Magic Lamps

True. I think this year's Leicester surge is a great example of how team spirit, willpower, tactical discipline and a bit of individual quality thrown in is more than enough to win this league comfortably. This is not only testament to the poor quality in recent years but also shows what is really importan in football more than big spending which particularly highlights the failures of the big teams. I don't even blame people for predicting a Leicester collapse after that Last MInute defeat at Arsenal. Too often this has already happenend, esp to surprise leaders. But under the calming influence of Ranieri they have recovered from every set back and returned stronger as a group. Everytime their star players had a dip in form they bailed themselves out with a collective effort.

I still think this midfield would be kind of imbalanced and lightweight. Also Payet is like 29. What I'd love is krychowiak/RLC - Fabregas - Kante. Power, pace, creativity and dribbling. Only lacking goals. But I don't want to be greedy, tho I am optimistic about RLC becoming a 10+ goals per seaon player. He has proved he does not need many chances when getting into the box. You are right about Kante tho. Tremedous player. Wins the ball drives it through midfield and sets up the attack - all day long. He is the DM version of Willian + footballing intelligence. The only thing I am not sure about is his high rate of turnover because of wayward passes and short clearances. I am sure he will improve on those tho since it is his first season is English football.

He showed some kind of promise. Despite not being particularly athletic, he displayed some good energy, passing and off the ball movement. Also impressive attitude to impose himself on an albeit poor Villa side when hopelessly inferior physically. Great debut. I hope we stay a million lightyears away from signing him permanently.

Don't know if anyone else noticed but eurosport featured an article todayabout how Costa alienated himself from his teammates in these four steps: 1)speaking up his problems with teammates 2)picking contests with team mates in the gym and celebrating his victories exuberantly 3) Promoting his pro-EU position against the EU-scepticism of TErry&friends 4)pretending to listen to "hardcore" hip hop when secretly preferring Drake in private I decided to share this with you since this bizarre article has me in a likewise bizarre limbo between absolute disbelief and cracking up with laughter. I can't honestly believe someone could be so dumb and superficial to compile a list of such meaningless bullshit in this context let alone belief this is legend but on the other hand I have not found any evidence to debunk this as some kind of tacky satire. https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/diego-costa-isolated-himself-chelsea-122056557.html

It is really testament to our poor overall quality this season that Willian wins this with ease despite the fact that after his purple patch in the first half of the season he has returned to be his usual, flashy but ineffective self a few months ago.

yeah...completely missed the game since the leicester one was simulataneously. I thought Bayern BVB was tomorrow haha. Nobody gives a shit about the title "race" in Germany anyway.

they won't win another 6 consecutive matches but I am positive they can win 6 of their remaining 9 games and that might be enough.

Lol @Claudio Ranieri. 5 years in England and still only basic English language skills. Lovely bloke tho.

Leicester are having trouble at Vicarage Road. Watford the clearly better team. I hope a moment of genius from one of their stars will rescue them again but if they are to win the title, it will have been a clinging to the rescue ring like it has been for us last season. They are running out of steam and Okazaki is still a joke of a footballer. He is an incredibly hard worker but when on the ball he is completely useless. Lacks the composure and tactical ability. Has been a poor player at Mainz and still is.

This little guy Imbula should be in the team in blue instead of those muppets Matic, Mikel or Oscar. It is not that this forum had imbula on its screens for ages now. Why can't the fucking board see that this kind of mobile, combative, yet technically gifted DMs is what we need in modern football? As for the game the usual stuff when being refereed by Clattenburg. Been the better team throughout but let down by his calls. Stoke still are a fine team, too. Some great football from them and resilience in defence. Wollscheid was a wall today. From us it was a below-par performance. clearly brakes on because of the CL tie. However, I can't see us progressing since we will definitely concede at least once. But back to this game. Mikel, Matic, Ivanovic, Remy, Willian and Oscar were their usual average selves whilst Traore scored an amazing goal. Hazard, Courtois can really do better, Azpi and Cahill were solid.

ft. fair result but we should have easily won that. mark hughes methods are showing tbf. clattenburg is still an impeccable, hideous cunt.

squandering this lead was our onw fault but clattenburg is an absolute excuse of a human being. should have sent Pieters off and given us a pen for the foul on oscar.

shit. Leicester can slowly start kissing the title good bye if they continue conceding goals like this.

this game has some nice pace to it. entertaining end -to end stuff

LOLZ. that is about the greatest start you can have. what a goal. this guy really needs to play on the wing.

thank fuck we didn't pay that 100m for him in Summer. As many of his games this season, his performance vs Bayern showed what everyone not deluded by his hype nor his haters should have known before: Neither is he a world class midfielder nor is he an average one. He clearly is good, bags of potential, enormous confidence on the ball, always tries to make things happen, lanky, strong, athletic, good passer but could improve on tons of aspects such as his crossing, long passing, headers, off-the ball movement a.s.o. He might become a world class player once, but that point of time is clearly a few injury-free years away. Personally, I doubt he will ever become the 100m player he should already be according to some people but who knows. btw according to transfermarkt stats he has somehow managed to grow a full 3cms at the age of 22. wtf. 1 or 1.5 cm is not uncommon, even in your early 20ies but more than an inch is almost impossible at that age Anyway I somehow suspect height statistics of certain football players being exaggerated when it is better for their profile like they do with Boxers or Wrestlers or in various US sports. According to different sources Mario Mandzukic could be anything between 185 and 190 cm tall. Usually, when I meet footballers in person I am always a bit disappointed how short they are irl.

