Belgiannutt

We got played. It's as simple as that. People who say we dominated need to get there heads checked. Yeah we might have had more possession but that's exactly what they wanted. They crowded the center en pushed us out wide as it was the only way to move forward. They then simply waited untill we got fed up passing the ball around and took a shot on goal from a distance or decided to cross the ball in. They then kicked the ball long to long , no pun intended. Long basically man handled Luiz and Cahill all game long. Also it seems Morrison used some sort of experimental camouflage or something because that's simply the only way to explain what happened today. Although another scenario has been playing in my head. It's a scene where Romeu walks up to Mikel after the game and says to him:"Damned Mikel you really did a crappy job at marking Morrison didn't you?" and then Mikel replying "What? I thought you were supposed to mark him ?" Romeu then replied "no you were" Mikel replied "no you were" Romeu replied "no you were" Mikel replies "no you were" and so on and on. Ah well. No seriously now. There was just to much space for Morrison. I mean we played with 2 holding midfielder the least you would have expected was for us to keep the centre compact but apparently that was wishfull thinking. Azpi looked solid seems to also possess a good cross. Bertrand looked solid as well. Moses was lively and good at times but i feel that sometimes he's so focused on crossing the ball in that he doesn't spot a free player around the 16 yard box. Hazard: didn't think he played well but in all fairness he wasn't helped by the fact that he had no distributor behind him causing him to receive absolutely no balls in the forward central area. He then had to constantly drop deep to pick up the ball and act like a distributor. Now the thing is Hazard is a different kind of number 10 then Oscar or Mata. He's not a player that thrives on distributing the ball. He's a nr 10 that plays between the lines and wants to receive the ball in those tight areas. That's his game to get played in those tight central areas even when he's marked and hold that ball up so that other players can make overlapping runs or so he can turn away from his marker and try and beat 1, 2 maybe even 3 players on a good day so he can then run at the defence. Force the defence to tighten up leaving room on the side to exploit and then either play a throughball, take a shot or continue dribbling. That's what you can expect from Hazard on the nr 10 however for him to be able to play that way he has to have someone playing in the pivot who actually has the abillity and the balls to play a ball into those tight areas and make a freaking forward overlapping run. Now you might have seen Hazard make some sort of hand movement multiple times during the game . A stretched hand pointing at his feet. For people who don't know hand signs that means " pass me the mother f****** ball." He had to move to the wings to finally get the ball in a forward area but even then his dribbling just didn't seem to come off. Now who's next ? ah Sturridge. Thought he looked lively and eager. He was our most dangerous man but also missed some chances he shouldn't have. Still he seems like a massive improvement on Torres. Then Torres well i think i made myself clear with the well and the kid who did nothing. He saw that we were struggling to reach him and did nothing to help the team. Mata was our best player on the pitch from the moment he came on. Immediately created danger. Oscar didn't do much except that 1 time where he put Sturridge in front of goal with his brilliant 1 touch pass. When Oscar and Mata came on we looked more dangerous but we were just all over the place. I mean if i was a neutral fan watching the game and i didn't know the qualities of Oscar and Mata or the position they play then i would have had no clue where they were playing. Our attacking style is just random movement. After rereading my comment i've kinda noticed i've come down pretty hard on Romeu and Mikel. To be clear i don't bame them for being conservative in possesion and not choosing to play the risky ball. It's what they were taught to do. I blame RDM for this. No manager in his right mind would choose to play 2 holding midfielders when he clearly has a better team then the opposition.

In this game Torres reminded me of a little kid who fell into a well but instead of shouting for help or trying to climb out he just sat there waiting for someone to rescue him...

I don't think it really matters what system we play. It's the personnel we employ. Today we played with 2 holding midfielders and it showed. Passing the ball was fine untill we reached the half way line. Then they just didn't know what to do. Hazard was playing on the nr 10 position but barely received any balls on that position. He constantly had to drop deep to receive the ball. If you want to get the best of Hazard when he's playing on the 10 you need to play him between the lines. Not have him drop deep and distribute the ball. After half an hour he was put back on the wing so he could finally receive some decent balls in a forward area. With Mata and Oscar we looked a little bit better but i still didn't see any sort of recognisable system. They just seem to run everywhere. There's just no line in our way of play. There's nothing on which our players can get their bearings.

