Stats

Yes and regardless of his critics he scored 45 goals for his club I think last season and pretty much every season where he is fully fit he has hit over 30 goals which is fantastic.

It is not just mediocre teams he scores against though is it? He scored a hatrick last season against Napoli, 2 against City and also scored against Real Mdrid. Just wanted to end that notion that he does not score against big teams.

Mandzukic has scored a lot of goals but I don't think that is because they feel Gomez is inferior to him. It is the fact that Madzukic deserves a starting berth on merit and not reputation. If they were to drop Mandzukic, what kind of message would that send out?

Schurrle provides something useful that Moses, Mata, Hazard or Oscar cannot offer. His shooting outside the box is brilliant and we may need that type of game changing player who can hit a shot from distance and blast it into the net. Sometimes we have struggled to score this season because our play is too much passing and there is not that many capable long shooters apart from Lamps. Having another player like that who can cut inside and unleash a shot would be useful. Happy the club is pursuing this transfer for many reasons.

You still have not answered why you decided to call him average player.... no basis for that conclusion I guess

So you claim he is an average player then when asked why you think that you use sarcasm because you had no evidence to back it up

What kind of confidence is that for someone who has stepped in and done really well in Cole's absence? he has done very well and because he is faster than Cole, I reckon he helps us sometimes with his ability to win the ball and attack. Something we have been lacking with Cole recently.

Not Mata though, bring Moses on for Oscar I would of said.

No way should we sell Brana. He may make more mistakes but he will recover. Selling him would be ludicrous. Oh yeah, his block to deny Aguero, I think it was, was absolutely world class. No one seemed to mention that

And put on who? He may disappear for a lot of the game against City, but he can deliver one excellent pass or cross that changes the game. Would of been silly to sub him off.

Would not mind playing Torres and Ba for this one. Think it can cause them a few problems.

It is getting bloody annoying facing City now. We have lost to them 3 times this season and drawn one. Also IIRC we have lost at the Etihad for the last 4-5 seasons now. Getting so annoying. I am proud with the way we upped our performance second half but it is the same story every time we play them. They dominate the midfield, have all the possession and we only get our act together in the second half. I mean last game at the Etihad they had Kompany out and we had our full team available and the only time we really threatened them was the penalty that Ba earned which ended up with Lamps missing. Today, Silva is out, there most influential player and they still manage to play almost Barca like football against us for 3/4 of the match. Something needs to be sorted because even when we play them at home we get dominated. So frustrating, yet teams like Arsenal seem to know how to play well at the Etihad. I have such a revenge feeling that when we play them next we batter them because losing to them 3 times in one season irks me. Anyway at least we did not get slaughtered although we rode our luck. We done well later in the second half. I thought Bertrand had another good game and I thought Azpi done well as well.It was good that we saw the football we can play in the second half. Some of the play between Hazard, Oscar and Mata was a joy to watch later on but we need to learn next time we play City because they will have a similar set up. Our weakness is we seem to pay them too much respect.

Yaya dominated everyone on the pitch. That is a fact. Even Hazard got a beating from him. But guess we will have to agree to disagree.

Yeah but he done his job. He did not have a bad game. Did he do anything that was sloppy? They dominated the game however none of the goals you can really blame him. He held his position well and done an excellent pass for Ba which unfortunately he could not finish.

Mikel was not that bad. We lost the midfield battle yes, but he made some decent interceptions and before anyone says something stupid like he "was subbed off because he was shit", no, he was subbed off because we needed a tactical change and thus went with two upfront. I would not say any player was hugely disappointing but the better team won on the day.

LOL, I agree with you about Gomez. It looks like I am saying I want him, however I was referring to the bloke who said he is prolific with his head.

Bertrand has been confirmed fit

Jermie Boga is like a young Messi, what a brilliant player. Excellent, his balance, dribbling, pace, passing, everything is perfect. He is going to be a great when he gets older. Pure quality.

Look at Gomez goals, he scores a few with his head but most of his goals come from excellent movement and with his feet.

I guess that is why we are being linked with Schurrle...

That is the same thoughts and concerns I get. We all would like him, however I have not heard an inch of his name be linked to coming here and I have only heard the two interested parties he is considering are United and Bayern.

Benfica are a very good team too, they nearly beat us last season with 10 men. Very dangerous team.

Happy to be in the semi-finals obviously, however it is annoying to think if it was not for this fixture we could be playing Spurs this weekend. If that fixture against Spurs had gone ahead this weekend as planned I am sure we would have battered them 100%. They have so many injuries, arguably their two most influential players are out plus their best CB is injured and they have just gone through a gruelling match against Basel. They are so lucky we have this fixture against City, hope it does not come back to haunt us. Anyway, I am getting sick of City keep beating us. Seem to be a huge bogey team for us. I want to see Moses, Mata and Hazard behind Ba this match. Winner of this surely will go on to win the FA Cup. COYB!

Basel are a very underrated team but out of all the teams left, I want them as I believe that is an easier route to the final although it will not be easy, however I would be more confident of getting to the final playing them.

Brentford was a good one and important one as well.