The only place to be

I thought you said it was dead and we were getting Lewandowski.

So give him a chance to fight for it then, rather than writing him off and spunking £50 million on another player. Lukaku is one of us and has done everything asked of him to be given a fair shot - sticking someone with such a financial commitment placed on him in front of him in the line really doesn't sit well with me.

His crossing is underrated, but he's not exactly had many targets to hit in the box this year. When there are, he's shown great accuracy but it's his crossing into space that he needs to work on. So basically, get off the guy's fucking back. He's been a revelation in his first season at the club and has worked his bollocks off in game after game.

Unless we tell him to come back. Absolutely don't get the fuss about his comments, don't understand the fuss about him being at Atletico, don't understand the comments about rotating him with Cech (shows a complete lack of understanding of goalkeepers from some people).... So he says he feels like an Atletico player - well of course he fucking does. He's spent the last two years training there, living there and playing there. Do people want him to lie and say when he walks out in Madrid he just pretends he's in Cobham? Trust me - there's a big fucking difference. This guy is our future keeper. The club have managed to acquire and develop him in a remarkable fashion and I simply can't fathom some people's thinking on this subject.

They're different players with different skill sets. Not quite sure what the argument is all about to be honest but it's pretty fucking ridiculous. Personally I think Isco is good, but offers something slightly different to Mata. I think Mata is fantastically underrated despite being one of the best midfielders in the league. Hazard is far more dynamic and explosive on the ball. Oscar has the potential to be better than all of them though (including Isco). He could be the heartbeat of this team, as well as his national team, and be a ballon d'or winner.

And how exactly does he prove it? By scoring 17 goals in his first season? By showing dedication to his craft? I don't know. Maybe in 3 or 4 years he could be. I don't know how you can be that certain. Oh right....so you agree, because earlier (like literally a split-second ago) you were saying he wouldn't ever be as good. Are there two of you writing these posts? Maybe one of you should take over and then it would be less confusing.

Lukaku is a young man who clearly loves this club. He has a fantastic attitude and went away and scored 17 goals in the Premier League with limited game time at a club who aren't nearly as consistent as us. This young man has done more than anyone expected. I simply don't understand how people can not be willing to give him a chance. Football isn't simply about winning - maybe that's an old-fashioned view because I supported Chelsea before we were contending for titles, but sport has always been more than just the glory. It's about the personal relationships you build with fellow supporters and the people who put that shirt on and give their all for the team. Lukaku is one of us. He deserves our support. Cavani is at this moment just one more tart wiggling his arse in the direction of anyone willing to pay him. He might sell shirts, he might become a legend for us but some people really have to ask themselves what exactly they're supporting this club for.

Choulo's right - Mikel's pass was sensational and made those Tahitians look like Tongans....amiright???

So why didn't AVB try and sign him? Why was the only offer on the table from a mid-table side like Liverpool?

The difference between Kompany and Luiz is, in my opinion, Kompany loves defending whereas Luiz is a frustrated midfielder. Players like JT, Tony Adam, Kompany and Vidic could score a hat-trick of 30-yarders and the highlight of their game will be a near-post clearance or a crunching tackle. Luiz loves to bring the ball out and hit those shots, but there are plenty of people (me included) who really don't care about that side of the game. It has it's moments, like away to Fulham, but I'd rather have the guy like Chiellini who loves to dominate games from the back. Can he be the guy who plays next to that dominant CB? Absolutely, but if there are offers on the table for close to £40 million then it's very hard to say no.

Fair enough. If we do get him then five years is the standard.

My immediate reaction is that's complete bollocks - three years? Nope.

Rumours circulating that Galatasaray's bid would be around £13 million. Not bad considering that's around the rumoured figure for De Rossi.

Haven't seen a massive amount of this guy and it's clear he's not the finished article, but he reminds me a fair bit of Ballack. Big frame but nicely composed, plays with his head up and has a nice touch. He seems like the type of player who can link the defence with the attack either with his passing or bringing the ball out himself and seems to have a nice timing when arriving in the box. If we're going to get rid of Mikel then we'll need another body so loaning him out might not be necessary. Nice to see us continuing the policy of going after young guys with massive upside though, and using our links with foreign clubs to our benefit.

