Barbara

Does José think Willian is u-22 or he changed his mind about Kevin starting? as far as I can say there are only 3 under 22 players and he had said twice yesterday there would be four. I guess he's replaced Kevin for Will ever since.

Mourinho already gave plenty of hints. He confirmed Oscar and Lampard and 4 under 22yo's. I'd bet my money in the U22 being Oscar, Hazard, Kevin and Marco. It could be André for Kevin which means that Willian isn't starting as we don't have U22 players in another zone of the pitch (in addition to Marco in the pivot, that is). The defense I'd go with Cahill and Luiz and I don't see Azpili starting. Don't know if he'll pick Eto'o or Torres either because who knows how fit Eto'o feels after his first match in EPL. Ramires told the Brazilian media that after his first EPL match he couldn't move for 1 day and his body was sore for another 2. And that's a guy in his early twenties... But please, not Ba. I can't with Ba and his offside affair.

really? because this other place I just mentioned - editing my post - there's an application process, and believe me, it's very likely to a job process. They evaluate everything about you as a poster and sometimes some of your experience in real life. I'm serious.

Not really, not my kind of thing - you'll never see me applying for the position in a football forum. Never Also I have my hands full with the Chelsea Brasil site, and I'm considering moderating a small board about my fave TV show... but that's mostly among friends, there are ZERO disagreements which is why I might do it. Might being the key word.

that's absolutely true, Lex. I'm happy you could find a common ground and like I said, if people complain about it, so be it. We complain about our players, politicians, teachers, family and everyone else all the time. So yeah, hehehehehe. I guess things are already getting better as a consequence of the actions, and they will probably improve more

it looks like an eggball american football play

Completely disagree with that. The combo of Ronaldo + Ozil is so much better than any dream of Mata and Hazard, it's like light years ahead of them and they absolutely flourished under José. Even di María + Ozil gives Mata + Hazard a run for their money because ignoring ceilings, potential and all that stuff, di María had a more consistent (meaning less ups and downs) season than Hazard [injury aside] and really, comparing Mata and Ozil is only possible when Mesut is too focused partying or completely uninterested otherwise there's also no comparison. He's better than Mata in very possible aspect (as a #10). The rest of this post is not a response to you, but to many posts here (just to clarify). The only team in the world more attacking prone (or natural) than Real Madrid is Dortumund and that's debatable. And the Real Madrid I've watched under Mourinho is one of the most exciting teams to watch playing, but he didn't find the perfect system for the team in half a dozen matches. I'll start quoting my own posts from 2 months ago because they fit more now than ever. Now if you guys were happy with what Benitez did tactically four months down the road and that is barely winning against Europa League competition and fighting until the last round for an EPL third place, then be my guests and carry on the comparisons. Rafa has always been aware he was an interim that should present the short-term result. He failed saving the team in the UCL (although let's be fair, there wasn't much he could have done, we were already on brick of being knocked out in the groups stage), with a lot of difficulty and some serious dangerous and lucky matches we finished 3rd 2 digits behind the champions and we struggled royally against the likes of Europa League in a couple of matches - in addition to the losses, that is. So make your pick. Choose the short-term and Mourinho sucks for not continuing with the oh-so-efficient tactics that proved to give us such amazing results - titles wise. Also let's be practical. All Mazacar, Benitez or whoever you want to throw in the equation won us was a EL title. Not even one of the domestic cups they were capable of bringing. So I really can't understand why people are whining about us last season when we had one of the worst seasons in recent years. When a few of us kept saying the goals this season shouldn't be too high nearly the whole forum agreed - a few us said QF/SF in UCL and top 3 in EPL and there were a lot of people agreeing that was reasonable and realistic. Five matches later and people are complaining through their pores saying all kind of BS about our players, our board and our manager. Five matches... really I try to make up my mind around that all the BS I read here is because of five matches, but I fail to understand how that is even possible...

sweetie I was going frame by frame, at the moment the ball wasn't about to be crossed. he approached the guy closer to him and then he abandons this guy is runs to nowhere productive imo. But we can disagree *hugs*

