Dion

It's funny that I'd probably think he's an asshole if he tried to cheat on her with pretty much anyone else, but with her sister? What a boss! The man has got balls of steel, only a crazy motherfucker would do that.

We've had worse IMO. There was a time when you'd see heated discussions with name calling several times a day.

I swear my heart skipped a beat when I read that.

Because Cesc plays better and impacts the game way more from deep. I've always thought his best position was there and Mourinho seems to think the same from his declarations and from the way he's employing Fabregas. Why should he play CAM when he's better at DLP? Or even better, when he can choose whether he wants to be deep or advanced adapting throughout the game as he deems fit while also making it harder to mark him out of the game? Besides, Oscar isn't there to facilitate Cesc only. Haven't you noticed that Hazard has been drifting towards the middle and has been given way more freedom since the pre-season? There must exist a player whose job is to mitigate the gaps that are inevitably going to appear when there are these many players leaving their positions. Guess what, one of those players in the last game was Oscar. He's not fixed at the CAM position and IMO the way we're attacking with all these interchangeable positions is an amazing style to confuse the opposing defense. And we also can't have every fucking player on a free role or with freedom to roam around every now and then, so it's only natural that Oscar is going to be sacrificed somewhat. My only qualm with Oscar is that his quality on the ball and offensively has been declining steadily, with few games as exceptions, in a blue shirt and I can't play blind nor won't warp the facts to pretend it isn't happening. I still consider him one of the most tactically intelligent players on the squad and probably one of the most suitable to fulfill the task of covering the holes in our formation, but that shouldn't excuse him of being almost null on creativity. And I'm not talking about number of assists or goal here, there can only be one assister and one goal scorer in every goal from a team of 11, but I wanna see a better offensive impact when we're in possession and he's not covering for Cesc - no more side or back passes, I wanna see audacity and courageous effort from Oscar when he has the ball.

I was planning to do it with the original lyrics from Moldy Peaches, performed excellently in Juno:

HAHAHAHA. I don't know about the karaoke, but I'm definitely playing that song in a duet with some female friend of mine when I'm back.

@Barbara, just saw this and thought you might like: IMO it beats Sir Jeffers by an inch.

I agree. Now that we have Fabregas and hence more creativity to our game, I'm more interested in someone who can score than someone who can create upfront. Aside from that, Chicharito has a tendency to show up when coming from the bench, he used to score a lot of late goals for United and I quite like that.

People talk about goal poachers as if it is something inherently wrong or bad. Poachers usually have an amazing positional sense and superb finishing. Sometimes they will score goals that look easy because they will be at the right place in the right time to begin with. Some of the greatest players in the world were or could be considered goal poachers. Romario, Gerd Müller and Puskás come to mind. It doesn't mean their overall game has to be bad either, it just mean it is hardly outstanding or it is overshadowed by their goal scoring prowess. Chicharito has average link up and passing skills but he's clever in his runs, has good positioning, pace and finishing. I'd be happy to have him as our second striker, he's miles better than Torres and offers something different from Drogba. Saying he can only score tap-ins is very simplistic and bigoted. If he's willing to play under the shadow of Costa and price is right I don't see why not.

Yesterday was my second year anniversary here too, I had forgotten.

There you go. Rebound on the post. The angle doesn't help much though. It may have been deflect but the goal wouldn't have happened if not for Iva, and that's what matters.

Don't forget Costa's goal came from a rebound of Iva's shot iirc.

You probably can't do it now, since it has been a while. And it is enabled by default. But try it right now - start writing anything, wait to see the message that it has been auto saved. Then leave the page and return. When you start typing again it will appear under the box, like this: That inception though...

You should try using the auto save feature then. It saves everything automatically. You could have retrieved your post. It happened to me a couple of times before one of the staff members told me that. You just have to click "View Auto Saved Content" under the box where you type everything. It would have been there when you returned to this page.

