Magic Lamps

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/apr/06/football-transfer-rumours several sources have linked us to Jordan Henderson. He has been Liverpool's best CM for two years now and only one year left on his contract. So he would be a dead cheap cover for Fabregas boosting our home grown quota.

Just Rest matic in this one. Cesc is useless in big games anyway. So play him. This is gonna be combative, for qpha this is their cup final and matic always picks up yellows in those games. Also drop courtois two equalisers in 2 games are on him. When u have cech as second option u know what u have to do. Cech Azpi Gary jt Luis Rami zouma Cuad fab hazard Remy

Mignolet must be one of the top goalkeepers with the worst leap, sometimes he makes up for this with his amazing reflexes. To beat him you only need to shoot remotedly close to the post. We always have had a hard time beating liverpool because we do not shoot from distance.

I am rather looking forward to Gerrard giving one his beautiful assists to Diego Costa to seal the league like in 2010 to Drogba. Either that or an evergreen slip. NOt sure what is more of Gerrard classic. But actually winning at vs Palace seems to be a good prediction, given we keep decent form.

Which is exactly what Ribery said in that interview. Thanks for repeating. I repeat: It doesn't matter who, be it KDB or Hazard, Ribery or even BAyern see as the successor to Ribery. Neither will ever play there. He is. This season, Ribery has started to become ineffective. Has lost most of his pace and hence his ability to go past a defender. He still can get a goal or assist here and there but that is no match for the constant threat and force KDB has been in midfield for Wolfsburg. KDB dominates matches, Ribery can't do that anymore. In 3 days, Ribery will be 32 but his decline has long begun. Bayern won't make the mistake they did 10 years ago, holding on to proven but aging key players and as a consequence drifting down into mediocrity and Eurpean Irrelevance. They will replace Ribery with Griezman in 2016. Götze, Müller and Sinan Kurt will occupy Ribery's position next season mostly to phase him out.

Still there have been cases when fullbacks shut out wingers by tracking them wherever they went with the other defenders covering the space left behind. Having played Fullback myself. Some of the most underrated but crucial performances in recent football history have come from fullbacks some tracked the winger all over the pitch like Bosinga, played as left-back under hiddink to defend messi and did so with great effect and under RDM to almost nullify the threat of Ribery. Others held their positions and just defended what was in front of them for example Messi, Higuain, Agüero and di Maria all were shut out by Arne Friedrich in 2010 and Höwedes in 2014. It is sad those guys won't get remembered. they were at least as good defenders as the opponents they stuffed in their pockets were attackers. I always thought there was more to football than goals and fancy dribblings but common opinion seems to disagree - fuelled by those ridiculous individual awards. In general the fullback position might very well be the most underrated in importance. Their runs open the space for the star winger to attack, with all wingers cutting in, they are the people to provide width. Like you said the constant running up and down the flank makes it physically more demanding than most other positions. The feeling shutting down the opposition's best player is extremely rewarding though. Let them run past you, let them nutmeg you, just turn and trust in your pace, eyes on the ball and catch it before they can do something dangerous with it. That is what defending as a fullback is all about. Being a shadow. Actually pace is more important in defense than in attack here. Even though i liked attacking more than defending in general, as a fullback i excelled much more in defending. Having won the ball after some hard sprints it was a pain in the ass to turn, run down the flank again in order to find a pass or a cross. Which is probably why most fullbacks are much better defenders than attackers or the other way round. Which brings us to Luis. He is almost equally good at both, which is so rare and what makes him one of the best leftbacks in the world. I have only seen this completeness in Lahm before. Lahm himself wanted to use his versatility in midfield which almost cost us the world cup. He is so fucking crap in DM against decent opposition. Being about as tall as my left thigh and almost as heavy. my grandmother could ease him of the ball. going backwards. with her zimmer. But back to Luis. His completeness is rather underappreciated here. Mou probably insists on playign Iva and Azpi in most important games because their deficiencies and strengths complement each other better also regarding the very different ability ranges of Willian and Hazard on their respective sides. though if we had another, right-sided luis filipe, i am pretty sure i know who would play in the fullback positions. btw great attitude http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11095/9784837/filipe-luis-happy-at-chelsea-and-plans-to-see-out-blues-contract

Both Danilo and Carvajal are average players. Azpi is better than the two. If only Mou would actually utilize him on his natural side. That being said we might need another fullback in the near future, iva and luis not getting any younger. Prolly will sell Wallace and Ake to fund Clyne or some average Brazilian.

LOL Ribery is a bitter cunt. KDB is lightyears ahead of him already. All what is left for Ribery is the way down and he knows that. But he is right about one thing, KDB will never play for Bayern, nor will Hazard.

