jordanl5182

If we really really had to sign somebody to replace Essien, I wouldn't mind seeing Mahamadou Diarra. He brought a lot of balance to the Madrid midfield in those La Liga winning years. He'd be cheap, able and we could probably shift him after a year or two.

Possibly the worst, laziest piece of journalism I've ever seen!! LOL Sky Sports

Borini and Phillip I've never seen. And either way, none of these players are Drogba or Anelka...none of them are in the same league up front. But i see what you mean, we have goal scorers in our team, I just hope we don't lose points because of the lack of strikers.

So true...

Looking at our squad, it only seems like we may lose Ballack and Belletti before the 2011 January window. Considering our central midfield is packed and the likes of Essien and Mikel are only getting better, we won't be severely weakened by the ban. The only real concern is our strike force - if Drogba and Anelka are out for a period of time we really are royally f**ked!!

Erm...both you and your manager were/are wrong! We're winning the league this year. We have a strong stable squad and a great manager, two things we were lacking last season. There's no way Man Utd without Ronaldo will finish ahead of us in the league...with ban or without.

It did happen to Roma, but Mexes is their Terry. I can't believe whats happening, but I think that we're in a better position to deal with this ban now than we were over the past 2 years. Either way it doesn't change what we already know...we're winning the League this year and there's nobody out there to stop us!!!

Erm...I think you're forgetting something...we have BRUNO!!

He still has a huge amount of promise, but if 2011 comes and goes without Mancienne getting a look in, it would be better for everyone if he was sold. Its nice to read the Wolves fans' comments and its very encouraging!

Considering we spent £20m on Carvalho, I can safely say that Lescott is noway near worth £24m...Riccy is twice the player Lescott is. Off the top of my head I can say Alex, Gallas, King, Hangeland, Upson and possibly Bassong and Toure are better players that Lescott. That's barring the 'elite' defenders. Either way, I think we're the last set of fans who should be outraged by this type of spending. We had our transfer market blunders and so will Man City. I just take solace from the fact that while we managed to sign the likes of Drogba, Anelka, Essien, Makelele and Ballack, they've been confined to signing Adebayor, Bellamy, Santa Cruz, De Jong and Tevez. Each of our players would walk onto any team, while their players have tried and failed at top clubs!

hahah the skysports homepage still gives the impression that liverpool are winning!

If he's not 1st team material in 2 seasons we should let him go. It's a shame he hasn't really flourished, but we could make a nice bit of money from him in a couple of years.

Superman???...or Britney Spears?

He probably just gave them his watch!

I know I'm a douchebag for quoting myself and saying I TOLD YOU SO!! but, well I don't care... I know it was just one performance, but most of what I said before applies. People were righting him off left, right and centre as a bad player who'd lost it, but Deco's attributes really do put him at the top of the class in terms of midfielders. I really hope Deco isn't dropped for a while, he's shown he's a confidence player and look what happened yesterday when he felt confident! If we continue to perform like this, we'll be labelled the next Barcelona (I've noticed there's already been a comparison somewhere in this thread) and I must say our midfield looked very sharp, which I guess is the key to 'beautiful play'. Again its very early, but the diamond is beginning to prove itself! We have yet to play badly and fail to create chances using it and while we haven't really been tested rigorously, its not a bad sign for things to come. I'm also happy about the 4-3-2-1 that was supposedly used at the beginning. I didn't really see much of the a difference to the diamond, so I can't comment although I'm sure it would have been a bit more effective if Anelka replaced Kalou. I'm also encouraged by the fact that Carlo put Lampard behind Deco and Kalou in that formation instead of persisting with having him play behind the striker. Carlo really seems to know what's going on - he sees what we see, a quality a lot of managers don't have.

I think the rotation will be a good thing. Almost every outfield player in our squad is very capable of scoring a goal or providing good assists. The problem Liverpool had was that the squad had no depth, so quality players were replaced by 2nd rate players. Our squad is arguably one of the deepest in the world so I doubt we'll be having that issue - with Matic in the squad, we now have 10+ players fighting for the 4 midfield spots! I don't think Carlo is foolish enough to rotate for the sake of rotating, so as long as players are in good form, they'll get game time. If he can get the balance between keeping the squad fresh and winning, we're going to have a great season!

