Magic Lamps

we tend to see things through blue tinted glasses, but one has to be with oliver on this one. he touched the ball just before he touched costa. great tackle actually.

Everytime I see Gomis play, I am asking myself how someone as small as Gomis can be that strong. At least he does not really have the nerves to be a striker.

Not surprising. The suckers from Augsburg played him despite him having muscular problems and mentally being in Cobham already. If he had contracted an injury, the deal would have been off. And they risk that for a game vs a 4th tier team. I also believe that Baba is one of those players who gets better with the quality of oppositions. He did most mistakes last season vs smaller teams having his best games against the bigger ones.

First, we did not finish 6th ut 3rd before he came and qualified for the CL every season. Also those lineups are crooked. Your first lineup ever was a b/C-team cos all our main players were rested for the CL final. Easy to compare that with our current team But that is not even the point. I never denied he fared brilliantly . He is an amazing coach and has done the club a world of good. My point was, his extension was premature. He still has a year on his current contract and the season has not even started. We have not made the changes the squad requires which worries me. We also have not made any tactical switches that would remedy our problems in certain areas, this worries me, too. If I were the board I'd much rather have waited a few months into the season. Only because I still don't completely buy into the idea that, we after having had 10 coaches in as many years, are gonna stick up with consistency like the bores around us and keep a coach for 6+ years. This does not mean I don't believe in Mourinho. I really do. I trust him to make the best of the squad. Better than anyone. But if he does not win any titles, Mourinho will take the blame and his head will roll even though he probably might not even be at fault. And not winning any titles the upcoming season is a possibility with that paper-thin squad.

A bit premature... Should rather see how he fares in that damn 3rd season. But on the other hand a nice show of intent that he really wants to stay here longer, and the club agrees

With most of our youth player I think the problem is mental. RLC has all the tools, physically and technically. But it still has to click mentally. Not only does he lack hunger and aggressiveness, it is also increidble that despite his ridiculously good technique in passing and shooting, he practically never scores or assists. Just like Willian. Hence we should not play them together, IMO. Would be too much dribbling in midfield but not enough output.

He. I know. He is just happy to be here and will play wherever Mou wants him too, which is admirable. But it is no secret that he has been most effective as a striker.

Lolz. He is a striker ffs. BTW the deal takes that long because, for Augsburg it is the deal of the century and they want to milk us for every penny.

Haha. Penalty in the last minute. FIFA classic. But not gonna happen Fabregas is suspended iirc. Hence we should play Back five Matic Willian Oscar Moses Remy. Hazard Imo Moses has about all the qualities Ramires has + strength and can actually play football. Doubt we will play Rlc in an opening match. But would be inclined to do so.

MLS has a salary cap which is not much more than the 17m Ronaldo earns and I bet that greedy bastard would not like to miss out on that The only club dumb enough to actually sign him is PSG. The thing is, we can easily keep Hazard until his contract ends in 2020 when he will be almost 30. If we keep him till that point, he might as well just stay here. CFC holds all the cards here. whatever Real bids for him next year, we don't need to sell and could still get a decent price in 2018 if the situation would become unbearable. When Hazard signed that contract, he knew he will not move one year later.

Or more like there is some wall behind that fat red writing. I know it is preaseason and we should not freak out, but it has probably not exactly been planned to not win a single friendly. It is not the fact that we lost, but the manner how. A bit of rustiness and lack of sharpness is ok and it is not that we did not try, tho the way we failed was alarming. We were uncreative, uninspired, unambitious. Preseason should be about seeing some kids, trying new tactics, experiment, get fresher. Preseason has not provided us with some new insights. Of course not. It's preseason. IMO that is exactly the problem. Even in fucking preseason, when there is no pressure and we could experiment tactically, our biggest weakness lack of steel and decisivness in the middle gets exposed again and again and again without Mourinho reacting in any kind. It does not even have to be signings, it could be a slight alteration of the formation. But no. Nothing. Just our usual cookie-cutter approach. rinse and repeat. Like we have been playing for half a year. Stay deep, hoof balls forward and hope someones picks it up and does something useful. Maybe it's ok to play this way when backs to the wall in a crucial league or CL match, but in preseason? When is the time to change our predictable patterns if not then?Where is the sense of failing the same way again and again? Even Wenger has changed his tactics FFS. I am sure, when the season begins this will be forgotten soon, we will blow Swansea away. But after some months when winter comes and Oscar, Fabregas become useless, we have Ramires starting big games again we will see, our problems are still the same and that is what worries me.

I wonder why everyone is supposed to want to be at Real. They win almost no titles and are a club full of cuntish, corrupted officials.Also will Ronaldo really leave next year? He will still be damn expensive and even Utd will realize some day that they don't need him. Also it is not that Real really get anyone they want. Neymar, Totti, Pirlo, Roy Keane, Gerrard, Sandro Ramirez and many more rejected Real.

don't feed the troll.

And because Bayern don't sell players since they are cunts. They rather let them sit on the bench or train with the amateurs for 4 years than selling them to another club. That is because they believe they would be perceived as weak and want to be seen as a buyer club not a seller club. And this will be their downfall as they can't offer competitive wages as soon as the new TV deal kicks in.

rumours are that FCA are taking Marko Marin+money in exchange for Baba.

