Slojo

Agree, I just think he was way out of his depth coming here and went into hiding a lot of games. Conte should never have played him that many times, it was quite clear Baka was not growing with confidence being played all the time. I hope for his sake he can get his career back on track at Madrid.

This guy lmao

I can't say I've ever seen that mate, Pogba was always known for his flair and skillset, he has been compared to Zidane many times. Kante is also massively praised as a footballer when I think they are his overrated traits (I know I know it should be a crime for me to say that on here). I know there has been some things regarding this, like a City coach has just recently got into trouble for saying big black and quick about his youth players. But I wouldn't say it's a wide ongoing epidemic or something that's happening a lot. I think you're very wrong on Pogba, I mean Pogba is a tall dude and he's strong, so they are obviously good physical aspects he has but I haven't heard anyone make the point that they are his only aspects. It's mental aspects that seem to effect Pogba's game, discipline and work rate, those are the points that get spoken about him a lot as a footballer.

Wash your bloody mouth out coco

Remember when he got fined by the F.A. before the judge had even given a verdict on his case and even then he wasn't guilty they didn't find enough evidence of him being racist. But the F.A. thought they'll take it into their own hands and fine him anyway. I'm an awful lip reader by the way but I didn't see anything regarding "black" that came out of Terry's mouth, I only saw "C*nt". But I'm awful at lip reading, I would be a hopeless deaf person. Either way the people saying it's out of racism are putting too much emphasis on skin colour themselves, probably more so than the alleged racist journalists out there that are known for starting witch hunts against rich sport athletes.

What obsession is that exactly? Besides Sterling who else can you name who's getting so much abuse? There are a lot of black players in the England squad and Sterling is the only one getting targeted a lot. It's hardly an epidemic.

I just put this in the other thread but I can tell you right now this is nonsense, every time one of their players gets injured he's back next week, PED Guardiola always has some tricks up his sleeve.

Rooney & Terry used to get it really hard from the media, Harry Kane also has a lot of trivial sh*t written about him just not as much as Sterling, both of Englands big players. Is it racism? I don't know, I don't like saying something is racist without being sure because it's a serious accusation.

Exactly, no excuses why we shouldn't win this one, they look a lot worse than we do.

He'll be back next week once Pep sends him to that magical Spanish Doctor he has in Barcelona.

Exactly this. And I'm against you on the KDB argument I always rated him but that doesn't make me any more right about the subject. It was all promise and hope, KDB did not display consistently great performances but we never really given him the chance, both can be true. It doesn't make you more right or me more right, and I don't know anyone who thought KDB would be this good. I knew about KDB during his Genk days and I didn't he would develop like this, I always thought he had too many big physical limitations to be a consistent World Class player. It's all a guessing game at the end of the day, I just wish some people would acknowledge that so the next time they get a prediction right they don't go off and think they're some footballing wizard.

Yep he's used those stats before at his Juventus/Madrid career to suit his narrative. Morata has so many caps for Juve but not that many minutes, when you look at his minutes for Madrid & Juve they're actually good. Demba Ba had a f**k load of caps for Chelsea but Jose kept bringing him on the 90th minute with 2 minutes to play, Demba Ba's goals to minutes ratio was actually very good here, but his goals to game not so much, very misleading.

Obviously the same applies to you. I just think you're far too full off kneejerk reactions and you never change your opinion on something once you make up your mind. You've disliked Morata from day one and that's fine by the way, I disliked Bakayoko from day one (as a player of course) and I turned out to be right about not signing him, I wish I wasn't. I think a lot of people on here didn't want Bakayoko anyway after watching his Champions League performances for Monaco. Morata was a player I wanted when he was at Juventus and I particularly wanted him over Lukaku, sadly it looks like it's not working and I was wrong, but it is what it is. He still had a good start even if you disagree with that, I'll make my mind up on this season if he comes good or not, we've only played one game so far and he wasn't good or bad in it. But I think people jumping at his throat over this performance was just unusual, our problems didn't really lie to Morata, he barely got the service and I thought he was good whenever he came into contact with the ball even though I wish he could have done more with it. Saying "I can't accept it" ie your criticism is an absolute myth, I definitely can because I've criticised him myself and even joked about his bottling during the summer because his finishing was that bad. You're not the Oracle of truth, you don't see something everyone else doesn't, you're just highly negative on most things and we go through a lot of managers, you were probably calling for Mourinho to be sacked the second he lost two games in a row, we go through managers all the time and there's no saying Conte couldn't have picked up and had a better season this season (unlikely but possible). So saying "I was right about this manager getting sacked" is not really an accomplishment is it, and there's no saying that giving those managers another year would have been bad for us, you don't know that get off your high horse. If you're right about Morata then you're right about him, I still think you're a highly negative person when it comes to a player you've already made your mind up on, hence why you constantly scapegoat him in a game where it was difficult for anyone to praise or criticise him. But anyway this is getting tiresome, like I said you do you, you've made your mind up on it I'm not going to keep going over this.

