The Mak

I think this means that Torres can kiss his World Cup spot goodbye. Not going to get anywhere near the amount of games like last season. I was hoping Mourinho would come in and bench him and that's exactly what happened, so that's a positive. Saldado (the penalty taker!) will probably nick his spot.

Cheers Choulo, but in a way I think it's better that some posters show their true colours!

Even rarer to get some sort of debate out of some posters instead of "José knows best and you don't, lol!" A debate, on a forum?! Heaven forbid! Question José? Never!

I really hope it's just a case of 'blending in' the new talent/squad, i.e. Van Ginkel; starting off with a squad similar to the end of last season and gradually introducing the new starting 11 to include MvG and Willian etc. Lamps starting against Hull I can understand. First game of the season and all that against smaller opposition. Maybe against Villa too since MvG is probably not ready yet and Mikel hasn't had a full pre-season. But not against United away. If José was going for a counter-attacking angle, surely it would've been better to have a pairing of 'Mikel-Ramires' with Mikel deep and Rami allowed to push forward when required...did Mourinho see what that pair did at Old Trafford last season? Even Essien instead of Lamps would've surely been better? But what do I know I guess...maybe José just really didn't want to lose, so he had to ensure Ramires was shackled (and he plays so poorly in comparison to when he's not). Then again, Mourinho can hardly complain about how we didn't move the ball quickly from defence to attack after selecting Lampard and shackling Ramires... Really hoping for a big impact from MvG this season, as our chances of signing another DM look very slim at the moment.

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11668/8893131/chelsea-are-in-advanced-talks-to-sign-winger-christian-atsu-from-porto Chelsea are in advanced talks to sign winger Christian Atsu from PortoRight now....fuck off.

Very true. In the first half United seemed to resort to long balls to try and get RvP in the game, but to no avail. In the second half Moyes told him to play wider in an attempt to stretch the play, leaving space for Rooney/Welbeck and maybe to tempt JT out of position, as he had RvP in his pocket in the first half. Again, to no avail. In fact, he was even worse. Totally invisible until he had that one volley which he was well blocked off. Quite satisfying to see us nullify the man who seemed to win games for United last season on half-chances.

All in all it's a good result for a very young and incomplete side. And we are a VERY young side these days, especially going forward. We still have 1 or maybe 2 new players to come in and the likes of Luiz, Mata and Dave to come back to full fitness. The team still has to get used to one another. A positive is the solid defensive display and that JT is on form. A negative was the pivot. Fucking terrible. Lamps was so slow to pass and Rami's passing was so bad that Oscar had to drop back and try to dictate the tempo, which he did quite well, but it absolutely killed us going forward. Maybe it's a positive if Jose realises now that it's an area we need to desperately strengthen... Happy over all. We'll look much more of a team in a few weeks, so I can see us sticking it to them at the Bridge.

Some people on here seem to think Hazard is on the same level as Messi...news flash, he's fucking not. He was doubled up on the entire game and was often surrounded by 3 players. He's not Jesus, so he's not a fucking miracle worker.

He'd still be in mine. 4-3-3!

On Willian: All I know is that when we played Shaktar I thought 'This Willian is an absolute nuisance'. A giant thorn in our side the entire game. Couldn't get the ball off him. Everything good from Shaktar pretty much went through him (and Fernadinho). I couldn't help but think 'How could a lad from the Ukranian League cause so much hassle to our entire team?'. And at THAT time, he was more influential than either Hazard or Oscar, never mind Moses. On Moses: Yes, there were times last season when he played very, very well but there we other times he was average and sometimes absolute dog dirt. Our counter-attacks would often fall flat because of his terrible touches, poor decision making or the inability to confidently carry the ball up the pitch. So if he does go on loan, I'm not sure why people should be so against it. The best that comes from it is that he comes back a better player, the worst is that we sell him for a similar price we bought him for... On the possibility of others losing game time: I seriously don't think it's going to be as bad as some are making out. A lot of people here are assuming Hazard and Mata will stay fully fit for the entire season and start 90% of games like last season, even when it was clear at times that the pair were being overplayed and should've been rested a lot more. Hazard became jaded after just a few weeks because of the insane influx of games he was asked to start. Just imagine for a moment that either Mata or Hazard became injured last season for over a month or two...imagine the pressure it would put on Hazard if Mata became injured etc. My word, with the amount of games we had, I'd say it would've been a massive loss. At times we've looked clueless without the midfield influence of Mata or the directness of Hazard. Who knows, we could've even lost out on CL football. We could've ended up not being able to sign players of Willian's quality! What if Mata was injured before the Old Trafford game? Or Hazard pulled that hamstring a few games earlier? My point is, you can never have enough quality distributed throughout the team and Willian is top quality. Adding to this, there's still the possibility of us playing variations of 4-3-3 in certain games. Especially now with Willian on the RW (Why else was Mourinho testing it out in pre-season?). This would free up at least 2 CM positions which could be filled by any of Ramires, MvG, KDB and even Oscar. Yes, we are in dire need of a ST and DM, but we should be happy we're signing a quality player no matter what the position. There's still a possibility we could sign a DM/ST. Mourinho obviously wants another ST, so I'm sure we'll still sign one even if it's 'Plan B or C'. He tried to get us Lewandowski and apparently we were also in for Fernadinho as well. It's not all doom and gloom folks. Be happy we have another quality player at our disposal to take some of the burden off Mata/Hazard/Oscar! Be happy that we are now the proud owners of one of the best attacking midfields in Europe! P.S. This means we can also kiss goodbye to Bertrand on the left and Ramires on the right!

