Tarantino

So if Mourinho does decide to sell him, then he is le arse? I'll keep in mind you said that.

You speak the truth.

Depends, maybe Mou will go back to 4-3-3 with three players in the middle of the park, then no one has to go. Still, even if he plays 4-2-3-1, I believe van Ginkel won't be the destroyer like Mikel, Essien and Romeu are, but the one that goes forward, scores and assists. Long term replacement for Lampard.

His agent also claims that he will sign for Chelsea and that he will get the chance in the first team. @voetbalpings Marco van Ginkel vertrekt naar Chelsea meldt zijn zaakwaarnemer: "Hij vertrekt naar Chelsea, hij sluit aan bij de eerste selectie." He is CM, and he will play. Simply because he offers something different. Much like Schürrle, we have bunch of AMs, but not that type.

Neither did I. I watched him on youtube and also read various journalists' scouting reports on him. He was awarded Dutch Talent of the Year for the last season, which is essentially best u21 player in the league. Seems to me like extremely talented box to box. Would love to see him in Chelsea shirt. He's gonna be big.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - brilliant, 10/10.

Please don't mention Oscar, KdB, Lampard, even Ramires. Yes, they can play in central midfield, but none of them is defensively oriented, they all like to go forward. That leaves us with Romeu, Essien, Ake and Chalobah. None of them is even remotely good enough to be first choice in the team that fights for PL, CL, and at least one domestic cup.

However, various sources on twitter report that Ciro Venerato (works for RAI, calcio mercato expert etc...) claims, I quote: "Chelsea are now in pole position for Cavani. Jose Mourinho absolutely wants the player." Other sources also claim that City turned their attention to Gomez after they found out Cavani is Chelsea bound.

This is a shameless lie! They just put Bild's name in the article in order to make it more believable and to make more people visit the website and read the story. Bild didn't report anything like that and you can't find it anywhere on their site.

Bottom line with Matic situation is, his fee is that big because that's how the market works: supply and demand. That's capitalism. Everyone needs that type of player, but there are only handful of quality ones in the market.

I agree with everything but the great thing is, Ferguson can't be in the locker room during half time, which can turn to be decisive factor, remember how many games they overturned after half time last season.

Who said Essien was the defensive midfielder? He was central midfielder, but with more defensive oriented instructions. Makelele was a DM. Mikel is somewhat of a hybrid, he started as attacking midfielder / playmaker and then moved to DM, but he can play as a ball winning CM as well. Yes I agree, it's about system, maybe Benfica or Bilbao don't have box to box like we do have Lamps, maybe system is different, but I was just trying to compare Essien's role in the team and goals to matches ratio with other similar type of players. I'm mentioning Cavani and Matic as those are the two weakest positions in our team at the moment: striker and a holding midfielder. There are other choices, yes, but Mourinho seems to fancy these two the most, and who am I to argue?

So let's clear things up. You claim that anyone who thinks that the line-up of Torres, Ba and Lukaku is good enough for a title challenge is deluded, but you also claim that DM line up of Mikel, Romeu, Chalobah and Ake is good enough for the title challenge?

No one said. I didn't say world class attack, I said decent attack. But I'll say it again: we can't spend 40 mill on defensive player and another 60 on attacking one. We have to choose. We have decent attack, but nowhere near decent ball winning midfielder. That's why that part of team is more important to spend money on. No one but Ferguson. And look where that brought them. To the title. Look, I know you won't admit you're wrong. No one ever does on internet. But bringing up points like that goal vs Arsenal when we were all out attack is really... not cool. Essien scored total of 17 goals in 163 apps for Chelsea. That's not box to box goal form. Lampard is box to box. Gerrard is box to box. Javi Martinez scored 22 in 201 appearance for Bilbao, and 3 in 27 apps for Bayern. Matic - 4 in 42 apps for Benfica. De Rossi - 33 in 306 apps for Roma. Noticed a pattern? Around one goal per 10 games. That's ball winning midfielder.

That was the moment we were chasing the result, so normally everyone is going more forward. RVP point, one answer: Michael Carrick. They already had good holding midfielder so naturally invested in attack. We have decent attack but not even a decent hodling midfielder.

But f**k golden boot. Where is Liverpool? Do you want our star striker to score 25+ goals in the league and we finish 7th, or to score 7 and we finish 3rd? I prefer latter. No, a good striker can't carry a poor midfield. He can score load of goals, but he can't carry them. They finished 7th. Obviously he can't carry them. About Essien, ok, 24. I found another source claiming it was33,5 but still, even 24 was huge fee back then. His main contribution was staying back and covering for Lampard to go forward and score all those goals that brought us the title. Not very glamorous job, I know. And you can't "see" his contribution, you can't "touch" it, it's not as noticable as striker scoring every game, but is as important as that.

Remember back in the day when we bought Essien for 30 odd millions? One of the key signings for future success. It's not about player's awards but team success. Where's Liverpool? What is their position on the table? They can have three Suarezs and two Cavanis if they are not good defensively, and that's because of aforementioned Stevie and Henderson.

Ok will keep that in mind :)

Probably because signing quality holding midfielder is more pressing issue than signing striker. And I think Matic is well worth that money, well, in my opinion, only de Rossi, Martinez and Busquets are better players than him in that position at the moment.

'89, that's 24 years... you should know more about football, because you are wrong about this.

He also finished third in both 2008 FIFA world player of the year and 2008 Ballon d'Or, just behind Messi and Ronaldo, who aren't true striker. He was the beast, raped Vidic two or three times, raped us numerous times... he was the best, you like it or not.

Kaka's?

Ah yes. Regardlessly, he was great defensively.