Barbara

how many Oscar vids were released in two days? Three and counting?

there are two sides of the coin, bushman For Chelsea the best deal was Ba off in a loan and Lukaku here. Romelu said yesterday (or today, don't know only read the quotes on SSN) that he was the one who wanted to go, that he wanted to have asked that to Mourinho 10 days prior to the window closing and that Mourinho shouldn't be blamed for him leaving. Don't know if he's telling the truth, but why would he lie and supposedly defend the guy that sent him away? So I tend to believe his words on this... between him and Ba, I'll have Romelu everyday of the week, twice a day, but the boy said he wants to be the #1 for Belgium, that the one year he spent on Chelsea's bench is what cost him the position in the NT (I disagree with him btw), so he's aiming the WC here and he knows he would have much more competition on Chelsea than on Everton, so while he had to prove things here, there he's the best option right away. Taking that pressure from his shoulders helps, as well as playing against defenses that aren't as posted as they are against Chelsea. So what can I say when it was the player that chose what he thinks it's the best for him? Maybe he's capable of playing against tight defenses like didierforever suggested, but everyone can agree that it's easier for a striker to play against less defensive opposition. Regardless of the competition, things for him on Chelsea would be more difficult than they are at Everton and he chose what's more important for him right now: Belgium NT

they're being sarcastic bush... Talking specifically about the kid, he probably has tons of potential and has some character to go there in his first professional match and score the two goals that win them the match. BUT I'm not easily impressed and if this was Chelsea I would say, well it's the right thing to play him against the likes of Sunderland (although with ManU's midfield who knows if the kid isn't their best option for just every match), but it's not right to put the weight on his shoulders. Will he be the answer for them they play Spurs, Liverpool, Arsenal, Everton or maybe even Southampton next week? That's not how you develop young talents, that's how you risk damaging them. Moyes was right in having him today, the problem with Moyes is that with a team as ManU there's a huge problem when he needs the u-18 boy to win him the match against one of the weakest sides in the league.

I don't even know the kid, how could I say he should be loaned or not? Again, I'm not talking about the kid - although kudos for him - I'm talking about how fragile Moyes' MU is when they can't win against Sunderland without a boy scoring them two goals.

what I meant is Moyes is very lucky a boy won him the match... this is Sunderland, ManU should have had this match killed within 30 minutes. They were lucky (Moyes mainly) because the boy got things done for them. But they should realize there's something very wrong with Moyes' tactics and team when they need an u-18 boy to turn a scoreline around against one of the weakest sides in EPL if not the weakest. But as this is ManU we will read in sites and papers that Moyes is a genius... smh

I meant in a ManU pov! I don't know the kid, can't say a word about him and didn't watch the match. I'm talking about ManU needing a U-18 to win a match against Sunderland!!! Moyes will be worshiped for starting a boy that won him the match.... although it is against Sunderland. As for the boy, he might be good because there was a lot of pressure on ManU now...

you guys do realize this is Sunderland, right?

so you see goalies accepting goals like that against us? of course not! the MFs always save everything against us. fml

this sorry, but it's no time to keep the tests going and to give players' minutes by starting matches. We need to gel and improve chemistry now. There are league games, there are subs to play 30 minutes during a match, there more accessible matches at home during november. Then we could make one test here other there, to give some of those guys some minutes. Right now we need to gel and for that those guys have to play together. The only position I can agree some rotation is Lamps because of his age, but I don't see Mourinho doing that much

I think we loaned him because we couldn't loan Ba... I think the idea was to keep him, but keeping 4 strikers would have only caused even less playing time for them. Also, sorry for misunderstanding your argument then

you want badmouth my lovely Mesut fine, you want to offend the sweetheart Juan, okay, but don't say a word against my legend Zinedine. For most part of my twenties I was convinced I would name a son after him - even though his name sounds horrible in portuguese - so I tend to react when someone says anything different than him being a legend Can we at least agree that we all hope Mata will do better than Ozil? That's what really matters here. Mata is a Chelsea player, Ozil is not. So the obvious thing is for us to want Mata to be better than Ozil at the end of the season. I personally think it's unlikely, but that's what I'm hoping for!

