Magic Lamps

nice opportunity to boost our goal difference.

A decent offense performance at alst. tbf hull have been shit defensively as have we. esp ivanovic still suspect defensively.

now stop playing football and concede.

what a fucking opener

Agüero sure, Kane maybe, esp considering he is outscoirng world-class strikers either having the best season in their career (agüero) or playing with way better midfielders behind them (Costa) with ease and at only 21 years. People cry one-season wonder but does anyone really think a striker of that technical and goalscoring ability will only have one good season? maybe he will not score that much ever again but this guy will continue to make headlines. Michael owen sends his regards. Giroud has killer holdöup play but a man his size should have. Not even Gunners would have him over Costa though.Giroud is a good striker but not a good finisher. But the worst thing about is he lets you down. He should have scored about every big game gunners lose and embodies there loser's mentality. Makes you hope with good performances in unimportant games but does fuck all in those that really matter. Arsenal will win their 3rd/4th place trophy with or without his goals, assists or hold up play.

Yup and it was still tight. He also had a great match vs Germany that year. What I like most about him apart from his defensive work-rate is his skill. Much more than Willian e.g. he creates chances with his skills, trickery and clever movement rather than pace.

Him scoring the important 1-0 vs everton made me think about him again. 25 and in his prime he is having a great season in Ukranian league. Peforming better there than Willian did who also was worth 32m. Also Yarmolenko is rather tall so if we had him we would not need to push Iva up the right flank in order to keep posession from our goalkicks with the header. He is out of contract in 2016 so he would be dead cheap too.

We have not lost a game to Barca for 9 years. In fact, The 8 times we played them we only lost against them twice, winning 3. IN 2004/5 we got them in the quarterfinal, lost the game at Camp Nou 2-1 but then came that magic night at Stamford bridge. Despite a brilliant Ronaldinho double cutting our 3-0 lead achieved by goals from Gudjohnsen, Duff, Lamps, we advanced through a late JT header. WE also spanked Bayern at SB that season. A shame we could not win it there already, losing to that fucking Liverpool ghost goal. Our power would have made light work of Milan in the final. In 2005/2006 we were rather poor. Losing 1-0 at camp nou, 2-1 at SB with a late penalty making things look more close than they were In 2006/7 we had them in the group stages. 2-2 at Camp Nou, Lampard scoring that impossible spinned lob from a 5° angle, drogba with a late equalizer. at SB a drogba double beat them 2-1 or 2-0 idk 2008/9 i guess i don't have to tell anyone. Our performance in the 2nd leg was one of our greatest CL games bar drogba's finishing. 2011/12 was maybe my favourite against all odds against the greatest sides in the world football. The most amazing thing about all our successful matches vs Barca is that there always were players like Cech, Drogba and esp Lampard who simply grew to the challenge. The game, the tactics were never set for them which is the excuse that as always used for FAbregas and Mata not performing in those. No offensive player like to defend all the game. Still some made the game their ow and won it for us. We are yet to see that from our current side.

City not even able to score a fucking penalty against one of Germany's worse penalty keepers. They were lucky Barca was wasteful today, too. Pathetic bunch of tossers.

When you sit deep you have to do it like Juve with their efiiciency and counter attacking. They might not be that good every week but today was a blue print of deep defensive, counter attacking football.

I think Wolfsburg is his next destination. He will rip the Bundesliga apart with his physical superiority.

I wish, I really do. I like to have City busy to eliminate any danger of them catching us and for england to still have one CL representant. But for a dismal City to beat a decent Barca side with the best offense in the world it would take a minor miracle.

Its pretty clear, Hazard will be Poty with Kane as ypoty.

Italian? no way that would help. Actually being quality, english, homegrown and not on a high salary should suffice to have him at cfc given our paper thin squad and homegrown quota. But given our fable for average Brazilian players, Bamfordinho could be an option.

Like last season? They had almost the same preconditions and still failed dismally. They are just a pathetic bunch of chokers. No way in hell they are gonna outscore Barca at the Camp Nou. It is gonna be Messi/Sauarez/Neymar vs Martin Demichelis and co. Their task is not to get embarrassed.

My brother who is a big Dortmund fan is confident BVB will turn it around today. Juve are usually shit on German soil and the Signa Iduna Park with it's amazingly loud 80k crowd, the Yellow Wall has really pushed them at big occassions against vastly superior teams often enough. I am a bit sceptical though. Dortmund have an error-prone defense, so I don't see them winning it 1-0. But I don't see them winning it by 2 goals either.

I hope he extends his contract beyond 2017 and goes on prem loan in summer, so we can sell him for a good price. It is sad tho that this guy has no future here. He is born to score goals and also seems to be an ambittious yet down-to-earth lad.