was thinking the same. Why do Arsenal not donate their place to a team that actually plays with passion and actually hits the ball when given the chance not passing it to the opposition's goalie? I'd honestly expect Leicester or even Tottenham not to be that stupid or "unlucky" as they might say. Not a bad performance by them but their worst result vs Barca in a home game for years. I remember 2-1, 2-2 and 1-2s in their 3 meetings before at the emirates, each at the round of the last 16 but with worse teams and no Cech. Would be an absolute shame for the Premier League if they were to win anything this season.

Everton are probably the strongest team left in the cup besides us. I'd fancy us vs Arse simply because it is Arsenal and we comfortably beat them at their home just recently when we were in far worse form and Utd. are just a poor team, in poor form with a far worse squad than ours. Everton however are highly motivated. In the league they might have underachieved almost as much as we have but exactly that makes them all the more dangerous. They have young, quality players (Deloufeu, Lukaku, Berkeley, Stones etc) who might be a bit inconsistent though they are always up for the occasion. Also I fear with Cahill and Brana up against Lukaku's pace. Unfortunately Zouma can not offer him a warm, cosy place in his pocket this time. Well after that it can only get easier. We once were thrown out of the cup by Everton at this exact stage in the replay at SB by penalties in 2011. I hope it is rather a repeat of the 2009 final this time round. Both clubs have considerably worse teams this year tho.

lol. I bet Wenger is not that fond of keeping the replays in the FA Cup anymore now.

king of defenders. Arguably the first time he has faced a world class winger in an official club competition and he was on top for most of the game even though let down by Pedro time and time again

average performance. made the saves he had to but nothing extraordinary really. would have saved cavani's goal had he stayed on the touchline. cavani was drifting wide and our defenders where catching up. bad decision.

How can you even miss that header? Granted it was an excellent save, but all he has to do is to head it into the 14m² of the goal that are not covered bya wrong-footed goalie as opposed to the 4m² he can actually cover. also won a mere 18% of his duels. horrible performance. hope he bounces back. IMO when on form, he is twice the striker Cavani and Ibra are combined.

Dat burst of pace to break away from Lucas fucking Moura. His cross should have been an assist if it weren't for some shitty finishing of the highest order by Costa. Fantastic performance. You'd expect someone who has not played for so long to be rusty but he was fresh as you like. Really was a secret weapon today. Let's hope, PSG still can't deal with his crosses come the reutn leg.

both goals conceded were completely unnecessary, apart from that our defending was desperate but somehow restricted PSG to like 20 half chances. On the other hand we had 3 more clear cut chances from which we MUST score at least one, no excuses. Kevin Trapp was magnificent today but Courtois was average. Also I don't get the hazard-oscar sub. Yes Hazard is a shadow of the player he once was but Oscar is worse even when in top form. If any, he should have thrown on... well we did not even have any impact subs on the bench...which is exactly the problem. PSG can bring ona´a 55m pounds striker whilst we have Miazga and Clarke-Salter on the bench. If any pedro should have been taken off. He was full of running but completely useless on and off the ball going full headless chicken mode like so often. Baba was encouraging, he bossed Moura dn di maria for the majority of the game despite them attacking his side very often. I also liked how he beat the former for pace to win the foul. Willian was ok, did what he is best at darting through the midfield on the break but we really could have used a few decent deliveries from the numerous corners and freekicks he had and he wasted them all apart from the one to mikel ofc. Fabregas was as usual when pressurized but he really could improve his passing. It is so inconsistent. Apart from his strange goal and own goal Mikel was Mikel. This shows we really need midfielders. We are thin in numbers there and even thinner in quality. But today we would never have had a chance there no matter what midfield we could have fielded. Still we have a chance in the 2nd leg, 1-0 is a perfectly plausible result when we have JT back and Cahill has an even better day than today. Also will be crucial if Hazard improves his form or not. PSG are a good side but showed loads of cracks today which a more clincial side like Barca, Bayern or maybe even Juventus would exploit and tear them apart. Unfortuantely we are wasteful as fuck. DAvid Luiz and Thiago Silva are great in the 1vs1 but once again vulnerable for crosses and long balls over the top. Ibra is clearly a rapidly fading force, Matuidi is not the powerhouse he used to be. Di Maria and Moura were kept in check by our equally nippy fullbacks Azpi and Baba. However their overlapping fullbacks caused plenty of havoc with intelligent late runs which to cover Pedro and Hazard have to be more disciplined.

willians deliveries are so horrible. thank fuck lucas mouras are even worse