for one Eto'o and Fernando didn't have the luck to have an opponent pushing to the net a ball that was clearly going wide. Fernando actually got unlucky with some good saves from goalies in two or three occasions. Dude, I'm tired of this argument. You want to believe Lukaku would have solved or even improved our striker's issues? great. I don't believe it and I guess I'm entitled to have whatever opinion I want in the matter - stats or not. what I did see in the Newcastle game was the defense defending pathetically in both of his goals, but that doesn't count, does it? I do give full credit on that assist. I didn't expect him to do something like that... and as I said, I'm not interested in this argument at all. I'm too Mourinho-like. If we're going to discuss any Chelsea player, then let's do it about players that actually play for Chelsea. The only interest I have in the loaned guys is for them to do well and come better players for us. So sorry to cut the discussion short.

so you think some defender pushing his shot to the goal when it would actually go wide is actually justifiable? I guess I don't need to read the rest, but I'll do it anyway... my argument is good defenses, with players behind the ball. RM defends with tons of players because everyone, except Ronaldo, is committed with work-rate and defending responsibilities because that's how Mourinho molded the team and Carlo didn't do many chances at that point. There's a difference between many players behind the ball, deep defenses and parking the bus - those are three different things and I think Lukaku struggles with all three. Why I can't consider this in NT football I have no idea as teams playing in Belgium totally park the bus or at least play deep. What does it have to do with opponents keeping their legs open for Everton and West Brom? Did you even think before questioning that? I'm talking about tactics, not how big or small a team is or if it's international or clubs footie. I don't care if he comes from the bench or starts playing (I did watch the match he started from the beginning for Belgium and he was crap), my point is he can't handle that situation. If you think otherwise, then showcase matches where he faced any of those three situations and scored goals. I'll be waiting for the vids preferably. If you don't think my arguments are reasonable enough, then good for you, mate. Agreeing to disagree has nothing to do with admitting defeat or being wrong, just admitting that someone else has a right to have a mind of their own.

yeah I meant that when facing defensive teams (although they don't park the bus, just defend the Italian style) like Inter, Milan (against Roma he did nothing and if his shot doesn't touch the opponent, the goal wouldn't have happened because the ball was clearly going to go wide, even though he was 2m from the goal and unmarked) and a well organized defensive team like Madrid he basically did nothing. When the real test in pre-season came he had no answer to give. He has been fabulous against the Asian sides but that was it. He was even chosen as flop of the match against Madrid by goal.com... I also watched him in Belgium a few times this season and he added nothing when he came in (and absolutely nothing at all the whole match he started, except early in the second half with a couple of plays) because at least the matches I've watched teams were well planted defensively against Belgium... but mate, that's only my opinion, I'm stating it as a fact - which is why I said I guess we can agree to disagree edit: I meant I'm not stating it like a fact. I'm the 'not' eater queen

I guess the main problem is that he still struggles a bit with teams that play deep and with too many players behind the ball. that doesn't happen against teams like Everton and much less West Brom... he works great as a target-man in a team where the opponents don't defend exhaustively. He'll keep improving though and I guess he'll come back to us improved because a few teams might park the bus against Everton at Goodison Park

you do realize you're talking to an admin? forever http://espnfc.com/player/_/id/103025/juan-mata?cc=3888http://espnfc.com/player/_/id/84775/mesut-ozil?cc=3888 Mata goals/assists in 161 matches (last three seasons and the current): 48/70Mesut goals/assists in 186 matches (last three seasons and the current): 44/99I didn't bother to drop the NT stats from it though

aren't they a pair?

true! I'm currently sporting a red hair that couldn't be more different from my natural dark brown what I wouldn't give though not to have those damn braces on!!!!!!!!

