Dion

Are those stats considering every game of this season? Domestic League only? Does it include World Cup stats?

Why? I'm learning a lot, I wanna see everything

Luiz can be the best defender in the world in one game just to become the worst in the following. Sometimes he can even transition between the two extremes in the same game. And defense is all about consistency. Every defender has ups and downs, problem with Luiz is his down is too low. His bad games are really bad and sometimes atrocious - the type of game that will make you think, how is this guy even a pro? You can never know which Luiz will show up. And when you think he got his shit together he screws up badly again. He was arguably one of the best, if not the sole best centre-back, up until the last two games when he decided he was done with being a centre-back and was his time to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time for those entire matches and do the silliest mistakes possible. And I don't know why am I even surprised. If you think about it, Luiz is always attempting the high risk, high reward choice. When he's on his day and can pull it off, it looks amazing, when he can't he fucks up the whole defensive system. When he tries to anticipate a pass or long ball and he succeeds, it looks wonderful and is indeed wonderful, he killed the opposing attack right there and can start a quick counter, whereas if he tried only to mark the player, that player could possibly be able to pass to another player or dribble past him, which keeps Luiz's team on the defensive. But when he tries to anticipate and fails, the attacking player may now be 1v1 against the gk or 2v1 against the other cb. The same applies to Luiz bombing forward, he may be another player to be dealt with by the opposition, but if he fails and allows a counter, now his team has one less defender. He does this sort of decision a lot. Most of these problems can be solved somewhat with a proper tactical plan for covering his craziness, but is it even worth it to take theses risks and to always have the doubt of when is his high risk play going to fail? That's just the essence of Luiz as a player, the way he plays he's fated to whether have wonderful plays or terrible ones, which isn't ideal for a consistent defender, it is suited for highly skilled attacking players like Hazard, Messi, Neymar, Robben. Also, regarding his personality, I disagree with @TOPTB here, I know he's skeptical from his experience with other footballers but I honestly don't think Luiz does it for the fame or to get his value up. It may not be as common in Europe or England but there are lots of people in Brazil with that kind of personality. I've had a few friend a bit like David Luiz myself. He's just that way, there are people who are shy, that are people who are outgoing, there are funny people, serious people, in this world you can find it all. It just happens that his fun personality makes him more likable and sort of a unique character - Neymar and some other players are a bit like that too. It's not really that uncommon in Brazil. There are a bunch of videos showing how Neymar used to be the cheerful fun prankster guy when playing for Santos, not very different from David. However, Neymar has adopted a more low-profile personality after going to Barcelona, probably due to advices from his media consultants that he's got after a few problems he's had in Brazil. With that I'm leaving this thread. David Luiz is not our problem anymore. If anything, I hope he can sort out his flaws someday and have the best of luck in PSG.

They should add a category for the user who posted more hotties on the forum, @Steve would have won that one easily. If there was one for who posted the hottest chick than I would win it with Barbara Palvin But even then Steve could have a chance with Axelle.

I'm not that much of an outdoor person myself but I notice that usually the more active I am, the happier I feel. Whenever I stay home for long periods whether by laziness or any other motive I start getting depressed. Going out, exercising, seeing other people, interacting with them always makes me feel better. However, as an indoor and shy person myself, I do it with parsimony and moderation.

On the bright side, at least your NT didn't get thrashed twice in a row Go exercise, it's going to release endorphin and serotonin in your blood flow and stimulate dopamine production and you will feel better. In addition it's good for your health. Take a pair of sneakers and go jogging in a park. If you do it under daylight it's also going to make you produce vitamin D. The lack of vitamin D has been linked to depression by some researchers. Take some earplugs and listen to your favourite songs while you do all that, will help you relax and have a good time. Exercising will also improve other body functions like sleeping pattern etc. Oh, and have that hug with @The_flash, human contact never hurts, specially with the opposite sex edit: wtf, I wrote roll instead of row.

For me it's definitely Fabregas. I can't even believe he's playing for us right now.

The real question is, when can I find a Fabregas Chelsea shirt to buy? I think it will take sometime to reach the stores in my city, damn.

