalas would be useful here or at City; but he'd truly shine at Liverpool. Musonda is more delicate so I won't say anything about him in this regard. Dasilva similar. We have youth players already good enough for the Premier League's top 6, so why do we focus on our youth players that're barely good enough for the top 6 of the npower Championship?