José just said in the press conference that tomorrow we'll start with 4 players under 22. So I guess that means Oscar for Mata and we have the 4: Marco, Kev, Oscar and Eden. Of course it could be André replacing Kev, but I believe in Kev. edit: he just confirmed Lamps and Oscar are playing tomorrow

once there's a rulebook it's done, Nour. So name calling = suspension or warning and that's it. If people complain, their problem as they're now aware of the rules and chose to break them. If others come to defend them, they're also wrong because it's in the rules. We just need to qualify what is name calling. When I refute one of the posts Ankit just mentioned saying the person is saying a lot of BS and nonsense, it's not name calling, it's me belittling their opinion - which we should all be mature enough to take. People will disagree with me, I don't need to be offended by that. But if my way to show my disagreement is to call the person a lunatic, stupid, clueless son of a bitch, then I crossed the line. Judging the opinion is fine, judging the person with 'adjectives' is not. Once the rule is created and published, they have to abide, whether they like or not. So there shouldn't be any complaining, and if there is, it's not your problem.

but maybe the way to go is being moderate about it, Lex? I mean, if someone calls the other stupid brainless idiot, I don't think they should be banned, but they could be suspended for one day or a couple of them. And be warned and when it amounts to 5 or whatever amount, then the ban comes. I only suggested being harsher because I'm actually appalled by how much name calling this place had going for the past month or so. People feel like it's their right to call others whatever they want. I'm a newbie and I can say that when I joined it wasn't like that. I don't know if there had been other streaks of such lack of disrespect, but it's too much right now. As for people criticizing you guys, I had a convo about it with Nour the other day and I agree with him, it's unavoidable, because if you for example allow the name callers to continue, some people will complain, if you take action, others will complain - which is why I support a warning and suspension system prior to ban. I'm part of a HUGE (Threads: 334,499 | Posts: 69,860,097 | Members: 254,129 | Currently Active Users: 2048 - and that's because it's a bad hour for the forum - too many American because normally it has 4k online easily) forum for the past six years and one of the actions mods take there is closing threads after a few warnings. The threads remain closed for short periods (24h or 48h) maybe something similar could work in some threads here - like players threads and matches threads. I guess to control it in the community board might be hard, but in the serious threads it could work for when petty squabbles carry on. Anyway, just a suggestion... another comment, being too democratic sometimes only make your job harder. Impose a few things might be necessary.

oh and reading posts above mine reminds me of something else: I think the mods should be harsher about the name calling. It's getting out of hand. Warning should be given, or temporary suspensions. I don't think bans should be given at first. But people need to learn to respect others one way or the other. If by a polite request they can't, then more serious actions should be taken. Sorry, I'm a teacher - disciplining is second nature, but I guess it's not a bad idea at all.

you do know The Skipper is 20, right? Which proves that age is just a number. The childish behavior could come from a 15yo or a 40yo. I agree that we're having problems because of egos, people confusing opinions with facts (normally who reads may assume one stated a fact when it was only an opinion, but they were wordy and emphatic so it mind sound like being factual when it's still just an opinion). I agree that normally with age comes maturity - we all have been young (the ones who are older, that is lol) - but I think the problem sometimes comes from some older people that had been more immature in the last couple of weeks than the younger. So it's relative and we can't generalize. As for constructive criticism, I don't like the Member of the Month award, I think it's juvenile and although that only makes it my opinion and as such shouldn't be taken seriously (and it's something I can totally overlook) I think this sort of award contributes to some of the issues, the egos war, the self-righteousness, and it's a huge popularity contest the way it is now and maybe the cliquey thing TOPTB is complaining. The cliquey doesn't bother me, but the ganging up singling out posters sometimes get a bit much. So my criticism for now is only about the award. And I think we could foment more discussions about football.

Interesting piece. There are some stats, and the same vid posted above in addition to more to the article @ http://eplindex.com/40394/samuel-eto-o-statistical-analysis-everton-personal-highlights.html Now, did I just read that Torres is (or has ever been) more technical than Eto'o?

yeah, but last year there wasn't such a fierce competition and he played those constant and consecutive minutes I said. That's the key. He needs to play and he needs to play twice a week, even if in one of those matches he only plays 30 minutes.

