The only place to be

Spot on. This idea of swapping keepers every week is absolutely absurd. Goalkeepers thrive on consistency and building a rapport with their defenders. Arbitrarily switching them would be to the detriment of the team. Plus he'll get his first experience of the Champions League next year and it'll be interesting to see how he copes with the title of best keeper in Spain. Right now I'm of the opinion that we could make the switch to Courtois without noticing a drop in the team's performance, but Cech is a legend and it's going to be a tough move to make unless he has a drop in form. When we do make the change then it has to be definitive, probably moving Cech on so that Courtois knows he is the number one.

I just hope that he scores a hat-trick in his first game for us, because if he doesn't then there will be calls to sell him.

There's nothing to be gained from loaning him to another Championship club. There were 'supporters' like you trashing Lukaku in his thread about 12 months ago. I suppose that's sort of a good sign for him. I'm hoping Jose has watched more than one game (where his coach was completely outmanoeuvred by his opposite number) and told him yesterday that he'll be moving on. But this thread has revealed there is a part of our support that really doesn't give a fuck about our future, a future that this player represents and should be celebrated. We've got a fantastically exciting academy and players like Ake have put paid to this notion that the jump to first-team football is insurmountable by giving very good performances when given the chance.

Palace thoroughly deserved that and Zaha has a lot of raw potential for United to work with. Holloway just stopped Watford from playing their normal game and Zola had no answer. As for Chalobah, time to come back home for pre-season and try and win a spot in the squad next season. Didn't have a good game but no-one on the Watford team did apart from Almunia, but he can look back on a great first season of first-team football and he's shown a lot of promise. Exciting to see what Jose can do with him.

Sorry, but I think you're confusing two separate groups here - the people writing players off don't tend to be the same people who were hyping them (or even following their progress). There are some people who actually watch the NextGen games and the Youth Cup games and understand how young players develop. There are also people who watch players when they're on loan and get suitably excited at those who have such a high level of composure. Then there's this other group who bowl into threads having read my gushings about Nat and expect him to be a world-beater. I'm sorry to disappoint those people - I underestimated my influence ( ignoring the ex-pros and current managers who have praised him to the rafters and suggested he could play for England now) and for that I apologise. As for the last bit, you've got the wrong end of that particular stick.

Nope. More than that this year, and in his previous jobs. Wow you went headlong into assuming I'd just watched three games of his this year. Well done on that. Have a cookie. My honest view is that he's a decent manager with good players and that if the opposition team is stupid enough to allow them to play their game, then they will probably overrun them. His problem is that when his team is somewhat stifled then they don't have any other ideas. They were very lucky to progress from the last round of the playoffs and for all that I dislike Holloway, he has sent his Palace team out there perfectly equipped to win a match.

Because I've watched his progress over the years, seen what he's capable of made and made a judgment based on that. I've also watched Mikel progress, and then regress over the years. But I'm sorry to all the people whose expectations I raised. I should put a disclaimer on my posts that explains that players can have bad games every now and then and that when their coach is out-coached by the opposition coach then that performance may further suffer. Still, Selhurst Park next year

They have done well. Penalty to Palace. 1-0 to Palace. I didn't I had such influence round here to raise everyone's expectations so high. No reason for us to be snidey cunts to one another on the internet though now is there. We can always do that over a friendly drink on the Fulham Road.

And I've repeated that he's better than Mikel. I stand by that. He won't be Chelsea manager because he's not a very good manager. Sure we gave Robbie the chance despite him being a bit lacking in ideas, but Zola has shown in this game, the Leicester away game and the Leeds game that he's not got many ideas. I know some people struggle to separate the idea of a Chelsea legend from the reality of their managerial abilities, but that's my view. He's done well with all these loan players, but Holloway has absolutely bent him over in the first 90 minutes and Palace should have won this already. I'm cheering for a Zola win for one reason - 6 easy fucking points next season.

Actually fuck it... Choulo, I've been hyping this kid because he's been a great player for Watford this year. He's had a bad game but if some fans want to jump on his back because of that then fuck them. He's a better player than Mikel already. As for the England stuff, I said he had an outside chance of being a bolter for the World Cup squad if he got a shot in the Premier League next season. If you want to keep bringing that up then at least make a fucking effort to get it right.