We'll do it (watch the games talking on skype) when I'm back to João Pessoa, which should be next week Of course he doesn't shy away when he's on the ball 100% of the time, but it's been happening too often. It gets on my nerves especially when they pass to him, he passes the ball back, they pass it to him and he passes it back AGAIN. Grow a pair for fuck sake. Sometimes he isn't even being THAT pressured, just take the ball to the side with your first touch, giving you time to look around and explore the passing possibilities. Honestly I wish I could talk to Oscar showing him some tapes of his games and show him what he should be doing. He needs guidance and someone like Luiz to tell him he's got it, he's a quality player, there's no need to be afraid. Holding on to the ball isn't even that difficult, I do it all the time playing against people taller and stronger than me. Dribbling can be more tricky, you need footwork, acceleration, flair helps... but holding possession should be pretty basic for a pro player, it's just a matter of having your body in the space between your opponent and the ball which doesn't even require that much ball control, although the more the better. If he's afraid to move around with the ball it will be difficult to set up plays and help dictating the tempo, this is especially true when he receives the ball with his back faced towards the opposing side, he's not as bad when he's already running towards their goal, but it still could use some improvement. And also the midfield is usually the place where I focus more attention, I'm always observing the positioning and plays from Oscar, Cesc and Matic. And I can also relate to the problem I'm describing because when I'm not feeling confident in my play I usually tend to have the same patterns as Oscar is showing. You just want to avoid screwing up so you minimize the time you have the ball on your feet, your passing also suffers because not only you won't be in the best position to make them (for not roaming around in possession) but also because you will give it second thoughts, and sometimes that half a second of uncertainty is the difference between a pass going through or being intercepted.

Skips, tell us about yourself. What other sports do you like aside from football? What was your favourite subject in high school? Favourite song genre? Why did you move from Holland? Where else have you lived? What's your opinion regarding the liberal view emanated from your country (marijuana, euthanasia, women equality - I've heard The Netherlands are one of the top countries in that aspect). I wish Brazil was more like that but unfortunately we're still a very religious and conservative country. I'm a big admirer of the Dutch people.

The problem is Oscar has been mediocre on the ball. He has been absolutely fine off the ball, more like superb actually, his positional sense is very good, he covers for other players, especially Fabregas, he tracks back, he regain possession often. But all that is his work when he doesn't have the ball. When he's in possession he's been mediocre or bad. I wouldn't have a problem with that if I didn't know he could do better. Believe me, he can. I think it is clear to anyone if you compare his confidence on the ball for Brazil compared to that for us. It seems he's scared to be in possession, like he doesn't believe he can carry the ball around. This has been annoying me especially now that we have Cesc. Sometimes you will see Fabregas maintain possession against 3 or 4 players and make a pass. Heck, even Costa is doing that. But Oscar tries to release the ball to anyone as soon as he can. When he doesn't do that, he will often stay in place looking for a pass and will end up doing the easy option. I'm sorry Oscar, but you will never be a great player if you play like a coward. There are uncountable times when he'll receive a pass just to pass it back to whoever found him the moment the ball touches his foot. It's like he's telling that player not to pass it to him because he doesn't know what to do with it, hence he doesn't want it. I don't know what has got to him but he needs to fix it asap. Right now fucking Ramires and Mikel are better players ON THE BALL than Oscar and that is worrisome.

Wait, is he implying Torres can't?! I'm appalled

It's tragicomic. I can't deny I kinda feel sad for them but I also can't avoid finding it funny. The fact that this has happened so many times but they still have this kind of reaction only adds up to everything.

Maybe for you he is, HAHAHAHA.

About a month from now - 20.09. I miss Emma on your avatar btw.

Hey guys, I need a song for my graduation party. I'm thinking about some AC/DC... maybe Highway to Hell or You Shook Me All Night Long, any suggestions?

I wonder if they're quoting Term-X and laughing about his posts regarding Lampard's move on a City forum somewhere, HAHAHAHAHA. I'd like to see that.

What about this one? They're forced to see every one of their best players being champions for other teams. "That 10/11 team was so talented (though I agree with bingobob that it lacked steel) and the 3 main architects were Cesc, Nasri and RvP. We've seen Nasri and RvP lift the PL with City and Utd and the chances are we will now watch Cesc lift it for Chelsea. There is only so much fans can take tbh. Unlike the Nasri and RvP situations we could've prevented the Cesc one and bought home the fan favourite."

Reading Arsenal Mania forum is almost better than watching Fabregas do his magic: "This hurts so much! I didn't want him back but man, this feels wrong, plain wrong to see him doing that kind of play for Mourinho" "Sell Wilshere, Podolski and Cazorla. Buy Cesc, make a 30m profit on the basis of Wilshere being English. But no, let's pass up the best player we could get this window and persist with our average players. **** business. And no Wilshere will never be good enough to lick Cesc's ballsack" "Years of watching Cesc dominate games for us, despite playing in some pretty sh*t line ups. I know how good he is, tonight isn't the first time I've seen him play. He is better than Özil. Don't get me wrong, I love Özil, but Cesc is the superior player in my opinion and it's not a knee jerk reaction. I've said it before." There was even this pic flying across there: I imagine each spear represents an assist by Cesc Damn @Barbara!