I agree. At first I thought there wouldn't be any chance for him to start, but maybe Mourinho will save Oscar for EPL and use Mata tomorrow - saying something like this last year around November would sound the craziest and most nonsensical thing ever It's the kind of match that could give Mata confidence. Maybe that's what he's lacking in addition to minutes - played consecutively. No matter how bad he continues to perform, for him to regain form he needs to play twice a week, week in and out, even if he comes as a sub, or is subbed in the second. He just needs the constant.

there's no argument on that imo. He's our best AM finishing wise, period. Oscar is a close second (let's pretend that sitter against Bayern never happened) and all the others (Hazard, Willian, André) are way behind. André is the last one waving from the distance In all honestly though Kevin isn't bad at all, so he's a third and deserves a mention. Mata 9.0; Oscar 8.8; Kevin 8.2. The others I won't rate

Both of which I'm completely familiar with, but I really don't see how that's the case... yeah you could argue that Terry was zonal marking instead of man marking, but once Luiz leaves his position someone has to cover him. It isn't so frozen that Luiz can't leave because Terry for some reason is the man responsible for zonal marking. A football match is an alive system where you have to adapt, improvise, and react all the time... zonal marking is about distributing players, Terry and Luiz as CBs are both responsible for the box - mainly - but still only one takes the 'blame' for not being effective in the zone he was supposed to cover. At least now I have a clue of what you're talking about though, so thanks for answering.

thanks for that. Amazing vid - despite the very annoying song - that showcases perfectly how useful he was creating/linking up plays, giving key passes, using his body and finishing. I think he looks great in all honesty. Those aren't the kind of mistakes we see Torres making - Torres' issues are technical while Eto'o's issues in this match seemed to be sharpness, if that was caused because of fitness, adapting in a new team, bad luck or a consequence of aging, I don't know, but I'm sure no one else (maybe except Schürrle who may have tied with him) created more chances for us than Eto'o did whether he was finishing, assisting, or giving key-passes. It's progress from Torres x10. I do hope it's not an aging thing because the class, the first touch, the vision and the intelligence are all clearly there. The finishing though I can't justify.

I had to re-watch the goal because it really bothered me I couldn't have a clue of what Sherry said in his last post. What I see is John Terry running from one side to the other inside the box, blindly and marking no one. I see Ivanovic divided between marking Jelavic and Naismith because there are two of them and only one of him. The same way Luiz should have stayed inside the box marking them, so should have Terry. Terry looks more lost imo because you see Luiz looking inside the box and seeing who he's going to mark while Terry is moving forward, then backward not knowing where to go. You see Terry approaching Naismith when Schürrle presses Barkley (I guess), then Terry completely abandons him and starts running to the left and then backwards. so let me do my own analysis, and please Sherry, sweetie, don't be offended. Football is a very subjective thing, people will have different interpretations of it all the time. We just happen to disagree about this instance. 1) I see Luiz leaving the box to cover the gap JDY and The Skipper mentioned, and while he does that Terry approaches Naismith - which is the right thing to do. 2) then for no apparent reason at all, Terry abandons the man that had only him marking. We see Ivanovic behind Naismith, but Jelavic is behind Ivan, so Terry can't assume Ivan can mark both by himself. Also there are two Everton players where he's moving now surrounded by three Chelsea players, which makes even more pointless for him to move to the left, in the meanwhile Luiz quickly looks inside the box and approaches the player closer to him. Mikel is at fault too because he shouldn't go with Ramires and Cole to the edge of the box to press the guy who's going to cross, he should run towards the guy entering the box just by his side. the basic rule of marking players is, you cover the one closest to you, I cover the one closest to me. Mikel should have covered the guy between him and Luiz as Luiz is clearly running to mark the guy ahead of him. All while Terry continues to move forward - to the left. 3) Then we finish with Terry having a guy on his back, a guy that Luiz is running to mark and it's easier to mark when you're seeing the opponent rather than when he's on your back. Mikel is still clueless and not marking the guy ahead of him at all. And then I agree with you Ivanovic becomes a victim because he's left between both Jelavic and Naismith and sort of deciding for Naismith, he doesn't have enough time to reach the ball crossed on his back. If the guy had crossed the ball to the man just behind Terry the same would have happened because he wouldn't have time enough to step back and clear the ball with his head. So Luiz is running late, Terry is running to a place that makes no sense, and Ivanovic poor thing is trying to multiply himself and mark two men that are 3 meters apart. Also Schurrle sort of gives up after he presses Barkley (the vid quality is really bad as you can see and I can't see properly who are the players. so I'm assuming is Barkley) and watches as the ball moves, instead of trying to have a bit of awareness from what's going on around him and trying to help. Also this happened at the 45' mark and while it's no excuse for the players to lose focus, I guess they were already thinking of a shower, listening to Mou, getting a massage from Eva or whatever they do during half time. So yeah, there are awareness issues with Luiz, then Terry, then Schürrle and Ivanovic is sacrificed. Mikel doesn't help and Ramires and Cole are the ones trying to intercept a cross, but not even the two of them can stop the guy from crossing. There are so many mistakes there that we should just assume our players were lost. And the worst part is that it didn't happen only this time. It happened another 2-3 times during the first half, that I remember vividly. They lacked communication, opponent's movement awareness and efficient marking. I do admit I was harsh on Ivanovic. The way I remembered the goal Terry was closer to Naismith, but in reality he wasn't. He was marking no one, moving to a place that made no sense, while Luiz was running late, Mikel was being useless and Schürrle was watching it all happening, while Ivan was being sacrificed - poor thing.

so can you leave and re-join every time we play City?

