Oriol Romeu

[Buffalo talks Blue 85]

Is a douche bag!

[Styles 9,790]

This guy is too slow and everyone just runs by him like he isn't even there. So easily beaten it's laughable. He isn't fit to lace Mikel's boots.

[BlueSunshine 672]

This guy is too slow and everyone just runs by him like he isn't even there. So easily beaten it's laughable. He isn't fit to lace Mikel's boots.

Romeu is miles closer to the type of the midfielder that we need for our pivot than Mikel. I am not saying that Mikel isn't good but i am afraid that he won't get any better than this,he is pretty one-dimensional. On the other hand Romeu has the potential to become much more complete as a player.

[Kieran. 6,317]

Romeu is miles closer to the type of the midfielder that we need for our pivot than Mikel. I am not saying that Mikel isn't good but i am afraid that he won't get any better than this,he is pretty one-dimensional. On the other hand Romeu has the potential to become much more complete as a player.

Why do people keep saying Mikel won't get any better? He's improved steadily for years now, and is only 25...DMs usually peak around 29.

[The only place to be 11,313]

Why do people keep saying Mikel won't get any better? He's improved steadily for years now, and is only 25...DMs usually peak around 29.

So if he eliminates 1 touch from each possession every year, he could be a 2 touch footballer by the age of 29?

Personally, I'm hoping that Nathanial Chalobah can continue his improvement and become that holding midfielder we need.

[Kieran. 6,317]

So if he eliminates 1 touch from each possession every year, he could be a 2 touch footballer by the age of 29.

Yeah, okay guy.

[BlueLion. 21,491]

Romeu definitely has to be sucking Benitez off to be getting in the line-up ahead of Mikel. Disgrace.

[The only place to be 11,313]

Romeu definitely has to be sucking Benitez off to be getting in the line-up ahead of Mikel. Disgrace.

Or....when Rafa took the job it was made clear to him that Mikel wouldn't be available during the African Nations so he's decided that he should probably see if other players are capable of playing that position before the transfer window opens.

Or he simply likes what Romeu offers to the team. You never know how players perform in training and Romeu does have a lot of things going for him, primarily his distribution. It's one of the most important positions in the team and Mikel does make the odd costly mistake.

[BlueLion. 21,491]

I see what you're saying, but this team simply cannot operate without Mikel. Our worst offensive performances happen when he is absent. Not only does he has the necessary positional discipline to cover for players when they go forward, but his style enables the likes of Hazard, Mata and Oscar to bomb forward in the same way he used to cover for Essien and Lampard when they went marauding. There is a reason Mikel has been picked for every big game by seven different managers, and that is because he is the engine room of the team. His best work is off the ball, yet at the same time he is one of the focal points of the attack in the way he recycles the play with short, simple passes. With Romeu you have more a dynamic "Hollywood" type in the engine room, but it doesn't work from a defensive point. We were ridiculously exposed at times last night because of Romeu's indiscipline.

[The only place to be 11,313]

I see what you're saying, but this team simply cannot operate without Mikel. Our worst offensive performances happen when he is absent. Not only does he has the necessary positional discipline to cover for players when they go forward, but his style enables the likes of Hazard, Mata and Oscar to bomb forward in the same way he used to cover for Essien and Lampard when they went marauding. There is a reason Mikel has been picked for every big game by seven different managers, and that is because he is the engine room of the team. His best work is off the ball, yet at the same time he is one of the focal points of the attack in the way he recycles the play with short, simple passes. With Romeu you have more a dynamic "Hollywood" type in the engine room, but it doesn't work from a defensive point. We were ridiculously exposed at times last night because of Romeu's indiscipline.

I agree that he is important, because he can drop into the back three and distribute short passes. I simply don't know if he does it that well.

Last night Ramires seemed to bomb forward a lot more than against Man City, whilst players like Azpi were roaming across midfield which is what led to the Risse chance. Even if Mikel was playing, the amount of players going forward would've caused us problems.

