New Season

[BlueLyon 9,359]

Why the f you want to sell Mikel and buy Tiote? WTF????!!!!!

Tiote would cost us more than Mikel and Mikel proved how fantastic he is.

But obviously because we already have him, you just dont notice how good he is. If we had Tiote and Mikel would play for nufc, you would want him...

Everyone who wants to get rid of Mikel (maybe we could get 10mio) and buying Tiote (not less than 15) and talks about FFP, well something is wrong...Mikel knows the squad and style, he adopted good and we should build team around him, he is fantastic.

[Kojo 4,676]

Why the f you want to sell Mikel and buy Tiote? WTF????!!!!!

Tiote would cost us more than Mikel and Mikel proved how fantastic he is.

But obviously because we already have him, you just dont notice how good he is. If we had Tiote and Mikel would play for nufc, you would want him...

Everyone who wants to get rid of Mikel (maybe we could get 10mio) and buying Tiote (not less than 15) and talks about FFP, well something is wrong...Mikel knows the squad and style, he adopted good and we should build team around him, he is fantastic.

BlueLyon, why can't you post more, the others are making me cry

your such a good fwiend to me

[BlueLyon 9,359]

Besides now, have anyone thought that old guard (besides Cech and possibly Cole/Lamps/Tery) wont play hard anymore? After they won CL, its hard to get back for older players...We still heavily count on all them and they were pushing us far in CL this year. Now they won it, I dont see why would they work so hard anymore after they won everything possible? Something was seen already against smaller teams, next season we need consistant performers.

I just hope Torres will replace Drogba decently

Terry can play, we have also Cahill.

Cole has decent replacement in Bertrand.

Cech...no need to replace

Lamps...Possibly Moutinho or Belhanda

Wingers...Hulk and/or Hazard

RB...Azpilicueta.

BUT:

If Rdm stays, he will play these players next season. Possibly Kalou too.

That could be problem, look at Inter.

But I hope Robby is smart enough to slowly replace older players and brings some top talent and proven class players.

[Kojo 4,676]

Besides now, have anyone thought that old guard (besides Cech and possibly Cole/Lamps/Tery) wont play hard anymore? After they won CL, its hard to get back for older players...We still heavily count on all them and they were pushing us far in CL this year. Now they won it, I dont see why would they work so hard anymore after they won everything possible? Something was seen already against smaller teams, next season we need consistant performers.

I just hope Torres will replace Drogba decently

Terry can play, we have also Cahill.

Cole has decent replacement in Bertrand.

Cech...no need to replace

Lamps...Possibly Moutinho or Belhanda

Wingers...Hulk and/or Hazard

RB...Azpilicueta.

BUT:

If Rdm stays, he will play these players next season. Possibly Kalou too.

That could be problem, look at Inter.

But I hope Robby is smart enough to slowly replace older players and brings some top talent and proven class players.

Spot on, everything you just said, it's just right.

[communicate 2,703]

Besides now, have anyone thought that old guard (besides Cech and possibly Cole/Lamps/Tery) wont play hard anymore? After they won CL, its hard to get back for older players...We still heavily count on all them and they were pushing us far in CL this year. Now they won it, I dont see why would they work so hard anymore after they won everything possible? Something was seen already against smaller teams, next season we need consistant performers.

I just hope Torres will replace Drogba decently

Terry can play, we have also Cahill.

Cole has decent replacement in Bertrand.

Cech...no need to replace

Lamps...Possibly Moutinho or Belhanda

Wingers...Hulk and/or Hazard

RB...Azpilicueta.

BUT:

If Rdm stays, he will play these players next season. Possibly Kalou too.

That could be problem, look at Inter.

But I hope Robby is smart enough to slowly replace older players and brings some top talent and proven class players.

I like inter comparison because we are in similar situation.

We really need to reduce some of our older guard role/offload them and buy new first team players.

[Henrique 9,133]

Sloth got crazy and think we are Barcelona now. lol

[Henrique 9,133]

No these players are on form since RDM took over, Lampard cannot start games next season, we will end up back to square one. You people would make the exact same mistake Carlo made, and AVB, we need to spend and get creativity into the team, now making Mata centre mid is a good idea, so he will install creativity, but we still need more players, wide players yes but we still lack that spine, if we don't add to that it will be like nothing happened.

Mata is already a central mid under RDM, thats his best position.