Why on earth Terry isn't supposed to mark? There are two opponents - Naismith and Jelavic and two of our defending players in the box, please tell me why can't Ivan mark one and Terry the other? I completely fail to understand the concept you're trying to sell me. And how come a back that allows the guy he's marking to head the ball is making his job alright? That's what I meant, either Ivan or Terry should have been closer to the men they were marking so they could have a better chance of clearing the ball with a header... a play we see in all football matches too many times to count... How come can Terry and Ivanovic be victims? It's a collective fail, absolutely, but the men allowing the opponents to head when they could do a better job marking them fail the most imo. so we disagree because I could never understand the reasoning that one of our defenders is supposed to mark while others aren't. Football isn't as static and perfectly designed as you're making it out to be. Those are people there, not robots or fictional players in a video-game that fulfill functions perfect to a T. There's something called coverage. If one player leaves position, the other can go there and cover him. I read this post of yours numerous times and still it makes no sense whatsoever in my head. No sense at all. Let's agree to disagree. The way you seem to see football is something I've never head of... there's no dynamism whatsoever, just static, cemented functions that you gave to players. Really, the more I read it the less sense it makes. I must be too slow to comprehend it - I'm not being sarcastic at all. I'm feeling very much dumb now because I have no idea of what you're trying to imply here. No idea at all. which is why in my analysis two days ago of his positioning I have no problem with him occupying that specific zone, not when he's filling a gap, not when he's trying to anticipate, be pro-active, intercept the ball and give us a counter-attack chance. I'm all for it.

I agree with many of your points, Ry (may I? Although Ryan is my very fave name in English for boys, I have a tendency of abbreviating everything). I don't think he's a bad player. I think he's inconstant. He's young, even if he's going to be 23 this year as someone pointed, he's still under development. Many players started peaking too early in their careers lately and I guess it leads us to lose the grasp of the reality for most. A player who is 22, 23 has plenty of time to improve and peaking at 25, 26 is absolutely normal and acceptable. It's still the case with most athletes in all sports. now how fair is it with him to be a third option for one position? Because Willian can play quite well in the middle and he can do the false 9 if Mourinho wants him to (something I don't think he will, but still), so in theory he's third in more than one position. Eden is Mourinho's untouchable, he will only miss when he's injured and absolutely needs rest and even then both Kevin and André would be ahead of him. I think Willian caused a problem to Mourinho, not to Moses. Moses would play even less than he played last season. Much less actually. How fair is that? For one to be considered a squad player he has to have play I'd say at least 25% of the matches (whether starting or coming as a sub), don't you agree? Take Willian out of the equation. With Mata, Oscar, Hazard, André and Kevin, when would Moses play? The Swindon match and others of the likes of it, the eventual sub in the last 15 minutes. He wouldn't be selected to even be in the bench many times because we can't have only AM in the bench... Also I didn't mean he doesn't fit at all. I meant others fit better. Not only for their work-rate, but also because of their style. For certain kind of matches though he'd fit better than André, for example. But in my opinion Kevin is an improved Moses through and through in everything you listed (except maybe the strong part, although Kevin isn't small and he's strong. It's tough to push him away with your body). I think he should have left, I don't think loaning our players to a club like Liverpool is wise though. I feel like we are belittling Liverpool and writing them off from the title contenders. That could be a mistake, although they've been consistently shit for the past few years we should never underestimate a club with their force, tradition and history. I know this is one of the worst shit to read, but sometimes those things still win you matches, they can unbalance a few matches, so I wouldn't underestimate them or Arsenal - just made fun