I like Mikel, but I'd like to see if someone like Romeu or Chalobah couldn't do his job better. Let's not ignore the fact that Mikel can have moments where he simply switches off - in that position you can't ever do that.

[Corner 456]

I see what you're saying, but this team simply cannot operate without Mikel. Our worst offensive performances happen when he is absent. Not only does he has the necessary positional discipline to cover for players when they go forward, but his style enables the likes of Hazard, Mata and Oscar to bomb forward in the same way he used to cover for Essien and Lampard when they went marauding. There is a reason Mikel has been picked for every big game by seven different managers, and that is because he is the engine room of the team. His best work is off the ball, yet at the same time he is one of the focal points of the attack in the way he recycles the play with short, simple passes. With Romeu you have more a dynamic "Hollywood" type in the engine room, but it doesn't work from a defensive point. We were ridiculously exposed at times last night because of Romeu's indiscipline.

While I do agree with everything you said, I don't think you can fault Benitez for picking Romeu last night.

We certainly do need Mikel in our team for almost every game, but a player can not play every single game. Players need rest, especially when we have played a lot of games fo far in such a short space of time, and we also have A LOT of games coming up with such a crammed schedule. It's the managers job to asses how fit players are and to make sure that every play has the required match fitness to suit how often they will be playing. And Romeu will be playing most games when Mikel is absent for the ACON, unless we sign another defensive midfielder.

While Mikel is a lot better than Romeu in terms of positioning, anticipation, off the ball instincts and breaking up attacks... Romeu bring something to the table that Mikel does not. He can provide a killer pass and has more of an ability to control the tempo of our play. And the manager can't just ignore a player's abilities. Romeu certainly has a lot of other aspects of his game that he needs to work on and improve before he can be reliable and a regular starter for us, but it would be detrimental to his development if the manager did not play him at all.

On top of all that, I can see why Benitez chose to rest Mikel and play Romeu against Fulham. We have a game against West Ham coming up that we will need Mikel for. Not even mentioning including Mikel's many qualities that I referred to earlier in this post, his physicality alone will be vital when playing away to West Ham. And we all knew Fulham don't pose as much of an attacking threat that a lot of the 'bigger' teams do, even though they have scored 25 goals so far. Obviously, Benitez knew this too which is probably why chose Romeu to play instead.

[Clevemayer 764]

this is the Romeu thread plz, yeah they're play'n the same positions but in a different way, so dont compare them... I was just stateing he wasn't good yesterday and not in comparison to Mikel, I mentioned Mikel because he gets so much bashing for being so bad and miles away from Romeu...

[BlueLyon 9,359]

Romeu is some talent, but just because he is playing for us, he is not good enough.

Once he will shine and you will eat your words, I just hope he stays at this club...

[CHOULO19 24,332]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=319qU-TQ_i8&feature=g-u

[bluesman2610 1,348]

this suspension to mikel will give oriol more time to find form before mikel leaves for ACON.. so we will see what he is really made of very shortly

[termninja 5,290]

Mikel suspended isn't that bad. It will give Oriol a good run of games which will show to the board if he's ready to be given a bigger role or we need another DM.

I hope he does well, he was good against Nords. His long balls (not those balls you perverts ) have helped the team a lot in attack speed. It is something I don't see Mikel do often and something Ramires doesn't do at all.

[bluesman2610 1,348]

Mikel suspended isn't that bad. It will give Oriol a good run of games which will show to the board if he's ready to be given a bigger role or we need another DM.

I hope he does well, he was good against Nords. His long balls (not those balls you perverts ) have helped the team a lot in attack speed. It is something I don't see Mikel do often and something Ramires doesn't do at all.

I agree mikel is good at slowing up the pace of the game if you need to kill it off but if you need to get attack moving oriol has him there in the speed of which he plays one and two touch

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,920]

Hopefully his injury isnt too bad.

He has all but taken the job from Mikel. He is exactly what we need in a holding mid.