Magic Lamps

just like in the Mourinho case an unnecessary and premature extension. Ramires relies on his physical attributes pace and stamina. both will have gone down the drain until 2019 when he will be 32. Still we seem he will be worth in excess of 70k a week then. Incredible. After doing sound business for some years the board is back to being completely braindead. Horrible summer transfer window. then that needless extension of Mourinho's contract and than this just as unnecessary extension of Ramires's working paper. Just plain atrocious. Whoever in charge of this disaster should be fired immediately.

btw we started with only 3 "tall" outfield players vs southamtpon anyway (6'1 is about the average height where i live anyway so hardly tall) and were not even in danger conceding from a set piece. Mourinho's logic is so flawed, i don't get why we have to take this carp, Mourinho is so full of shit. If height is the only issue, a club with our budget really should be able to acquire one of the hundreds of fullbacks who are taller and better than Ivanvoic. Why pay 30m for Baba when he is that tiny in the first place?

----------Bego---------- --Zouma-JT--Cahill-- Azpi-----------------Baba -------Matic--RLC------- Willian-------------Hazard ----------Diego------------- can certainly salvage a draw here. In importnat games such as this 6 pointer we should always leave out Cesc. Also has 6 players who are all way taller than Ivanovic so Mou should be ok with that.

Yeah he burns them and then dances around the pyre. Says Capello whose England players were knackered after one game in WC 2010. But he might have a point. Tiny squad, no rotation, horrible preseason, needless post season. But it could also be the opposite. The players had an elongated break and still look far from fit. Maybe he burns them not enough. Also players like Pedro, Falcao, Zouma, Remy look average or shit and should hardly be exhausted.

this is so sick. baba must feel really screwed. Jose knew BAba was only 179cm tall so why the heck did he even sign him for that outrageous fee? If one of his fullback has to be tall why not sign tall ones? We could have had JOnas hector who is as tall as Ivanovic for peanuts. Who did Jose think Baba would replace? Azpi? A form crisis can always happen especially for aging players who always had their deficiencies exposed so why can a club with out budget not replace him just because of fucking height? I just don't get this how highly paid people at the club can be this dumb.

What worries me most is that he still blames individual mistakes for our defeats which is BS. Our defeats are rooted in the word "individual" only. We don't play as a team. Somehow Mou has lost his ability to forge some good individual players into a team. When those individuals , after all they are just footballers, lose their confidence because of results they will perform poorly individually. But the problem goes beyond that. Earlier, if the coach could not forge the team, our big characters of the old guard could motivate the players to perform for each other. but now we only good fair-weather players who can not even pull themselves out of the slump, players Mourinho bought. If you give Fabregas, Ivanovic leading roles it can only be on a sinking ship.

this was fucking unnecessary. he is our best dm even tho his current form is poor. Mou only aggravated this by subbing him just after 15 mins.

and porto squad and crystal palace squad and everton squad

holy crap we are shit

no surprise. amazing performance by southampton tbf but we have been awful throughout.

this is not even about the players it is about the team or rather the absence of a team. this is just a selection of players not a fucking team. no tactical understanding, no awareness, no passion. they are mentally completely off. horrible to watch, such pain. could as well end this match now.

that thing is, everyone knew exactly how this game would turn out and no one esp. mourinho could do nothing about it. everyone knew pelle would dominate cahill and that mane would score. so, what an absolute horrible ref. both teams have now been declined 2 pens

the ref is such a joke. if this is a dive, it was also one by mane

If ivanovic is not having a brainfart it is one of our cms. until our defensive choesion is not sorted we have to play 2 defensively apt midfielders at the same time in the double pivot IMO. Any 2 of Ramires, Mikel, RLC and Matic would be better than having Fabregas there. I'd rather have to chose between Oscar and FAbregas than conceding the midfield to the opponent by not playing a proper dp

we need more structure in our play and a midfielder who can actually defend.

ramires is back to being torrid again

great marking fabregas

was coming. great goal by them and deserved. why the heck did we stop playing football after willians goal?

falcao wins every aerial duell but always heads it to a southampton player

but it was a dive.he really threw himself to the ground.

Willian so great these days. 4 set piece goals in 4 games in a row

I know what you mean but feelings can be subjective. SAF was extremely unpopular in his first few years at OT and no supporter would have trusted him to build such a legacy. I can honestly not think of a manager who would be immune against this sort of slump. we had it under carlo, rdm and avb. Simeone the arguably best coach in the wordl is experiencing a very patchy period, too. Dortmund even drifted to last place in a much weaker league under jürgen KLopp. Patience is all we can give MOurinho. But if we are patient or not, we have to get out there and sacking the manager is not an option atm IMO

No only Müller is Müller, but everyone with the same stature, skillset, playing style and technical attributes can be successful in the same niche.

I hope Rom lets his contract at Everton run down and join us on free to replace Costa in 4 years once the former has matured into a world class CF. God what i would give for that to happen just to see Martinez's face.

No one will ever replace Lamps. He is one of a kind. No box to box midfielder will ever be that creative and dangerous in front of goal whilst at the same time offering an immense passing range and physical presence. It is more that his goalscoring and creating job has been outsourced to the wings. robben, cole and duff were great but not at the level hazard is. Because all-round cms like lampard, gerrard, ballack have become extinct, their responsibility has been split up into the 2 holding players and an AM. When on form, Matic, Oscar, FAbregas are ok to do that job but neither are real world class players at that. IMO before buying reinforcement we should always look at what we could improve with the players we got and their composition. Matic is without alternatives. Mikel and Ramires can both do a job in dm but are mere squad players. Playing Fabregas and Oscar/Willian in the middle has a couple of major disadvantages: 1) they lack physical presense which is why our midfield often gets overrun by quick or strong midfielders like experienced with Toure, Imbula, Shelvey or even Naismiths. 2) none provides that offensive spark on a consistent basis. lampard always found so many avenues to find a direct connection to the striker be it lobs, short passes through the gap, 50m passes, lay offs you name it. Fabregas, Oscar, Willian are all much more one-dimensional in their offensive contributions. 3) whilst all three run their lungs out defensively they do read the game well enough to really make an impact defensively. I remember Ballack/Lamps/Essien/Makelele averaged at least 3 interceptions per game each. which equals to 12+ attacks of the opponent just broken down before they even get into the danger zone. what i could imagine working on the short to middle time horizon is ------Matic------ RLC-----Willian Pace, physical presence, defensively extremely solid and very reliable on the ball. does not produce as many turnovers like oscar+fabregas would. In Willians current form also a goal once in a while. IMO defence should take priority atm and these 3 are some o four defensively most astute midfielders. also willian would have the game in front of him which is what he strives utlizing his bags of pace. Oscar and FAbregas could be extremely vital coming off the bench. against tired legs their lack of pace and physical presence does not become as evident. alternatively this could change to --------------------Matic-----RLC(Fabregs if chasing a game)--- Pedro/kenedy-----Hazard------Willian----------------- IMO Hazard is a bit more dangerous in the middle than from the left. MOst of his best dribblings come through the middle. Hazard has that bit better close control and bit less pace compared to Willian that both would be more effective this way. Willian can beat a player on the left much easier as he is less predictable here. also with having azpi by his side he will be much more effective. To sum up, a few tactical and personnel tweaks could do wonders to sort out our shaky defensive organization. Including RLC from the start will give us a more solid first half. Oscar and Fabregas should start on the bench and provide some quality subs later in the game. Also Willian, as demonstrated in the last few games can be utilized more effectively as the last few games have proved. They also proved that Jose is finally ready to experiment with the lineup so I hope we will see at least a fraction of these amendments in practise.