Donsah wish your Godfred was raw like me?

What I realized about him the past couple of days is, that IMO, he is not a winger. neither is he a cm/cam. Still he is kind of playmaker, but no no.10. He is something in between. The player he is closest to or rather should be is Iniesta. He also needed until he reached his late 20ies until people realized how good he was, having before been wasted on the wing or too deep in midfield. Like Iniesta Willian is neither a scorer or deliverer. He is a a creative player who channels the game, gets the ball out of the defense, catalyses the transition and distributes it after his dribbles. In any other league it would be much easier to utilize correctly but I have thought of a Barcelona-like 4-3-3 where Willian is Iniesta (cycles the game, makes the pre-assists, the diagonals to the winger to play the cross etc), Fabregas is Xavi/Rakitic (vertical passes -> assists), Matic is Busquets, Hazard is Messi and Pedro/callejon/candreva or even moses/kenedy/traore could be pedro/neymar, eto'o/suarez would of course be modelled by any of our strikers. ------------------------Matic------------- ----------Willian-----------------Fabregas direct winger-------------------------Hazard -----------------------Costa------------------- could be deadly. but would require a complete change of the football we are playing. Also it is questionable whether we would change our system just to suit Willian. The big downside would be the lack of physical presence in midfield. But on the one hand physicality is overrated in football and only still relevant in the epl because of the more lenient refs. On the other hand, our right winger has to track back anyway, so a more physically strong winger like Candreva/Bale/Moses could remedy that. It would also suit FAbregas better, who obviously is not a no.10 and needs a higher circulation of the play to get more of the ball. We should at least give it a go on Fifa and FM. ^^ Also this system is basically what we play everytime we got Moses/Cuadrado, Fab, Hazard and Willian on the pitch together while Oscar is out.

I think they tried hard from minute one. But as always when we try but are not sharp enough, we can't string 5 passes together, get found out, concede, try even harder, lack concentration to equalize and get frustrated hence the quality of football detoriates in the end. Arsenal weren't exactly great but sharper, more confident, scored a good individual goal and defended desperately + they had Cech. In the end a deserved loss but what saddens me most is that we could not even score. Neither from one of our numerous set piece with all our tall boys against that midget team or from open play where we had far more clear cut chances than they had. Probably should be fine in a few weeks but if this squad is good enough to retain the league id not k yet.

Difference between him and Ronaldo is basically that if Ronaldo has a shit match with Real playing shite in a big game, he still takes 10 shots and as many attempts to dribble. He sends those 10 shots into the stands and slips twice on his own redundant stepover for everyone to poke fun at him. Next week, he takes those 10 shots again, scores 2 screamers, everyone celebrates him as the best. Point is, you have to take risks to be the best

the much maligned (GC and) Willian were our best outfield players today by a country mile. But Willian is somehow not best as a classical winger. He strives at carrying the ball forward with his mazy dribbling. In the final third he is average. So maybe we should pair him with a more conventional winger like Kenedy or Moses and leave out either Fabregas or Oscar as they are obviously not athletic enough to be played both - in a big match at least.

Not quite imo. Costa bombed opponents to shreds last year in preseason. Remember his amazing goals like his incredible solo effort against those teams nobody cares about? other than that I agree. Remy will score when we play ok but what is special about Costa is, he makes goals out of nothing. He creates his own chances (vs Aston Villa )and makes goals from situations that are not even chances (remember that Ramires mishit vs leicester?). Costa has that magic ability to always be there were the goals come. Remy is a good striker, too. He has great pace and is a deadly finisher. He also has more than decent positioning, he usually is there where a striker has to be but there is no way he would find himself in those scoring positions as often as Costa does given the same number of games. Those little details are what seperates a good striker from a great one. Those little details win the league.

lol. I think before we see a youth player fielded regularly we will see one of our 19(!) senior player collapsing from fatigue.

this. was by far our best defender today. Also nice pace against Cazorla and Walcott twice intercepting their runs. Decisive stepping out of the line. We would be bollocks to get rid of him. Still has a good 2-4 years in him. More than JT and Iva for sure. If we sign Stones, he will be a great squad option for years to come. Yes last season was not his best, had some big errors, but so had Ivanovic and even Azpi. If he can recover his form of 2012 to early 2014 he doesn't need much protection or a deep line.

HIs presence alone made Ramires and Hazard shoot well over. Like Neuer made Benzema, Higuain and Palacio waste their chances. Nevermind Cech would have had no chance from 4 yards if ramires had only got the ball on target and for Hazard's shot, he was already committed. A simple lob or a shot into the near corner would have done the job.

What saddens me most is that in this crappy summer we are undoing all the great work of our past few season of early, clever punctual signings that won us a hard earned league title. Failing to replace JT, Iva, Mikel, Ramires with quality players will set us back at least two years in our development as a club. As all of you I would at least be curious to know the reason. Anyways, even if we manage to get those two defenders in we will only roughly have recovered the level of last season. Iva, JT are slowly declining there is no denying that. Courtois, Oscar, Hazard and maybe even Willian might improve a bit but that is no way proportionate to the huge leaps of improvement all our rivals have made. Also with signing a cb we deviate from that stupid one in one out policy anyways so fuck it.