IMO apart from a new CB and maybe an AM our first XI is settled already. But we have lacked depth this season, so Walcott could be a possibility. Natural RW with pace and decent technique, socres goals, perfect age, really decent squad player. most importantly he is homegrown. I just wonder if we don't have enough average wingers in the squad already:kakuta, piazon, Traore, atsu, cuadrado, willian etc. I will never understand why we loan and sell our own players to fund moves for players of the same position who are not any better but usually older and overpriced. Schürrle/Salah for Cuadrado, Mata/KDB for Salah/Willian etc. IMO the 4 AMs we got rid of Mata/Salah/KDB/Schürrle as well as the AMs we are going to lose Bertrand/Atsu/Piazon are all 7 better or more talented than Willian/Cuadrado/Walcott.

England had some great spells during the game. they are never utter average but also never have an entirely good game that was an obvious backpass buffon picked up

fabian delph's passing is absolutely atrocious. When running with the ball he is great but the rest of his game is shambles.

Chiellini is a strange centre back. amazing assist but could have given away 2 pens already. luckily for him the ref is felix birch who is afraid of making calls against the home side.

fabian delph being england's best player is testament to the quality of the side. On the other side, Italy's most impresive players are darmian and eder- never heard of either.

Add Germany 2006 to that. England had Lampard, Gerrard in their prime Michael Owne when he still was good, Rooney, Bekcham, JT, Ferdinand, Ashley Cole most in or around their prime. Next to France 1998, Italy 2006, Brazil 2002 and Spain 2010 the individually greatest international squad I have seen in my lifetime. The thing about England is they always underachieve in proportion. They needed the golden generation to narrowly exit in the quarters, so it is no surprise that the current side full of average footballers, most too young or too old won't make it out of the group stage.

Thak you for your support. I do not have as much faith as you in our current national side though But that is not even my point. First and foremost I am a Chelsea fan. I experienced that I am more happy about a routine win for Chelsea than I am about a tournament win for Germany. It is probably becaue I chose Chelsea whilst I did not chose to be German. Even in the dullest of campaigns, qualifiers of whatever magnitiude are a distraction. Also i am against supporting the corrupted Fifa and Uefa even more by watching matches or buying tickets. IMO to make International football again we would need a major overhaul in organizing those qualifiers and of course in the organizations themselves.

Actually I am European and still think International football is a redundant, boring, corrupted pile of shit. Can't wait for the fuckin International break to be over ASAP FFS.

If you take away Lampard's goals he would still have a crazy amount of assists, more than Xavi's and Iniesta combined btw and not any worse in quality. OUtside of the boot, defence splitters, 60 yarders, those intricate short range passers that lay it on a plate perfectly for the striker, lobs, backheel assists. He once even did an interception and a wonder assist for anelka with a single touch. Also his dribbling ability is criminally underrated. Despite lacking pace he used to go on a mazy run once in a while to create space for teammates, like famously nutmegging balotelli, XAbi Alonso e.g. Also his crossing was excellent. When he stil had a bit of pace he also had pretty awesome tackling. His reading of the game stands for itself, too. Also he was an incredible big match player who could impose himself on big game even if that did not suit him. More than because of his goals Lampard was special because he was one of the most all-round world class players ever. Oscar will never be that good.

assist for Henry to score vs pool, assist for suarez to kick england out of the wc, assist for Utd last summer etc the list goes on... More a parasite, a plague than a player, no wonder English media have chosen him as their darling. Regarding Liverpool FC, Steven Gerrard, English media and English national team one word springs to my mind: failure.

Mourinho admitting he owes Remy more playing time is finally a word. With Costa having his annual end-of-season hamstring problem, I am confident we can just as good clinch the title having Remy as our striker.

http://www.laola1.tv/de-at/live/fc-barcelona-real-madrid-cf/296117.html if you don'tmind german commentary.

They have worked on their setpieces. Used to be pretty useless at that aspect before enrique came in.

classic Gerrard. Ruins a big match for his team. Wonder why no one calls him Judas. Fitting that they excuse him. He is an excuse of a footballer.

Given that i spent an hour cursing our players for their half-assed performances, I can't say how relieved I am that we somehow got it over the line. what a scramble. TBF Ivanovic was solid in the last 15mins and willian tried. Still those 2 and cahill don't belong anywhere near the first team. Most players not exactly had their best day once again. Esp Matic was abysmal. Luis, JT and Hazard were ok tho. Maybe one of our most frustrating performance but all the more important for the morale and mentality of the team. Hull were better than us but big teams win ugly and today was oneof the few occassions we actually showed. that. I confess that I did not believe in the team after the equalizer, but we somehow made it and that is all what counts.

that was fuckin close and lucky. continue like that and it will contiue to be an almighty struggle towards the finish line

when did we score?I just went out to get myself down and missed the goal. looking forward to conceding though.