I disagree about the analysis just like The Skipper and you'd find a post by me complaining about Luiz's positioning in general just after the match, so my point here isn't even defending Luiz, he's was in the wrong, but among all players involved, he's the last one that should take the blame, that's over-analyzing. If the two backs that were marking the players had done it properly, they would have cleared the ball, end of it. Was it bad that there were only two of them? Yes, but if they had done their part well the the ball would have been sent to corner or outside the box, simple as that. The lack of a player (in this case Luiz for not keeping his position inside the box) is only the main problem if an opponent is left unmarked - which is why I complained about his positioning. If he doesn't hold position the risks are that other defenders won't make it in time to fill a position he should be filling. That's not the case in this goal at all. Everton players weren't unmarked, Ivan and Terry were there. They were badly marked which is different. I can't for the life of me blame a third player when there are two players who failed to do their part well against two opponents allowing them to touch the ball. So had Luiz left his position and either player from Everton were left completely unmarked because Terry and Ivan couldn't reach them in time, I would blame Luiz mostly. Now Luiz allowed us to be even in numbers (2 against 2) and that's a problem, but had Ivan marked better or Terry, we wouldn't have conceded. If we keep back tracking to every possible mistake done in a play, we'll find culprits everywhere because a football match is filled of mistakes. Ramires failed, Luiz was poor in his decision making, but at the end of the day Ivan and Terry did a horrible job marking their men. I also agree with bushman about the expectation of this kind of mistake not happening again just because Mourinho is the manager. if people think that then they need to watch the match between Dortumund x Real Madrid last season (first leg in Germany) in a team Mourinho had been working for three seasons already. Individual mistakes happen all the time in football. Mourinho isn't going to fix it, the player won't fix it because if it was that tangible and simple we wouldn't see experienced players making mistakes and they do. So expecting Mourinho to make things like to never happen again is not only naïve, but also very unrealistic. Also if you think that because of that Luiz is going to see the bench, then we'll be left with no player to start because Terry, Cahill, Cole and Ivan are all subjected to make a mistake here and there and some of them will probably be much worse than a bad decision about positioning. I have no doubts Luiz (as well as others) will get better under Mourinho and his awareness will improve, but Mourinho won't make any player infallible, Mourinho won't bench a player because of one mistake (especially one that was barely the reason why we conceded at all) and if Luiz leaves the starting 11 is because of many things combined, not one tiny detail in a goal conceded where others were more to blame than him. Also the man himself defended Luiz and said many times he likes him - so I don't buy the 'Luiz is not the kind of player Mourinho likes' first because he is, second because while Mourinho was reticent and sometimes vague about Mata while clearing up transfers rumors he went out of his way to state Luiz wouldn't leave us because he counts on him and praised him as a player.

on the other hand he had one goal in EPL in 23 matches... so yeah, I guess that maybe is concerning, don't you think? I know we play other competitions too, but I refuse to use EL stats for anything because we should never consider that our Europe competition (although it's funny we'll face both Basel and Steua in Champions League - but then again group stage can be a snooze fest since UEFA changed the rules and we have these likes spread in many groups). So if a player can't perform in our biggest competition (maybe not in importance, but because it's the longest one - although I'm one of those people that consider the national league to be as important as the European), he presents a problem for us. We can't have players only for UCL or only for English Cups... the UCL issue is that sometimes we face Steua and Basel and sometimes we face Juve and Shakhtar and while he scored the saving goal against Shakhtar last year (in the 3x2 home win), I still think it's too little for us to think we have the player we need for the position. Also, all this is personal and subjective. I'd rather have a player that plays at least level 7.0 at all matches (having a 8.0-match once in a while) than a guy that plays a 8.5-9.0 match and then a collection of 5.0-6.0 matches. I choose consistency over the guy that plays one good match and two invisible (and imo Moses's proportion was much worse than that). So that's why I like André better. He fits well in the system Mourinho has in place and he's constant - in the good and in the bad, and that's already impressive because the guy is adapting to a completely different league, so I think the most normal is for those guys to have seasons like Oscar had, playing one match well and a bunch being invisible. André for only 4-5 matches with us is showing that with time the position will be his to be taken. I also agree with that. sweetie, let me be very didactic with you. I said Kevin de Bruyne and André Schürrle alone prove that Moses should leave because they showed - even with few matches - that they fit our system better, I said clearly WILLIAN OR NO WILLIAN, he should have left. That means that even if Willian didn't join, there was no space for Moses. Then I also commentated that Willian is an amazing player who may end up being among the starting 11. He may not. André is going to be fierce competition. Now, do you understand it? Because I'm out of resources to try to make you understand what I stated so clearly in a five-sentence post.