It's my birthday today ! Let's smash them !!!! Hazard to score a hattrick. CMOOOOOOOONNNNN CHELSEA !!!!!!!!! :cfc: :cfc: :cfc: :cfc: Sorry had way to much cafeine today.

Sorry about the accusation. but it's still someone else saying that not himself. Even if it's true a lot can happen in his time here. If he enjoys himself here and he's happy then why would he leave ? Alot can happen in his time here. Just enjoy watching him play and hope that he stays here forever. 1 thing i can say for certain. If (and that's a big if) he decides to leave it will never be like Nasri. Never. I'll put my life on that. He's just not that kind of guy. If he leaves it'll be for a big pile of money and he'll leave on good terms with the club and the fans. Lets stop talking about Hazard leaving. It's really depressing.

This is exactly what i've been talking about in the real concerns thread. You can post as much picture as you like with RDM holding the CL trophy. It doesn't change the fact that he won it by relying on defensive and counter attacking football with old and experienced players. Now he's required to do the exact opposite. Take a young team of inexperienced players and make them play open and attacking possession based football. The comments about Pep are ridiculous. Yes Messi, Iniesta and Xavi were alreadygood players when Pep took over however they were nowhere as good as they are today. At the time that Pep took over they were good players that had loads of potential. Quite similar to what we have in our team now. He took over a good team and made it a worldclass team. He took over a team that had a good system and perfected it. Introducing high pressure and even better possesion football then they had played before. "Look at the players he brought ?" Didn't he only have a hand in Moses his transfer ? A ferrari ? I don't consider RDM a ferrari nor do i consider him a honda civic. For me RDM is a tank. Why a tank you say. Well because i suck at cars. I only know fast car brands and that doesn't fit the metaphor. So RDM's a tank and Pep's a ferrari. Both have their strenghts and their weaknesses. The way we want to play the ferrari is better suited then the tank. In case the metaphor wasn't clear. The tank represents RDM's style of defensive organisation and counter attacking football. The ferrari represents Pep's style of fluid possession based football.

I think he's just a jealous Man united or Spurs fan. Seeing how it's his first post. I visited the rtbf website. I found no recent articles about Hazard let alone about him wanting to join Real Madrid.

Link ? Find it hard to believe.

I see well as long as we have a young capable replacement for Terry when he retires.

Well i don't think Pep would do that. At Barcelona he didn't have a lot of squad depth to work with so he's had to deal with putting players on unfamiliar positions and reforming them. I think If Pep was manager i wouldn't be suprised to see him try Ramires as our attacking rightback. At the very least he would use Ramires as a utility player. I think our squad is very good. Only thing i would add is a defensive midfielder comfortable on the ball, a first class striker, a back up striker and maybe a young central defender to eventually replace Terry. That's 4 transfers and we'd be set for years. Most of the other players are already "Pep quality" or are young enough to be reformed.

No but everytime i see the word "Torres" i take a pen and paper and write down all the excuses. you never know when they might come in handy....

I agree with the bolded part but if i might pose 1 final question. Do you think the fact that we are doing better then anyone expected (including me for that matter) is to be credited to RDM or to the new players settling in quicker , performing better and being more influential then anyone expected ? (Not taking anything away ofcourse from the other players like Mata for example who has been our best player this season.)

