MANoWAR

I'm somewhat worried about Lukaku. I hope his confidence hasn't lowered because of a lack of starts.

Ah man this is a shame. I don't like the Ramires/Lampard combo esp. not against Bayern. Torres is a bit surprising too. Would've wanted to see Lukaku and Van Ginkel get starts tbh but ah well! Mata on the bench again!

I'd be interested to see a Luiz/Van Ginkel partnership tbh. I think it'd work well but it won't happen.

...And apparently he'll be loaned to Vitesse.

Wow, much easier than last year then!

We'll get Napoli next. Maybe not...

He's pretty old and I believe he's ill, mate. Not sure what they were thinking.

Regarding Lukaku, Mourinho will rotate between the two and I'm sure lukaku will get ample gametime. The signing of eto'o and trying to get rooney as a big signing already shows his opinion of torres. I think if he keeps Torres and sells Ba he's going to do that so torres runs like a headless chicken when we need to close down a result. But I'd prefer both Torres & Ba out (one sold one loaned). Won't be surprised if both of those two would be for sale though. Since Schurlle can play up top too and Mourinho usually only has two consistent quality out and out strikers in the team with other people who play there, but not their primary position. (Higuain and benzema, crespo and drogba, drogba and kezman, drogba and sheva being recent pairings). Only exception was inter, where he had a small ageing squad with little money for him to tinker with... At least 1 of the two are going, and that with the way Mourinho likes small squads, would prefer if we got rid of both. Finally remember that he promised gametime to Lukaku, who's the only striker who's featured in two of our three games, so obviously he likes the lad. But Eto'o was needed. If he's bad, he's gone at the end of the year and we use Lukaku; if he does well and wins us the title we have a potential revelation signing. Smart business tbh.

Happy about this (one of the few, maybe). :)

I spoke briefly to someone who watched the russian league regularly (in China, since it's shown regularly there for some reason). Apparently the ability is still there for definite but a lot of the time he just didn't see to give a **** when playing and was quite lazy. But under Mourinho I would think that he would put in more considering how well he's worked under him, and how he's often commended him in the past. He'd be much better than Ba for us! One of Torres/Ba will have to go -- looks likely to be Ba then. Would Ba go back to Newcastle though? They just got Remy. edit: Alright my post looks messed up for some reason.