I think i'll wait till the end of the transfer window to fully judge this transfer....

To be fair, Benitez would've attempted the same, but it probably would've ended 2-2 like Reading and Southampton....

My main point is that we have other areas in need of investment, ST, DM and even another solid CB. For Lewa in particular, I know his situation, but I can't believe another club hasn't put in a bid of say 30m for him just to see what would happen. Dortmund would obviously rather sell now and (even when I remove my blue glasses) it's not inconceivable that his head would be turned just a little bit if a CL club like us made the bid.

I don't understand why we can't just spend the 32m on a striker or CDM...Lewandowski, De Rossi anyone?

Lukaku might actually start this one. I think José might use the 'Lukaku Vs. Benteke for the national team' thing to try and light a fire under Romelu. I still think he'll mainly be used as super-sub material like he was at West Brom though.

Great display. I know he likes to put power in his shots and get them off quickly, but a little less power and a little more accuracy couldn't hurt. It would've been nice for him to get one on target. Fantastic debut though.

The usual Torres below mediocrity display. Even when we were on top he never really imposed himself on the game. I doubt he'll start against Villa. If he does, it's only because José is probably saving Ba for United considering he likes to score against them.

What I was going to say. If we can win against Hull and Villa within the first 30mins and relax for the rest of the game considering we didn't have big guns like Mata & Luiz, not to mention the niggles with Moses and Mikel, then I'm very happy. It means we can go all out against United.

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11675/8859737/transfer-news-tottenham-in-talks-with-toulouse-over-midfielder-etienne-capoue Looks like he'll be off to Tottenham. A player I really like, and I think we could do with in the pivot, going to a team I absolutely detest. Fuck them anyway. They'll lose Bale and won't be a significant threat to us anymore. 3 point lane!

I just want to mention something about these fucking clueless random football 'fans' commenting on Luiz-Barca articles: they are some of the stupidest people I have ever witnessed in my entire life. How they considered themselves knowledgeable, in any sense of the word, is nothing short of a miracle. Someone who has only seen one football match ever would not come up with some of the shit they say. Gems like: "luiz to barcelona fabergas to united rooney to chelsea ,evrybody wins" which was actually responded with "Your comment has got a lot more 'dislikes' than 'likes' but it is probably spot on for what will happen!!" Again: "Lets hope this happens..... If Chelsea allow Luiz to go, this would pave the way for Ronney to come to the club. As surely Barca would let Fabrigas go to Man United then in turn would allow Rooney to move on....." "Pave the way", I love that. A defender being sold would 'pave the way' for a new striker. Or can Rooney play CB too?!? Or: "Let the merry go round commence... Cesc to United, Luiz to replace him at Barca and with Cesc signed United can get rid of Rooney to Chelsea!" Luiz is going to replace Fabregas in midfield accroding to this fellow, he'll eventually replace Xavi then I guess.... Then there's just plain ignorant/bitter ones: "David luiz is possibly the most over rated defender in the premier league. Granted when playing cdm he isnt bad but for Barcelona to be interested baffles me. Gets found out against all the top teams." I like the way he doesn't even give an example... Idiots. Especially those who believe in some sort of domino effect between a fucking defender, midfielder and striker; they're a special kind of stupid. So this is for all those random football 'fans' (not say their ours specifically) commenting on stuff they obviously haven't got a fucking clue about:

As long as Jose doesn't try to turn him into the 'new Mikel', then great! I doubt it though, because MvG can actually move!

Oh Didier, it's amazing how you can still make us all laugh at Arsenal from outside the premier league! '264 users are reading this topic' Are you watching Arsenal fans?!

Or simply just giving minutes to as many players as possible...

Jim tbfh!

Safari on a Mac then it seems...Chrome works fine!