'Contacted for Jovetic' Could mean absolutely anything. Could be one of the agents/intermediaries asking if he's available which you'd expect any club looking for a striker to do. Could just be looking to see if he'd be open to a move IF we made a bid. Could just be us doing that to let Napoli know that Cavani isn't the only show in town. So many enquiries are made that it's absurd to report every one, but reporters need to fill their days so why not?

True, but he's hugely marketable. He's sold more shirts than anyone else in the PL, although he did drop off last season. Still, there is massive potential for commercial benefits from his signing. Maybe there's an argument that Cavani opens up the South American market, but the English product has worldwide appeal and an English player of Rooney's calibre wil always travel well.

Yep, but I can't see United selling him to us. From almost every angle he'd be my preferred option IF he wants it. If he's prepared to work his bollocks off to prove everyone wrong, he can become the best striker in football.

He's really not that type of lad. He's very meek and that is part of the problem because I don't think he's got that nastiness in him. If you look at his background, he didn't grow up in a rough neighbourhood where football was his only way out. He's had a fairly comfortable life and sometimes that can be to the detriment of a player's fighting spirit. Now there are obvious exceptions and I'm by no means saying all footballers grew up on the wrong side of the tracks (Frank is a fantastic example of a person who came from a good background but still had an almighty hunger and developed a great work ethic) but Josh really needs to get some swagger and act a bit of a cunt. He's got fantastic technique on the ball, he just needs to fight a little bit harder to get on it more and create space. Oscar manages it - he really muscles people off the ball and uses his arse to create space for himself. Josh needs to watch him a bit.

Finishing is something players can work on - having an ability to get into goalscoring positions is something far more instinctive.

Maybe Cavani not coming forces us to use Lukaku more and this guy surprises a lot of people. He has a maturity and commitment to his game that belies his age.

That wasn't really his fault. He arrived in January when the Swansea team was settled because AVB insisted on keeping him around to use him, which he didn't. Josh isn't the type of player you can throw into any team because you've got to build around him and that takes a pre-season in my opinion. Piazon doesn't have that problem.

I haven't read the whole post (yet) but I actually agree on this point. Mata is phenomenal but he's weak at defending and can disappear sometimes. When I've seen Oscar given that main playmaking role, as he is for Brazil, he links everything together from deep plus he offers a lot more energy and hustle in defending. The problem is that if you move Mata wide then you can also expose one of the full-backs because he doesn't track back like Hazard does. I think Mata is going to be a problem for us going forward which sounds absurd because he was our best player last season.

It's potentially an Azpilicueta or a De Bruyne. To be fair, he done us pretty good at Villa Park. He's raw and he's a bit messy but he's also £30 million less than Cavani. Plus he's Belgian - you can never have enough.

I actually agree with much of what you're saying about our tactics (who knew I could understand tactics??). The best performances this season were when the team was actually 'joined up' - where everyone defended and attacked together and there were a few performances like that (off the top of my head Fulham away, West Ham at home, West Brom at home and points within matches like Spurs at home). But in those games we relied a lot on Ramires to join up the play by bringing the ball forward and players like Mata and Hazard dropping deep. It's those links that we built a lot of our good stuff on, whereas Mikel really didn't help at all in that way in my opinion. We talk about his passing a lot, and I actually have no problem with lateral passing. It's key to possession football because it forces the opposition to move, and it's in those small transitions that spaces open up and we create chances. The problem is Mikel doesn't do it with any urgency. If you watch him he doesn't do a lot of two touch passing - it's always a little laboured. Now that has the other effect of allowing players to close him down, but that's not the worst thing. It's the fact that it slows down ALL of our play and he's not the only talented player we've had do that to us over the years. Joe Cole suddenly went through a phase of being ponderous and slow on the ball. Now we can criticise other elements of his game and his mentality, but purely from a tactical point of view I simply think he doesn't suit what we've been trying to do either under Benitez or even AVB.

Jesus, you say something in private and then someone has to go and make it public. Seems to happen a lot nowadays. Why the fuck is his mother getting involved in this? This transfer just gets more tedious by the day.