Just downloading the highlights before I comment...cheers Abramovich! Already creaming my pants over what I've read here!!

haha joker!!

This made me laugh...a lot! Sky Sports

I don't think the 2 wins thing is valid, as it was very close to 2 draws. Man Utd was a draw and was it not for a huge bit of luck with Drogba's 'cross' it would have been a draw against Hull. I am becoming more confident in the diamond, but I can't stress enough how Carlo needs to have a backup plan and be prepared to use it.

Bloody, we always have to do things the hard way!! Just a few thoughts about the players today. Drogba was good, he was lucky but I'm not gonna criticise his play after he just won us the game with 2 goals. As someone said in another thread, it's going to be his year! 8 Anelka was fairly anonymous, but I guess we're used to that, at least until he comes out of nowhere and scores a bag of goals. 6 Lampard just needs to work out the 'tip' position. A lot of people are going on about Aguero like he's going to be our saviour every game. If Aguero is signed (doubt it) he'll be our second striker, no-one is going to replace Lamps on the tip even if he doesn't perform as well as he did last season. Just because Aguero has/can play there, doesn't mean he'll be good there in this league. 6 Essien was good, not the best performance of his career and actually it makes me wonder if he's actually better suited to the right of the diamond as opposed to the base. We know he's a great defensive midfielder and with teams like Hull, he'd be a better 'base' option than Mikel because of his ability to get forward. 6 Malouda did well, I haven't really formed an opinion of him in this position yet. With Zhirkov offering something quite different, I guess we'll just have to see how it goes. 6 Mikel was largely unnecessary today, I think starting Ballack would have been the better option today. These 'park the bus' teams would probably be easier to beat if we played with a 4 midfielders who can go forward! 5 Bosingwa's game was pretty faultless today, I can't say I paid too much attention him and Ashley, but they seemed solid. 7 Carvalho - I don't know why, but I just love it when he goes forward, you see number 6 running up behind Lamps and for a second you can't work out who it is, then you realise it's Riccy and a huge smile comes across your face...then you worry about the counter attack! I'm very glad he's not in Milan right now! 6 Terry - I don't think our defence is quite as impenetrable as it should be and while I don't blame Terry, I think as he raises his game, Riccy, Alex and Ivanovic will too. 6 Cole was solid as can be expected. 7 Cech was good, I was a bit worried when that Boateng? shot beat him and forced Essien to clear but apart from that, I don't think he did too badly, certainly not a great performance though. 6 Hull were always going to be hard to break down, but I don't think the diamond served us badly. I'm a bit worried though that we didn't really have a plan B today apart from Kalou. I'd have liked to have seen the formation become a bit more dynamic with Ballack and Lamps moving towards the centre with Malouda and Essien going wide (basically a 4-4-2) all pushing. But I guess the lessons are there to be learnt.

Never mentioned a diamond, but he'll be amazing wherever he plays, so if he has to play at the bottom then so be it.

It's just a thought: What if the reports of Roman flying out to Munich were true? What if we're giving them £40m + Bosingwa (effectively a £60m+ deal)? With Ivanovic starting ahead of the Boss in the Community Shield and the fact that we still have Paulo and Belletti (and Essien), could it be a possibility? Could it be that we're going to be playing a wide 4-4-2 with Ribery on the right and Zhirkov on the left, so the need for a speedy right back disappears!? I have it all sussed now!...

De Rossi...he's very similar to Essien, in fact there's nobody I can think of who's more similar. We have Ballack, Deco, Lampard, Essien and Mikel as our natural central midfielders - all fighting for 4 places (with Zhirkov, Malouda and Cole in the mix). That is a lot but honestly, almost having 2 Essiens in our midfield will have Utd and Liverpool cowering in the corner! I'd happily get rid of Mikel, Ballack, Deco or Malouda for De Rossi. Considering Ancelotti won the Champions League with 8 central midfielders in his squad, I don't think we should be too adverse to the prospect of having another one of two!!

Mancienne to Wolves? Great news!