Wow, a bit of frustration in these responses I see. It's gotten me annoyed as well. ****I know you probably won't read all/most of this but I've written out my thoughts regardless**** Why are you mentioning depth when I'm speaking about the quality? Yes you need depth there but I'd rather be in United's situation than ours right now. I disagree. What about Ferdinand? He was very good last season! Even though the Rio/Vidic partnership isn't as good as it was in the past they still showed that they were top-class defenders together. They've got 3 very good CBs aside from them as well. Jones yes, is still developing but he's only 20 and he's shown how promising he is. Evans also had a very good season (probably even better). Smalling was looking great before but injuries had set him back which is why hasn't progressed for a first team place as well. Can't say I've met people who rate Cahill for example all that highly compared to the rest. Man City need a CB as well. But Kompany/Nasty is certainly better than our current partnership. Lescott/Cahill are on similar levels but he still has a good partnership with Kompany. Can you really say that the Terry/Cahill partnership is as good? Arsenal and Spurs aren't exactly our competitors -- Arsenal should be but it seems they're content with trying to finish 4th place. Spurs struggled a lot without Bale, and although they've made good signings, we don't know for definite how effective they will in terms of adapting to the league, gelling etc. yet. (although with Lamela & Erikson they aren't too far off us tbh). Bu we're trying to fight for the title, no? However, I will comment. I don't understand your problem with this. It matters little that a full back has been fielded because Sagna has shown that he functions better there than he did at the RB position. And this was not just against Fener -- he has been fielded there in the past. But the Kos/Mert partnership works so well for Arsenal meaning Sagna wouldn't regularly be deployed there. Sagna has shown he has good strength, has speed, is good and the air and was really committing to challenge. But Arsenal have problems with injury and do need to buy another CB, which is mainly why Sagna was deployed there. But again, I wasn't questioning depth. Him at FB hasn't worked as well because he's good at defending, but pretty poor in going forward if one compares him to the Sagna of 3 years ago -- so the CB role suits him better. Spurs obviously need to get another CB because Vert isn't enough. Competitors don't just have be in the PL either. Compare them to some of the teams in the CL -- Bayern, Dortmund, PSG (Marquinhos, Silva, Sakho e.g). Barca need a CB as well but elsewhere they've bloody brilliant so they'll progress better. Being represented at international level doesn't necessarily suggest quality. Ashley Young for example is capped for England but does that mean he's a quality player? Zaha spent his season in the Championship and is already capped for England, yet has done little to suggest he's worthy of a place. James Milner isn't quality and just has a good work rate, yet he is capped for England as well. Similarly, just because Cahill is there regularly doesn't mean he's great. Similar with Jagielka but they're more experienced than the others. But I'm not doubting Ivanovic at all -- I think he's quality and rate him the highest out of all our defenders however he has been deployed as a RB throughout pre-season and through our first 3 games. I worry about an injury. I have no idea how good Kalas is. I doubt many people have watched regularly in Vitesse either. But considering that he got out from that graveyard he must be good... I'm not sure what the 19 year old kid in the Portuguese league comment means, or what that refers to. Unless of course, this is just speaking in general. So what do we have? Cahill/Terry/Luiz. Terry: He's actually done well so far -- but the first match was against Hull, the one against Villa we were pretty damn lucky to win, and against United we were all parking the bus. So I'll need to wait and see if he keeps up good performances. If so, then great! But nonetheless, I also think the time when he was a world class centre back are well behind him -- he has declined a lot. He adds a lot in terms of leadership and organisation, and he still a set piece beast at either end, but the ball on the deck stuff has never been his game and I just do not believe that he's good enough anymore -- the weakness is too obvious for teams not to exploit and against slick team it's really going to cost. He's 32 now as well so how long will he keep on going for? Luiz has a lot of faults. I know there are many people here who really like him but really, I just think he can be an absolute liability at times. He is quite reckless, he often rushes in with his tackles, he always randomly tries to jump in front of attackers and is quite undisciplined positional-wise. While I agree that every top CB does make mistakes, the issues that have been mentioned about Luiz are not just mistakes but habits which he has to get rid of. Until he does so, I won't be confident in calling him a top, consistent defender. You don't see these weaknesses in others CBs. Maybe Mourinho will improve him but I don't know. On his day he's very very good, but he really isn't consistent enough. I just think he's more suited for the role of a midfielder. Cahill. He almost always backs off an opponent on the ball rather than engaging them. He has often dropped deep, and invited pressure and has given too much space to the opponent on the ball to play a pass or crack one against Cech. We saw this many times last season (Adebayor goal being one of them). Cahill should reduce the gap between himself and the other player so that he would be in a good position to make a tackle or intercept a pass or block a shot. But instead he often just backs off and doesn't stick to the player too well. Also, he mainly does well partnered with someone who tells him what do -- Terry in this instance. But without him (and what if there's the case of Terry getting injured or him getting too tired to play well), then he just isn't as good. You'll probably think that I'm purposely trying to find faults for no good reason, but really, comparing it our competitors who have more top, and reliable defenders, I just don't feel we have the quality here in comparison to them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Is this better then? Wow, seriously? Nothing in my post suggested I wasn't getting behind the club or had serious dislike towards it. I suggested calmly that we could do with another CB so we're not too far behind our competitors, which I currently feel we are. I'm not vilifying the club for purchasing Willian (which I like) like some others are doing, am I? Or as one of you put it; 'losing your sh*t and slagging the club off'. Everything I wrote before was not aggressively-worded and as such I don't understand why it suggested that I seriously dislike the club.

In numbers maybe so, not in quality though when we compare them to our competitors. That's what I'm concerned about. ^Mangala would be great but I don't think we'll be spending the 40m Porto want!

