Corner

Yep, it was indeed. Very strange decision.

I knew it wouldn't be Guardiola taking over, but Scolari? I think they would have been better off keeping Menezes.

Well that goes without saying, obviously.

I think competition for places is healthy, to be honest.

Amazing player. To be honest, I don't care about him being an AMC. We need top players to rotate with Mazacar anyway.

Option 1: Torres. Option 2: A young player with raw talent, looking to prove himself. I'll take Option 2 please!

Are you really suggesting that he should go out there and stand still?

Correction: You can't play a through ball to a striker who doesn't move.

If you have ever watched closely how Barca play, then you would have seen how often Messi/Iniesta/A. Sanchez/Pedro comes to collect the ball from Busquets/Xavi. Their whole philosophy is directly related to that idea. Look, you seem to have some personal reasons for disliking Mikel which are clearly clouding your judgement. On top of that, you completely lack any understanding of MIkel's role in the team. So it's pretty hard to actually have a conversation with you about this.

Once again, Mikel is not a deep-lying playmaker and Arteta is. Also, Arteta is certainly not 'far better' at defending than Mikel, if that's what you're implying. Just because a player may play in the same position as another player, it does not mean they have the same role to play. Mikel is an anchor man/defensive midfielder. His job is to break up attacks and find more creative players and to hold up play, like I said. And he's fantastic at doing that.

Exactly. When we do sign another striker who teams fear... then just imagine how much space that will leave for 'Mazacar'. The will rip so many teams to shreds. Most teams don't even mark Torres and mark our three attacking midfielders instead, which is a big reason as to why we've been finding it increasingly difficult to break down teams as of late.

Xabi Alonso is a deep-lying playmaker, as is Fernandinho.

What I'm doing is explaining to you the role of a defensive midfielder, which you clearly don't seem to understand.

That is not Mikel's job. If he did that, and the full-backs get forward too and we lose the ball... the we're fucked. The only people we have back for cover are two centre-backs.

Makelele didn't contribute much to attacks either but he was the best DM we've ever had. Mikel's job is not to play through balls and take on players, let's be realistic. His job is to break up attacks and get the ball into more creative players, and he does is extremely well. If Mikel dropped as far back as the centre-backs, then we have three. And who protects the defence then? Mata, Oscar, Hazard?

I definitely agree. Hazard grabs all the headlines and attention from Chelsea fans (when Torres isn't getting it of course) but Oscar has more natural talent and like you said, his work-rate is phenomenal. You just know he's going to give 100 per cent every game and in training every day. Just like Lampard, and look how much of a club legend he turned out to be.

Mikel is more than willing to get stuck in and show some determination, and that's exactly what we need against a team like West Ham. Stats don't tell you everything. When a players boots the ball up the pitch and a centre-back heads it away, that counts as an interceptions so naturally centre-backs are going to have a lot of interceptions statistically. Me may not make a lot of interceptions, but he certainly makes some vital ones whenever he plays.

There is always a chance of that happening, of course. But I think there is much less of a chance of it happening with Falcao. His mentality and his attitude is much stronger than Torres' and if Falcao was to Flop, I'm guessing it would be because of injury problems.

Definition of transition: Passage from one form, state, style, or place to another. It doesn't have to be 'smooth'. No club could just decide to change it's whole philosophy and style of play and expect it to go smoothly. Only Abramovich seems to believe this. He wants to transition from one style to another, but expects to win trophies as well, and that's jus ridiculous.

I don't believe in not buying young players just for the sake of it. There are advantages to having young players in your team. Every team needs to find the right balance between experience and youth... and dismissing a player because he is too young is ridiculous when they have the ability like Hazard. Truthfully, Hazard is ready to play almost every week for any top club in Europe. And if Chelsea didn't buy him this summer, he would have been snapped up by another big club. Then he becomes some other club's asset and not ours. And Chelsea can't just let a player with that much potential slip through their grasp. It would just be bad business.

Are you implying a team should one have one Belgian? Nonsense!

I'm delighted that our defence is finally stable. But my god, I really want a goal.

I agree. Fixing the defence was always going to be the starting point when Rafa took over, and it makes sense to build from there. After all, this is a transitional season. We just needs to figure out the workings of what we're aiming towards.

This and proof that Marko Marin exists actually brightened my night a little bit.

Eh. The overall team performance was shit. What we needed was a moment of brilliant from someone, and Oscar provided that moment of brilliance.