Van Butsen

I'm hoping we can be those tough fixtures for the CL sides

Really hope Eidur get's off the pine at some stage... I'm a huge fan

Anything can happen opening day and I always prefer to play the best team possible (presuming we don't get fixtured with a big club) so i think West Ham fit that bill perfectly based off last seasons results.

It's not a fitness issue. It would use more energy running then stopping and repeating. I think it's down to the fact none of the players at Belgium are in sync with each other at the moment, none of them are running to the areas Hazard is looking to play a pass too hence the reason he stops.. there is nothing on.

Well it may be, but I just found it interesting that Conte devised a way to win and part of that was to show Naingollan didn't really have any initiative and couldn't work out what to do when the ball was bypassing him. They were allowed to play their style and Naingollan was left chasing a lot, he didn't really change his position to counter this either. That may well be down to the manager, but we've already discussed players should hold some of the responsibility out there.

My comments generally meant how they started each campaign, still I feel you downplayed their achievements a little. It's easier for me to read if listed like the below. 90 World cup - 3rd 94 World cup - 2nd 96 Euros - group stage (won the first game, exit on goal difference) 98 World cup - Quarter finals (undefeated at group stage) 2000 Euros - 2nd 2002 World cup - round of 16 (they did actually make it out of the groups, lost to that South Korean team) 2004 Euros - group stage (undefeated, exit on goal difference) 2006 World cup - 1st 2008 Euros - quarter finals (lost on penalties) 2010 World cup - Group stage (easily their poorest performance in this group) 2012 Euros - 2nd 2014 World cup - group stage (stage, won their first game) 12 tournaments in 26 years Winner x 1 Runner up x 3 Third place x 1 Knockout rounds x 3 Group stage x 4 Edit: Probably demonstrates how hot and cold they have been, but I wonder how many countries have a better record?

Conte exploited their formation and in doing so exploited Naingollan. Can't see why you would want to sign a player who you've just made look like an idiot for 90 minutes. He ran around no-mans-land for the majority of that game. Reminds me of when we played Atletico a few years back, we were closing down Koke specifically and so rapidly that he had very little influence on the game. Then in the off season there were reports of us wanting to sign him, after we'd just shown everyone his weakness.

We should just leave Man City and the like without a coach then? Honestly Italy do this almost every tournament, it's amazing people are surprised.

I like that, I don't want to sound like a pessimist but I really do think our and other academy teams would struggle against a team full of seasoned senior footballers, regardless of the league. Be interesting to see what happens. When is the draw?

Not true. You don't become a billionaire by being a pushover at the sales table. You bargain for every last cent.

Do you play off against one other person per each round of the tournament though? Example 1 For matchday 1 Van Butsen plays Coco Van Butsen has 30 points, Coco has 29 Therefor Van Butsen gets 3 points for a win and Coco gets 0 points for a loss? Van Butsen may get 7 points by the end of the group stage, Coco may get 0 and may not get out of the group stage (If coco fails to win in the other two matchdays) Or Example 2 Does every team just get a score each round and does that just add to your total score? Matchday 1 Van Butsen scores 30 Matchday 2 Van Butsen scores 25 (total 55) Winner is the one with the highest total at the completion of the tournament? Sorry if this is abundantly obvious for everyone else, you can tell I'm probably not going to win this

So how does it work, read the rules but can't work it out. Do we need 24 players in the league so as to get drawn in groups? Then do you play against the people in your group? Or do you just try and get the highest score each round across the whole league?

That's got 2 years of people complaining about it on the shed end written all over it

What on earth

Conte is probably still in awe after Oscar put his Juve team to the sword on his European debut. My bet is he'll try and bring that form out of him and on a consistent level

In

Same number of champions in the last 20 years as the premier league has. That's fine if you don't want to go into it, I must have missed those threads, but if you don't there is no point suggesting someones point isn't valid because you say so. Which is what this sounds like

They can accrue leave like the rest of us

Good player only good because of other good players hey?

Based on what?

Is your point here that it's not like for like so you couldn't compare? Of course, no league is like for like, but Germany and England would be the two most similar in Europe in my mind. They are above England in the coefficient as well if you read anything into that. Anyone banging in goals in the Bundesliga would be well equipped to do the same in the Premier League

I like to think they have elite sports medicine staff, strength and conditioning staff, physios and more to manage and monitor these players, but when you look at their schedule it does look jam packed. You wonder if they really are doing what's best for the players.

You wouldn't take a league title? You'd prefer a consistent run of being around the top? I don't think last season was a set back. It was a bad season sure, we under performed definitely, but I don't think we are set back. We haven't lost any senior players this year, something everyone cries about, we got games into young players (people will scream not enough) but it was still more and we've kept (so far) our prized talents. And in a year where none of our major rivals made us pay. We don't have European football next season but what of it? If we've lost all those players and you think it was a mistake then would we even contend for the European trophies if we were in them next season? I think we are in a great place and even better for already having said goodbye to the players mentioned.

Pretty happy that chapter is over

I think we sold all those players so we could have another shot at the title, which we won. We may be improving our opposition, but the point is they were weakening us. Everton have won nothing with Lukaku - Chelsea have won the title and a league cup since selling him Arsenal have won nothing with Cech - Chelsea have also won nothing (You may want to count the community shield, I'm not) Man United have won an FA cup with Mata - Chelsea have won the title and a league cup since selling him City won nothing with Lampard - Chelsea have won the title and a league cup since selling him Could be wrong on those ^ but fairly sure it's accurate, so they haven't really made us pay at all.