1) Your right luck does play a part in every game and they were lucky to get the penalty, get Terry sent off and the Cahill injury but our luck seemed to come at just the right time. They missed the penalty, there were multiple moments in the game where they could have scored if they had taken their chances meanwhile we were as clinical as you can get. Every chance we got we scored. 2) Disagree with you on the completely different situation. While there are indeed significant differences between the 2 situations there are also similarities that would work at pep's advantage. The fact that we also have a couple of young players with worldclass potential and the fact that the way pep has been coaching Barcelona for 4 years is almost the exact way we wanna play. I also disagree about the same team comment. Yes there have been only 2 new additions that have influenced us and your right those 2 alone won't change our way of play especially not in 3 months but at the moment i don't see any sort of development in our way of play. The only things RDM has done to transition us in comparison to the beginning of the season is -put Oscar-Hazard-Mata in the starting eleven -have our fullbacks push higher up the pitch to create width -try and play from the back But the thing is putting Mazacar on the pitch is kinda a given. Having our fullbacks push higher up. Well okay that's good but it's not exactly rocketscience. Try and play from the back and i emphasize on "TRY". It's easy to play from the back when there's no one pressing. We've tried to play out from the back. Our 2 CB's going wide, our to backs pushing higher up the pitch but that's it.That where the trying stops. The moment the opposition presses and our 2 CB are marked we hoof the ball long. Most people then complain about Cech hoofing it long but the thing is without any sort of off the ball movement from 1 of our midfielders in the double pivot there's just nowhere he can pass it to. What i want to see is this. In this video the guy explains how your supposed to play out from the back. This is what RDM needs to teach to our guys and this is actually not that complicated. There's a lot more complicated moves that require more training and precision. 3)I agree picking a manager is never a 100% sure thing. (Which i think a lot of us our quite familiar with.) However i feel that Pep would offer us a greater chance at succes then RDM. RDM just seems to give me the impression that he's got no idea where he's going with this team. He just seems to be improvising along the way. I believe if Pep came in he would immediately set the tone from the moment he became our manager. For example:there's no way in hell he would have played ramires or Bertrand as defensive wingers while sacrificing Oscar. Just to be clear. I don't hate RDM or think that he's a bad manager. I think he has it in him to be a great manager. Just not an attacking minded one and that's exactly what we need an attack minded manager. I feel he's being asked to let his team play in a way where he doesn't feel comfortable with coaching.

Sorry but i just have to speak up. While i don't want to take anything away from the players (their discipline en defensive efforts were brilliant) or RDM (who came up with a great defensive strategy) but i think you can't argue that luck was involved in our win against them. (to be clear i completely disagree with what was said by people afterwards "that it was solely due to luck" or"That we didn't deserve to win it " We deserved to win because of our amazing defensive effort however luck was involved. If we play that game 10 times we'd lose 9 out of 10. How did RDM win the CL ? By playing defensive counter attacking football with old and experienced players. What is our situation now ? We want to play open possession based football with young, inexperienced players. Basically the exact opposite. I think that the fans are to emotionally attached to RDM due to what happened last season. RDM stepping in at a bad time for us and then winning the CL and FA cup(+ the fact that he used to be a Chelsea player) has made him untouchable to a lot of fans. Also making fans very hypersensitive about any sort of criticism towards RDM. Imho Pep is a better fit for the project then RDM. His style of coaching is the exact way we want to play. I think he stands a better chance to accomplis the project. Do i think he'll come in and just snap his fingers and voila Barca 2.0 ? No ofcourse not but i do believe he would immediately begin to work on the skillset that is necessary to make possession football work + teach the tactical off the ball movement that is vital for playing possession football. Also about the tactically outfoxing comment. The way i see it. Both trainers prepared their tactics to the best of their abillities. Trying to use the strenght of their team to their advantage. Both teams went on the field, gave everything they got and with some luck we came out victorious. Saying RDM tactically outfoxed Guardiola is just incorrect and quite frankly stupid.

Would prefer Hazard be rested for this game. He didn't play for Belgium because of an injury on his achilles tendon. It's not too serious but apparently it's been bothering him for two weeks. Would prefer if no risks were taken for the important CL game.

Yeah i think if we played like that it would help a lot and it would make us more dangerous on the attack.

Mate you've made 10 posts in the last 3 hours on 3-4 different threads and what we've learned so far is "Hazard and Mata are the best" and "Oscar is shit. " If you wanna post an opinion, do it but back it up with arguments and don't just post oneliners and for god's sake keep it in 1 thread. Oscar is not shit. Not even close. He's got everything what he needs to be a worldclass deep lying playmaker and to be 1 of the best at it.