Lampard is good enough to be a second DM.

Ramires is great.

[BlueLyon 9,359]

Mata is already a central mid under RDM, thats his best position.

Lampard is good enough to be a second DM.

Ramires is great.

But I still think Mata played better on wing, under AVB. He scored more goals and assists, also was key in almost every match, along Danny. Now, against Barca and Bayern, he played but was barely visible, except that cross to Drogba. After all he played as winger all time at Valencia.

But it could be he is tired or has not enough good wingers to support him.

[KonohasOrangeFlash 2,607]

But I still think Mata played better on wing

Simply not true. Everyone can see he is suited to play centrally. When he plays on the LW he cuts inside and roams around meaning we become narrow. Roaming around is much better suited for an AM

[lecter 84]

This is my view of how the team should be built up for the next season.

First of all, the formation. I think we should be going with the 4-2-3-1 (the DM 2 should be a combination of an attack minded player and a specialist DM; for example: Mikel/Romeu and Lamps/Rami/Raul) or the 4-4-1-1 formation as has been pointed out by quite a few people.

The OUTS:

RB: Bosingwa, Ferreira

MF: Essien, Malouda, Benayoun

FW: Drogs (I am feeling sad even typing this! But this needs to be done for the good of either parties)

Now, regarding the squad already present. I, personally, feel that a strong squad is one with enough replacements for each position so that we don't wobble under circumstances similar to the recent ones in the CL.

The ones that are italicized are rare options that can be exercised in special circumstances. The bold ones are the ins that I desire/speculate and are feasible. The ones in the bracket are hopeful youth inductees.

GK (3): Not an issue until we have Big Pete with us.

CB (4): JT, Gary, Luiz, Brana (Bruma/Kalas)

RB (2): Brana, Cesar/Van der Wiel (Hutch)

LB (2): Ashley, Bertrand (PVA)

DM (4): Mikel, Romeu (age 20), Lamps, Meireles, Ramires (Conor Clifford, Chalobah (over optimistic!))

CAM/SS (3): Mata, Marin, Belhanda/Jovetic (McEachran, Piazon (over optimistic again!))

LW (2): KDB (age 20), Sturridge, Hazard/Muniain (Kakuta)

RW (2): Kalou, Marin, Ramires, Hulk (Lalkovic)

ST (3): Torres, Sturridge, Lukaku (age 19)

Its obvious that we need to strengthen (by buying AND trusting some of our youngsters) our wing play.

I'd be very happy if we buy the ones in bold. I would like to know more options in that particular position, if we lose out on those.

One interesting issue we might encounter is we are restricted to a squad of 25! And the homegrown players will also be a bother. If my scheme is okay, we'd have 7 HG, 16 foreign and 3 U21 players (excluding of course the youth inductees). We'll be fine as far as the PL is concerned. We can actually add an extra foreign player But CL demands 4 "locally trained players". Out of the 7 HG players, only JT qualifies for that. So, we might have to sacrifice one of the other 6 (considering we don;t fill in that foreign player slot; otherwise we might have to cut 2 players off of the remaining 6!) So, another important note for future is that we should be wary to keep prospective "homegrown" talent for at least 3 years in the club! Stupid UEFA! Always pro-Barcelona!

/rant-over

[Santiago. 1,500]

Next season's starting 11 will be difficult.

[Jusek 2,031]

Dat money... Get it done, Roman!

[NattyBlue 44]

It's time to rebuild right. We've been given a gift to play in the CL next season though. It's time for the next generation. We'll see more of Betrand too which is great news. I would love a midfield of Josh, Romeu and Ramires against lower ranked teams in the league.

[communicate 2,703]

But I still think Mata played better on wing, under AVB. He scored more goals and assists, also was key in almost every match, along Danny. Now, against Barca and Bayern, he played but was barely visible, except that cross to Drogba. After all he played as winger all time at Valencia.

But it could be he is tired or has not enough good wingers to support him.

The reason he played better under AVB is because AVB system is about bossing the game and possesion football which is what Mata good at.

Under RDM on the other hand, we played a very direct game. Cech -> drogba. So he is not involved in most of our play.

Btw he is much better playing in the center because mata is not really fast and it's so much easier for us to find him when he play central.

[Sheva. 5,373]

Now Drogba is leaving, we need to sign a new striker.

Falcao or Higuain for me.