I can't trust those stats when they can't have something as age - that can be found even in wikipedia - right...

I watched live, don't know if there are already links, mate. sorry

can someone tell Mourinho to stop reading my posts in this forum and quoting me in his press conferences? Lukaku - check Torres - check Eto'o - check pro-active mentality - check Now talking seriously... it's so easy for me to like his approach in football because I think exactly the same way... we agree about too many things and only disagree on detail. I feel blessed to have him managing my three teams in Europe. I'm developing a soft spot for Dortmund, but I may have to stop watching them and falling in love with their supporters because I don't want Mourinho to leave Chelsea and football gods keep spoiling me when it comes to him and my teams. I agree 100% about everything he said in the press-conference because I said it first here, not because he's Mourinho and I'm an worshiper to his alter.

I showcased plays that we showed the team working as team, covering one another, linking up plays, pressing together, moving without the ball. That's supposed to improve from now on. In one analysis it doesn't make much sense, but next match we can compare how the team is progressing into playing the tactics Mourinho has in place. The same goes for chemistry. It's a way for us to see the team working as a whole. There wasn't a case where they failed - except if you count that messy box play at the very end of the game when we tried to clear the ball away, but no one could until Cech held it (but the referee had stopped the play for a foul on Cech). I don't think that was lack of team work or chemistry, I think that was a hot mess where we just couldn't kick the ball away from the dangerous areas. But let's suppose we show like in the Everton goal - where Luiz moved to anticipate the ball and wasn't properly covered and didn't properly come back to fix his mistake. That's a typical failure in team work. We saw in one of the plays I showcased this time that he made the same mistake at some point, but Ramires (if I'm not wrong, I don't know all the plays by heart, hehehe, but it's in the spoiler tag) was there and covered him and cleared the ball away. Mourinho has a special player (in his eyes) in Luiz. His vision and boldness are impressive and he offers something else to the defense, but it comes with a risk and we need FB or CMs to cover him for those attempts. It's an aggressive defending, a pro-active and Mourinho said one week ago he doesn't want us to play reactive football. that's how it's made, but for it to work someone has to cover him. It's risky, but with the right amount of chemistry and team work it's actually a good tactic. In this match it seemed to me he gave Luiz fredoom to do it anywhere he saw fit. I don't think he'll have as much freedom in three weeks against City for example, but even then I expect Luiz to press pro-actively in the second third... So, next time I do this - I'll try to do for the Norwich match, but I will only provide data and let the tactics analysis for @hjperdeath, so there will be only the rating part, team chemistry, team work and individual highlights, that Sherry may want to use on his tactical analysis or not. I think it's important to have contextualized rating of the players' contribution... sometimes a player contributed a lot and we don't even realize it because he did the invisible work. There wasn't much of it last match because we played nearly perfectly, but my objective is to start rating players movement as well even when they don't actually touch the ball. There was a couple of cases of that when I mentioned a player pressed, but didn't actually tackle or intercepted, and still he was rated. His off-ball movement and pressing was important and helped someone else to go for the killing. Sherry, sweetie, do you think we can work this way? I only provide data, but won't 'interpret' it and will leave the whole analysis to you. Feel free to use any of the stats or not. You let me know.

I meant when Mata was unfit... that's the problem. If a player is showing he's unfit, he should be recovered first. Hazard is completely out of shape. Why should we keep him in the team while André is playing like that? That's the only thing I meant... not that Mata should be benched now, but when the season started and he didn't show up in the matches he played...

yeah, I guess I led to the confusion without realizing it. I wasn't taking part of the debate itself and I didn't make that clear, I just disagreed about a minor detail, not exactly TorontoChelsea's reasoning - or yours. I don't even like to make players comparison to be honest... Players are normally different from one another, and in this case Oscar and Mata are very different and can contribute in very different ways which makes the comparison even harder. Even as #10 they offer two complete different end products in my opinion. One fits tight matches more imo while the other fits better counter-attack, one controls better game pace while the other controls better games period.