FTFY.

I think he did as good as one could expect when you're linking up with Jo, Ramires and Hulk in a team that just lost by 3-0 and 7-1. I remember some good passes and crosses, didn't shy away from the game and was by far the best brazilian player on the pitch.

Best football knowledge: So many I could say here... I'll go with some less nominated people just so they know their contribution is appreciated - @MrExcalibur100; @The Mak Best general knowledge: @Stingray; @CHOULO19(Choo Choo) Best newcomer: @Mohammed Seif, @iseah100 - Almost made the cut: @Viper22 and @Daniel1980. Best article writer: @. Best graphics and video producer: @Amels. Best staff member: @CHOULO19(Choo Choo), @Rmpr. Funniest forumer: @Stingray; @. Most-liked forumer: @Mohammed Seif; @The Skipper - Close calls: @Barbara and @Liquidator. Wisest forumer: @zolayes; @Mohammed Seif. Most controversial: @Henrique, @The only place to be. Biggest contributor: @Barbara, @Jason. British Member of the Year: @Tomo; @The only place to be. International Member of the Year: @Barbara; @The Skipper. They should allow at least 3 nominations, this is way too hard and my list seems rubbish when I cannot nominate everyone who I feel deserved it. Meh.

Feeling physically and mentally exhausted after working out and coming home just to go play like 2 hours of football. I'm writing this also soaked in sweat, I'm heading to the shower

In the sense that for those "barbarian tribes", the barbarians were actually the great civilizations. Just like Hamas are the terrorists because we're seeing it through the eyes of the media controlled by US and other sympathizers to the zionist cause. In reality the US and Israel have caused a lot more terror than the so called terrorists. I find the term terrorists utterly stupid, but it is kind of a smart move with the sole goal of villanizing your enemy and consequently bringing sympathy for your cause, making you become the righteous one. That's an american favourite. They've done it several times.

Who is terrorist and who isn't depends only on who is telling the story. Same concept as "barbarians" throughout history.

It's funny and everything but when you can understand what's actually being said it feels a tad disrespectful. That was quite the emotional speech from the geezer. It's harder to laugh when you're feeling sorry for him.

What's more exciting about this thread is realizing the amount of options we have right now. When I first joined the forum, Mazacar was pretty much immutable and we had like no options for pivot. We saw a lot of Ramires - Mikel IIRC. And our strikers back then... HAHAHAHA. Well, let's skip this part. To think now we got a midfield of Fabregas, Matic, Hazard, Willian, Schürrle, Oscar, Salah, Van Ginkel, Mikel, Ramires... possibly Pogba. Just let it sink for a moment. There are just so many ways we can build it, we have it all right now. We can build the midfield pretty much in any way we want, defensive, offensive, slow, fast, based on possession, based on directness, based on pressing. Our defense looks very good too. Terry is still a solid CB, Ivanovic is a beast and I fucking love him, Cahill has proved he can be a good CB, Zouma has every tool to become a top CB in the future and so does Aké. Azpi was the steal of the year when we bought him, probably even better than Fabregas in the bang-for-buck ratio, and Luis has everything to succeed on the left. Courtois is amazing and so is Cech. If Costa doesn't flop this is probably the best squad I've ever seen Chelsea have since the times of young Terry, Lampard, Cech, Drogba e Co. And the icing on the cake is we've got Mourinho with us. We've come a long way in these past years, I'm really confident we have a real chance in every tournament if Mourinho makes the right choices, and knowing Mourinho he probably will. This wall of text is meant to conceal the fact that I'm having trouble coming up with the best line-up.

Luis is a really good fullback. It was really stupid of Felipão not calling him, but that's understandable since brazilian football has always preferred overly offensive fullbacks (or as some like to call, wing backs - even if they're a moderate/big defensive liability) over solid fullbacks with just good offensive capabilities, the better compromise we can find is when Brazil chooses a full back who is equally good attacking and defending. Also, Felipão likes to stick with the players that got him to where he is, with few or no exceptions. In Luis we get an experienced player who is probably going to improve our defense even further and also add a bit of quality going forward over the aged Ashley Cole. I just hope people don't expect him to be better than prime Cole, because that he's never going to be. But I expect him to be a solid brick in our defense and I would not expect any different from Mourinho, great signing if true.