'Perfectly' covered? No we aren't...

Don't suppose there are any CB rumours...? We could need one tbh.

I really like Willian and think he's a great player, but this guy better not be Mata's replacement or whatever is being reported. No way should we sell him! Nor should we buy Willian for 35m! Doesn't make sense to get him seeing as we have Schurrle now. If we didn't have him then okay, it'd make sense. Guessing this means Moses won't get much game time.

Very interested to see how well we do against them at Old Trafford. That's gonna be great. Hopefully Rooney will be on the opposite team this time! (Or if not, at least have a top striker there)

^Agreed. We really need one but I honestly cannot see us getting Rooney. I'd like Mourinho to try for Ibrahimovic. If not, then someone like Jackson Martinez would be good.

Would love De Rossi as a DM. Oscar/KDB could fit the CM role if José is able to coach them properly.

Lol I agree with you tbh. I didn't like all this terminology but had to learn it because everyone else was using it.

Lampard really can't start every game at his age, nor will he able to play games for the full 90 mins continually. We'll need someone younger. I'm unsure on McEachran yet -- I hadn't been that impressed last season and we didn't hear much from him, unlike Chalobah who we heard from quite a lot. I really don't think Mikel is good enough. He could do the job against lesser teams but if we want to aim for the top we'll need someone better. So, sell him, and get De Rossi if we want a proper DM. Yeah José is big on Ramires so we'll see him a lot next season. I like him, but I'm not a HUGE fan though -- I feel we could have someone more technical + better at controlling the play -- but he does his job efficiently I guess. KDB is the one I'm really looking forward too. I think we could use Luiz as a DLP you know this season. Plus he can play box to box, he can also tackle and when he wants to can be defensively disciplined. I think luiz can be up to it defensively but tbh I think he'll be useful as a CM/DM due to his attacking qualities. Could play as a destroyer well. Don't want what José will do with him.

I apologise if this is in the wrong section () but I want to know peoples thoughts on this. I've always moaned about the fact that we need DLP. Someone who can dictate play to an efficient level, has creativity and very good passing ability. I think our defence needs strengthening a little bit (and a bit more depth if we don't use our youngsters)* but I feel that, if we wanted to challenge for the top titles we'll need a DLP. Possibilities? Moutinho: Gone to Monaco Matic: 45m tag... Gundogan: Dortmund will do all they can to stop him from going (and he signed a new contract) Montolivo: He'd be good and wouldn't cost an enormous amount, but I can't imagine Milan not being reluctant to let him go. I think they're trying to stop some spanish clubs from getting him too. Honda: Good player, free transfer, but would he be good enough for the top titles? Thiago is very good at dictacting play but his physicality would be a problem with our already non physical team unless we're going to just try and outpass every team Barcelona style. I'd want Oscar to be tried in the DLP role (as some have suggested), but not now as I feel there will be a few problems. He's too rash with his passing to be considered in that role right now. In the future maybe though -- like if one observes Bayern Munich, Dortmund, madrid and their DLPs, they can just control the tempo of a game so well. Oscar playing on the wing obviously hasn't helped, but even when he drifts into the middle and gets involved in the interplay, it just doesn't really seem to be as controlled as our other playmakers, and to put him in an even more pivotal position will mean that he'll have to become better at that. He'd probably be more of a Modric type player than an alonso/carrick who are more sitting type players. He'd need to bulk up and get better at tackling -- he's good at marking players though to be fair (which he often did under Di Matteo). I don't know too much about his long range passing either though -- maybe he'll be good there in 3 or so seasons but not yet. Can KDB play that role? Or perhaps the rumoured Van Ginkel (I know nothing about him). -- *I think a CB (like Mangala - very good, promising player) is needed for the defence but that's not as important IMO. Doesn't really need to have the ability to cover the full back positions because Ivanovic and Essien can both play there if we can't play Azpilicueta, and we've got Bertrand for LB. EDIT: And in my hastiness to write this I didn't notice the 'which midfielder would be best for Chelsea?' thread Oops...