I rewatched Matic's tackle on mane about 20 times in super slow-mo and I have come to the conclusion that there is no fucking way this is a penalty. Would not even be one in Germany. Mane does not even have the ball or touch it in the whole incident. Matic is nearer to it and goes to the ground for a sliding challenge to clear it, which he successfully does. Mane falls down as soon as Matic brushes him just before Matic gets to the ball. But that is a dive. a good one tbf, not those über-theatrical, raised arms dives Iva does. But not a perfect one. If Matic's hand would have put him off contact (which should not be the case since he only brushes his hip slightly), he should have gone down to his right to balance the impetus, but not straight to the ground like he did. Also their knees touched but matic was clearly first to the ball so that is within the law. Really disappointed with that decision. It was an excellent tackle. On first thought I also saw it as a penalty, as did the ref and I don't blame him, just as one can't blame him for not seeing that stamp on Ivanovic's heel (esp given Iva's diving record). But that is exactly the problem. refs can only see it once and often are not well enough positioned or simply have no sense of judgement. About 1 of 3 major decisions (red cards, pens) is wrong these days.We need video technology to remedy that human error. If we had had that one on Sunday, we would not be talking about how shit our performance was but that the exact same game had got the result it deserved.

For the neutral it must be comical how we choke ourselves towards the title. 86 points is what you always need to win the title. And even if any of our rival teams pick up maximum points they will not get that 86 points. It would take a massive collapse from us not to even pick up those. And that is given City pick up maximum points which they fucking won't. At best they will finish with 82,83, 84 at a stretch. But we also staged an amazing collapse vs PSG at 1-0 vs 10 men.,

let me help you. Koke has 8 assits in the leauge, 14 overall . Oscar has 7 in the league, 8 overall. Also Koke is way better defensively than Oscar. More of a Modric type of player . btw he played brilliantly today. 80% passing completion, 18(!) ball recoveries.

This away goals rule is utter Bullshit. Going out of a competition without losing a match is unfair. Two draws should warrant extra time and penalties. Or simply fuck this replay BS and have every round one match on a neutral venue.

No he is not. He has got 7 yellow cards. 6 in epl and 1 in COC. At this stage it would take 10 to get a 2 match suspension.

Maybe we should just stop playing him in the 2nd part of the season and in big games. Did not need him in the latter last season. Though as for the former, if we drop him, Ramires will take his place and i am not quite sure he would do any better.... Also as for the choker argument. Fabregas might suck major balls in most big games, but I remember him having some amazing performances in the very big moments in wc 2010 and ec 2012 e.g. the assists for the world cup winning goal

Also loved the way we played under Ancelotti in the double winning season. That team had no pace or natural talent like our current one but it still beat every opposition by sheer quality, power, determination and character. Drogba, Lampard well above 30 y.o. and still banging in goals for fun was a joy to watch. That team had three aspects we are direly missing these days: accuracy ,hunger and focus. We scored some team goals that season Barcelona in their pomp would have been proud of. That interplay esp between the Drog-Lamps axis was a joy to watch. It was no tiki-taka which is by the way not what I understand as "good performances". Beautiful football does not come from "philosophy", it derives from quality that is channelled by complementary tactics and teamwork. Which is exactly what we should learn from the double season. We did not need a Hazard to dribble past 4 players. It came down to the approach. Get your determination and spirit high and play as good as you can, always give it your best effort, play to your strengths, never lose confidence or concentration. The way you play should be functional. When you play functionally and with the qualities listed it will look easy on the eye automatically without having to give it that artificial "tiki taka2 pimping. What was also remarkable about the football played under Ancelotti was its honesty. We were not nice like arsenal but bravely standin gup for ourselves, never giving in, ruthlessly finishing off our chances to get the result the game deserved. We were clinical but at the same time fair. No gamesmanship. We won because our approach was pure. Teamwork, confidence, focus, accuracy, effort, determination - for me those attributes represent, define football. We should go back to the roots and concentrate on that. Within all those "clear campaign" mini-battles, the constant reshuffling of the team, the fatigue, the siege-mentality, I sometimes feel the players have lost clear sight on what football really is about. Recover that and we should be fine, cos we got it in us what it takes to win titles.

Indeed a shame. I would not be half as mad if the players we actually play over our promising, passionate youngsters weren't some vastly overpriced average players who always did and always will blow their chances with their half-assed effort. Instead of waiting for some genuine world-class players becoming available we cast our hard earned money at those half-decent fair-weather players. Once we were hailed for our character. Players like Lampard, Ballack, Essien, Maka, Drogba who would always stand up to their task and raise their effort and their output for the occasion. Now we are left with a bunch of pussies who are unable to string two passes together all the time between January and June. The thing is you can't buy character. Unless we realize that every season will go like this one.