I have a weak spot for compliments so I won't be the one to change your mind, but I'm sure there are people who don't like me, I'm a brazilian after all, you know how our fame goes these days Instead I'm gonna promise I'll try harder not to disappear as much in this season. I know I probably said something along those lines before but truth is I'm really bad at managing my own time, something always gets put a little aside because I tend to try to do too much at once, but I'll make an effort not to leave the forum aside this time, deal?

Thank you @Barbara for nominating me. There's a lot of people deserving it more than I do as I went missing for large portions of the season but I still appreciate it very much. Love you Edit: thank you to all the others too, I just sort of didn't expect any other nominations, really appreciate you guys.

It's bigger than that. You see, take away the goals Neymar scored, or take away everything Neymar did in the CC and Brazil would still look good. Yet, Brazil hasn't looked good in this World Cup even if you count everything Neymar did in. I'd say it's probably even bigger than tactics alone, despite it being one of the major factors. It was probably the sum of everything - missing our best players, pressure and nerves, lack of tactical plan + proper training, slump of other core players and strong opponents capable of exposing our flaws to the limit.

He has to play better this season. I think nobody can argue with that. If not by creating, then by making runs and scoring - I reckon this will become easier than ever before with Fabregas. But he has to do better offensively.

To be fair the excuse of not enough rest could go on because he didn't have the same rest as most other players since the Olympics. I'm not some sort of specialist but I think it's widely known that a player we'll usually lose a lot of muscle, fat reserves and form by the end of the season due to the amount of matches and training he goes through during the year. And he'll use the period of rest and beginning of a season to rebuild his reserves and muscles. The curve usually goes like: beginning of the season gaining form and muscle again; around mid-season they're at their peak of physical form and slowly decline until the end of the season. Oscar has been working tirelessly with little break to rest for years now. I am more disappointed with him than anyone here, seeing that I've followed him since his youth team days and I'm not seeing much improvement in offensive skills, if anything sometimes it seems he got worse. In part probably because of tougher opposition but he looks less confident too. He looks way too shy and scared on the ball. Despite any tactics or instructions he may be given I wanna see him do better offensively and this is the last season I'm willing to wait. If he doesn't perform regularly all season at least on par with the good performances he's had in the beginning of the season and under the management of RDM I'm giving up, just ship him somewhere else and try to cash on it because maybe he's just no supposed to be, at least not at Chelsea or EPL, maybe he's gonna have more luck elsewhere and he won't be hurting us or himself anymore. His defensive work is fine and really welcome but it means jack shit when his passing, vision or creativity isn't any better than a regular defensive midfielder.

And we only looked good, as I said in the match thread, because they were not pressing our pivot / centre-backs, they were trying to defend too deep and passively. Also the ref giving every little foul and disrupting the game helped us quite a bit. Look at our toughest games. Mexico, Chile and Germany. All of them pressed us heavily in the transition from defense to midfield. Just watch them again. The only difference between those games is that Germany had a better side and knew what to do better and more dangerously after gaining possession. It was clear as day we had a problem building anything as a team.

I believe it's the opposite. When you lose by little, by details, that may be traced back to a player, to a mistake. When you can't even take the ball out of your defense if not for aimlessly shooting long balls forward and you have no presence in the midfield that's not on the players. Sides with way less quality could manage to give more trouble to this german side with proper management. More often than not, large scores like that are result of wrong management or HUGE skill gap. While it's true the german side had better talent, in no way it would translate in 7-1 if our team had proper management. Do you believe Argelia had a better squad? Nope, but they had a proper game plan and knew how to execute it. That way they gave the germans a run for their money. One could argue that the germans played this SF better than ever before in this tournament, and I would agree with that, but our team also has more quality than most teams Germany has beaten in their way to the semis so it should sort of even out. All that considering we had a team of course, not a bunch of players thrown on a pitch.

Dang, I almost made the cut.