Belgiannutt

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.

Damn forgot about that. Buy the young DM in the january window.

I really don't get some people. At the moment we're struggling distributing the ball from the back to our front 4 because we've got a box to box player and a defensive holding midfielder in our double pivot and no deep lying playmaker yet people are willing to spend 40 million on another box to box player. I mean seriously ?! Also why do we need to buy a DLP ? We've got a player (Oscar) who can be a worldclass DLP. He just needs experience on that position and a little bit of coaching. + we also have Debruyne on loan who could be a great DLP aswell. CB: January:nobody Summer: a young cb -> that cb from Norsjaelandt would be great. Then we have Cahill, Luiz, Ivanovic, Terry and our young cb. CM: January: Recall Essien.(to replace Mikel(african cup)) No one else. Summer: Recall Debruyne. Buy a young defensive holding midfielder who is comfortable on the ball. Essien will probably leave. Get rid of Romeu. I think Lampard's gonna leave. We'll have Mikel, Ramires, Oscar, Debruyne, young DHM. AM: January: nobody Summer: nobody. We'll have Mata, Hazard, Marin, Moses, Sturridge and Debruyne. CF: January: Buy a young CF. Summer: Offload Torres. Buy Cavani. We'll have Cavani, Young CF.

I can't see him fitting in here. Where would you put him ? The way we want to play requires our midfield to have a number 10, a deep lying playmaker and a defensive midfield holder. He can't play on the number 10 as we already have better players for it. He's not a DLP and he's not disciplined enough to play as a DMH. We tried to play him on the 6 with Belgium but he kept running out of position. He doesn't have the tactical awareness to be the DMH. He's a great box to box midfielder but we just don't need one.

I think that was in the beginning of the season that Eddie Newton said that ? I don't think it's that much different for Oscar. He'll have to keep doing what he's doing but just do it from a deeper position and also think a little bit more defensively. Also RDM should really start playing Oscar in the pivot. If Oscar is to learn how to play as a DLP he'll have to play there so he can gain experience. Sneijder might have been an option but he's to old, to high wages and doesn't contribute enough defensively to play as a DLP. Debruyne is capable of playing as a DLP but he would require a little bit more work.

Don't think we need to buy a deep lying playmaker. We've got Oscar who would be a perfect fit and we still have Debruyne.

Can i ask what Oscar has done to be regarded better then Hazard ? Apart from the 2 beauty he's scored he hasn't outshined Hazard. Hazard has more assists, dribbles more players and gives more keypasses. I kinda feel Hazard is being held to a higher standard then Oscar. I don't know if it's because of the 40 mill pricetag, the hype that surrounded him or the good start that's come back to bite him in the ass but people are expecting him to be decisive in (almost) every game and if he's not then people are dissapointed.

Most of them don't have the potential to play for a team like Chelsea. Only Praet and Thorgan have a shot. Dufour is playing for Porto but he's having a mixed time there sometimes he plays sometimes he doesn't. He's not that good he's not fast nor strong. He's not creative and his passing range is limited. His biggest strenght is his pitbull mentality. Chasing and pressing players. If you want more Belgian talents i suggest looking at the U16 Belgian team. Especially loved the goal at 1:31 (second video) Zakaria Bakkali, Andreas Pereira, Siebe Schrijvers, and of course Charly Musonda Junior have big potential.

Had to look up the word stoked. XD to be "stoked" is to be completely and intensely enthusiastic, exhilirated, or excited about something.

I would say he's a hybrid between Messi and Ronaldo. I agree with you that he needs to be more selfish and take more advantage of his skills. He's not as good a playmaker as Oscar or Mata but he has something that they don't. That ability to run at defenders with insane pace while having the ball glued to his feet. He just needs to use his dribbling skills more. I would like RDM to try Hazard as a false 9. He's got great link up play, he's also great at holding onto the ball when he's playing with his back towards the opponents goal and this would also give him the freedom to attack without having to constantly track back. I think with the right guidance Hazard could be a great false 9. Only his shooting ( don't get why he always tries to power kick it) and his movement inside the 16 yard box needs improving. With Torres not playing well and Sturridge not looking ready to lead the line, I think it would be worth a shot ?

I agree but isn't this kinda the case for our entire team?

I agree about the lack of an offensive system. Our players seem to have no instructions what so ever of where to run or what to do. Our offensive plan seems to be "give the ball to 1 off the 3 maestro's and pray to god they do something brilliant with it." About our defensive woefullness. 1 of the reasons is because we're not pressing the opponent. We can't play possesion based football and not press the opposition when we've lost the ball. We leave ourselves far to exposed that way. With the likes of Oscar, Hazard and Mata we can't camp in front of our goal and hope we can get away with it. There's a considerable gap between their capabilities when in possesion and when not. We need to try and get as much possesion as we can.We need to use our possesion as a defensive weapon. Also if we want to take a step further we need to play Oscar in the pivot. We need a deep lying playmaker. Without 1 we're far too easy to press and far too erratic in our distribution from the back. About Pep Guardiola, (to be clear i'm not saying he's going to snap his fingers and make us a great team just like that. If he comes here (and that's a big if) it will also be with failures and successes.) But 1 thing that plays to his advantage is the fact that he's seen how a possesion team is supposed to look like, up close. He knows what's required to make the system work. I get why people defend RDM but winning the CL and the FA cup, being an ex player, having a history of sacking managers. It all doesn't matter. What matters is whether or not he's capable of handling the transision from counter football to possesion football. To be frank i'm starting to have serious doubts about that. To be clear i'm not saying we should sack RDM i'm just saying that i find it worrying that there's seems to be so little planning in our attacks and i hope that that will be improving.

Ridiculous comments. Oscar had a poor game. He didn't create any chances, his passing was off and he spoiled his chance. RDM had every right taking him off. Hazard wasn't great but atleast he created chances and wasn't wastefull in possesion.

Got a general question: What do you think Hazard's future position should be ? False 9, number 10, winger? I kept thinking about it yesterday and i came to the conclusion that i don't think Hazard will reach his full potential as a player as long as he gets pushed out wide. I think he performs best when playing in a central position because it allows him to use his burst of pace and close ballcontrol more effectively. The position also leaves him with a lot of options making it more difficult for the opposition to know what he's going to do. I also think the amount of tracking back he needs to do as a winger is having a negative influence on his performance. I would love to know what people think about this discussion point.

I agree that Hazard isn't great at tracking back but saying he didn't help at all is just wrong. There were multiple times where Hazard made 40-50 yard sprints to track back Srna. He tried to do the best he could. Srna was playing more like a right winger then a rightback. Bertrand deserves some slack. He had a bad game but wasn't helped by Srna constantly bombing forward and shaktar playing some great possesion football. He's still young no reason to give up on him. 1 thing i would like to know is why RDM didn't intervene (tactically). I mean from the beginning it was clear that they were exploiting Srna's offensive skills. Personally i would have told Luiz to take over Bertrands man (the right winger) , have Bertrand take care off Srna and tell Hazard to stay higher up the pitch. Creating a 1 on 1 marking for our defenders. Before you say that that would have been too risky, think about it. This was already happening only now Hazard had to constantly chase Srna losing a lot energy, Bertrand constantly had to move over to Srna giving him space and time on the ball while Bertrand was repositioning himself. Also something i've noticed : We really don't deal well with crosses. Is it just me or is there always an unmarked player in the area between the penaltyspot and our 16 yard line ?