Thanks. Yeah true. Also when Messi runs towards 1 of his teammates you'll notice that they always run a couple of metres to the left or right forcing their defender to make a choice weither to move with them or try and stop Messi. If the defender chooses to go with them then it leaves a gap for Messi to run into and if they choose to try and stop Messi it makes a one-two possible. There are a couple of things that would help make Hazard a more effective dribbler and goalscorer. -He needs to start dribbling more, be more selfish and work on his shooting. -We need to get better at keeping possession. More possession = more time on the ball for our attacking players.(DLP in the pivot would help a lot) -He needs to either play on the nr 10 position or as a false 9. Playing him on the wing limits his options, makes him easier to mark, leaves him far too isolated when we struggle to distribute the ball and the constant tracking back saps his energy and makes him less effective in attack.

Hazard thread not Oscar thread...

Stop indulging him. He's clearly a troll. He keeps saying stuff about Oscar. He's done it on the Hazard thread and the match thread and now also the Oscat thread. He's clearly spamming.

Personally i think Hazard should try and mimic the way Messi plays.(to some degree) Maybe RDM should make him watch dvd's of Messi. To study the way he plays. Before people freak out i'm not saying Hazard is as good as Messi but i do see similarities between them. I think Hazard could deliver similar performances for us( given the right guidance) but to a lesser extent then Messi. I also believe he was bought for that reason. To give us that penetrating ability when faced with an opponent that parks the bus. For example : Alot of the times Messi will pick up the ball 10 yards past the half way line before making his well known dribbles. This isn't coincidental. He'll always try to get a 1 on 1 situation going with his main marker. He'll then try and turn him and outpace him. He then usually continues his run by running diagonally away, never straight, towards a defender. He'll always try and make the opponent chase him to the left or the right. This again is not a coincidence. He does this because it forces the opponent to move towards him. Giving Messi the opportunity to either outpace the opponent or cut back and take the inside of the opponent. Deception also plays a huge part in this. Or if the opponent is camping in front of the goal he'll start running with the ball from the right side, cutting inside and running horizontally across the face of goal causing the defence to tighten up leaving acres of space on the wings giving him the options of shooting, passing to the wings or giving through balls. These are only a couple of things i've noticed from watching Messi play that could help Hazard enhance his dribbling.

Yeah true but i don't think Atletico will sell Falcao in january. I mean at the moment they are second in the league giving them a CL ticket. Like we all know qualifying for the CL leads to a lot of money. I don't think they'll go for the quick buck. I think they'll wait. Try and get a CL ticket and then sell Falcao in the summer. Giving them not only the money from Falcao but also the money from the CL.

I see well I hope we do. 40 million in january and 40 million in the summer and we would be good for years. (ofcourse without taking injuries and other unforeseeable things into account) Personally i'm against buying high profile targets in the january window. Most of the time this leads to inflated fees because teams don't like to get rid of 1 of their best players in the middle of their season. I would prefer us buying the first class striker in the summer.

Dreaming ? How so ? All the transfers i proposed are necessary. At the moment we lack depth and are missing a goalscoring striker.we also lack a deep lying playmaker but like i said that can be solved without buying anyone. We lack depth in the CM and CF area and to make matters worse the CF's we have aren't good enough. So we really need a back up striker and a firstclass striker. Torres needs to be offloaded in the summer. Also i don't think Sturridge is striker material. I think he's better suited to play as an inverted winger. At CM we only have Mikel and Romeu who can play as defensive midfield holder. Mikel is is going to the African cup leaving us only with Romeu. For me he's not good enough to start. So we'll need to buy a DMH. So that's 1 DHM and 1 back up striker in january. Try and buy them for a fee of around 40 million. So 40 million in the january window and then 40 million in the summer for a first class striker.(Cavani) The young cb isn't really necessary. It's mostly just to prepare for John Terry's aging.