Guilty

Once this guy has an agenda that's it, you can't change his opinion on it it's how he rolls. If RLC is playing in the Championship in a few years he won't change his mind on his ability or potential. Whereas I, admittedly a fan of Morata have defended him and criticised him, I'm giving a fair assessment of him, not sh*tting on him constantly because I dislike the guy. I've also given Bakayoko a good assessment whenever he played well he just rarely did play well. If I'm wrong I'm wrong, I'll admit it, if Morata has another sh*t season and @coco was right all along then so be it, at the end of the day we are both disappointed because ultimately we want what's best for the club. As for RIP Mourinho I'm not that sure, I think being right is more important. I can completely see what Yorkley is talking about now.

Ah right gotcha, I figured that's what you were trying to say but I still have an issue with it. The reason being as to why we couldn't just have a buy-out clause to begin with, what's the trouble with that if Madrid are going to sell him to us anyway? Because I'm guessing a gentleman's agreement is having to rely on their word, that's nothing solid and I think that's poor business by the club if so.

But he's still contracted to them and from what we know we have no buy-out clause on this contract. I just find it very odd, Kovacic seems very confident he isn't playing for Madrid anymore, is there something we don't know here? Is he really our player? I hope so. I might have misunderstood you here so bear with me, but it seems more the case of Madrid wanting Courtois than us wanting Kovacic. From the sources that I read from twitter from they were claiming Madrid did not want to sell the player or even loan him out at that, so we got him on loan as well as a fee for Courtois, however, no sources are indicating that there is a buy-out clause, quite the opposite sadly. But Kovacic isn't acting like he's here for one season, that was a very odd Instagram post and something I didn't expect to see. By the looks of it he looks like he's going to stay here, or at least never go back to Madrid.

I've been saying this for years atomis, City are getting away with really dodgy business, them and PSG but PSG could definitely sell out being the major side in the capital. As for City it's not the case, Pep can go out and spend 300 million a season on players without even having to sell a player, we've seen them do it before, FFP applies very little to them and it's a huge unfair advantage. Barca & Madrid are huge hypocrites but they had a point about investigating City and PSG, there is something going on there. I first heard about this self-sponsorship in 2012 with Etihad, the deal was absolutely criminal.

My thoughts exactly. I remember how good Josh McEachran looked in 2009-2011 and honestly, he was one of the best youth players I've ever seen at that age. And now you look at him I think he's playing in the Championship. For me he's a bit too static, he doesn't really do enough with the ball, nothing really comes out of his play, and I don't see great work rate on top of his skill and ball retention. But I'm still for giving him more game time to see what he can conjure up.

I'm surprised more people haven't been interested in this current case. First, when I heard it was a loan with no buyback I found it off-putting, yes Kovacic is a great talent but it felt like we were just developing a player for another team while sitting out RLC and Barkley. Madrid didn't want to loan him out so that's very interesting (or so I hear it's all speculation really)... So what to make of that Insta post, it looks like he's never going back to Madrid, that was a very strange and unusual post. But he also treat coming to this club as a loan and not a permanent move here, as maybe you should as a loanee even if there is a buy-out clause. Except... From what we hear there isn't a buy-out clause. What's true and what isn't? I think Madrid are very stupid if they plan to sell Kovacic, I really hope they are, because if Kovacic is here to stay I am one very happy man, we could potentially have the best midfield in England.

Italian league might suit him more and if Milan does end up buying him for that fee then we've definitely recouped that fee for a lot more than I originally thought we would. He was never going to get a game here with the midfield options we've got at the moment.

He's ridiculously good.

No they aren't... Look at their goal records, Morata almost has the same league goals as Torres in one season. You're far too reactionary if you think they're on the same level, they just aren't at the moment. "He scored some headers" Is that all he did? If that's what you think is all he did then I'm not going to bother wasting my time arguing my point. Apply your own logic to yourself, you saying Morata is just as bad as Torres & Bakayoko doesn't magically make it true either. It's fair to give Morata another season, just like it's fair to write Bakayoko off given how bad he was in his first season here and how much out of his depth he looked in a Chelsea shirt. If you think otherwise you do you.

They're not comparable though, not at all. Bakayoko has been much worse it's not even debatable. This is almost as bad as the Torres comparisons now. I was literally talking about Bakayoko...

He wasn't that good though, United match he was extremely sloppy, whereas Morata was excellent in that United match. I loved his energy in that match but if we didn't win that game he would have been a scapegoat 100% for all the chances he was missing and giving the ball away in the final 3rd. Atletico was probably his best game I've seen from him, Spurs I disagree entirely, we were completely overrun in that game and I still don't know how we managed to win that match. Like I said before, you tried to say this a few pages back and people disagreed with you, Morata was good when he first came, we got a good player but he's been off since January, so a good 8 months he's been off now including the summer break. If I'm a hypocrite over this then what does that make everyone else? Most people want Morata to stay, and most people want Bakayoko to leave. They aren't comparable in this situation.