Can't even be bothered with this today. Sorry. As for the game, I think Holloway has totally done Zola in the first 90. Great player, but one dimensional at best as a manager and the sooner Chalobah gets to play under a proper manager the better.

I agree. Not Holloway's biggest fan but he's certainly had his team control this game, rather than letting Watford play their game for any substantial amount of time.

Yep. :lol2: Sums up a lot of the criticism in this thread over the last few hours.

If an offer for £35 million came in for Luiz, it would have to be considered wouldn't it? That's the highest fee for a defender isn't it? I love the guy, I love his character and I love his improvement but he's not a defensive rock at this exact point in time. He's not yet at the level of Terry in 2006 or Vidic in 2009 or even Kompany last year. He could get there, but £35 million is a lot to say no to for 'coulds', 'mights' and 'maybes'. As for Rami....two decent midfielders in the pivot and he's a good utility player. Anything more than £20 million and it's got to be considered.

Except he has sprinted back when he's needed to. My point was that there are far older players than Chalobah who have underestimated the toll that pitch can take on their stamina. Palace have done well to keep Watford's midfield quiet but they're still carving out chances (which Nat has been at the centre of most of the time). He's not having his best game but let's not write him off just yet. Criticising his attitude is just a really.....it's not entirely accurate.

He's 18 years old playing at Wembley for the first time and he's not tearing around the pitch on a hot summer's day....and he's getting criticised for that. Fuck me.

Funny because he was young player of the month in the Championship. Sometimes you just have to look at a team and give them credit for setting themselves up well to stop the other team. Palace have done that and nullified Watford's midfield. Now Zola will need to make the adjustments to counter this. And in the last 5 minutes Nat has got himself back into the game.

Give it a rest mate. He's a good player having a tough game against opposition who are set up for more intelligently than Watford are. But yeah, let's judge him on 33 minutes of one game. Fuck me.

Nope. I'm thinking about starting one though. I think it's more interesting to see Moyes come in and make so many changes. He's got to feel comfortable but he's losing a lot of popular characters.

Not going to start a new thread about this in the transfer section because it's an odd one, but it looks like Rene Meulensteen could be on his way out of Old Trafford. There's been a lot of speculation about who Jose could bring with him and we already have decent coaches here but this guy is very highly regarded and might be someone Jose is interested in working with. Interesting to see that United have lost Phelan, who will probably go into management, but also Eric Steele their goalkeeping coach. To me that last one is a weird one because goalkeeping coaches tend to build a strong rapport with the goalkeepers, in a way that's different from other coaches and players.

Unfortunately no-one. We need to buy a strong centre-back to play alongside Luiz (if that role doesn't go back to JT) which means Cahill, Ivanovic and JT are essentially back-ups. So strictly speaking at the moment, he probably isn't 3rd choice but that would almost certainly be his role going into next season.

Typical Chelsea buy nowadays - young player, lots of potential, cheapish price, could be part of the squad or could go on loan to a German team. Everything I've read suggests he's a pretty good prospect so why not?

Torn over what is the best result for him today. If Watford go up then I think it might just be too easy to just let him stay there next season, whereas if they miss out I don't think there's a chance that he'll spend another season in the Championship. Whatever happens I think he's certain to be playing Premier League football next season, and I'd prefer that to be with us.

The thing is no-one will offer £25 million for Rami. On his day he's phenomenal, but he has days when he goes missing and enters 'headless chicken mode'. He's another player who could go either way under Mourinho who might be able to coach a bit more composure and confidence into him or he might just let him go like he did with Tiago. The simple fact is that we don't yet have a spine to our team like we did in 2006 (Cech, Terry, Makelele, Lampard, Drogba). At best we've got Cech and Mata and then a few players who play in wider positions (Hazard, Cole...maybe Azpi). In my view that's what we need to rebuild which is why we need that big striker we can rely on, a midfield presence (long-term I see that being Chalobah but maybe it's Romeu or more likely a purchase) and that defensive rock. To me, Luiz is the player next to the defensive rock, the one who can bring it out of defence because he knows that other guy and the defensive midfielder will cover him.

That's kinda my point though - any discussion about Luiz is based on potential. Now I think he'll fulfil that potential with the right coaching but it's still potential. He still needs to cut out the errors (he basically gave a goal away against Everton) and until he does that on a consistent basis then any big offer needs to be considered. I don't see him leaving and I really like what he means to this club beyond his defending but he's one of those players who needs to make a step-up next year.