Eggy McMuffin

I think you'll find I beat you both to it with the third post in this thread. I don't see this connection between loyalty and being English. Which English players are you suggesting we buy? Can you name 2-3 English players who are good enough to be in our team and we would actually be able to sign at a reasonable price? Our squad currently has Terry, Lampard, Cole, Bertrand, Cahill and Moses (grew up here and has an English passport, but chose to play for Nigeria after England U21 level). We will be bringing Chalobah, Blackman and Loftus-Cheek through, along with no doubt many others in the coming years (Swift perhaps). That to me is a good amount of English talent. It could be better, but that requires the English talent existing and being available and it just isn't. The ones we could possibly sign are Rooney who is likely to be past it now, Walcott in a position we have completely covered, Parker who is terrible. The players just aren't available or good enough. The way we can do it successfully is to bring through youngsters from our youth teams, which I'd much rather see and it will improve the English national side in the process. It takes time, patience and to an extent stability, but we're getting there on all fronts. We've learnt from the mistakes we made with McEachran and are being a lot more successful with Chalobah so far. Bertrand is another success story, even if he'll never make it as a first choice, he's versatile and very solid when called upon. The foreign players you say aren't loyal enough, I can see being here if we remain successful, which is what our aim should be anyway. If we sign English players purely because they're English, I can see us losing that success because the majority just won't improve our team in any way.

I think a massively underrated part of United's success last season was Michael Carrick having the season of his life.

Yes, they've paid big money to sign the best young English talent, but they've also been in a position to attract those players. Massive fees for the only ones to make it into their first team. We have done similar in the past and we will continue to do so, though. They have Ferdinand, we have Terry, they have Rooney, we have Lampard, instead of Evans we have Bertrand, we have Cole instead of Carrick etc. We even have backup players like they do such as Cahill and Moses (admittedly he chose to play for Nigeria) as backup players, they bought Zaha, but we're bringing the other big English talent from the Championship last season through in Chalobah. I think you're overestimating how many English players they have and underestimating how many we have and are bringing through.

Having decent English players gives us a decent team and we're aiming for more than that. Ideally it'd be great if we had some home grown talent, but it's something that requires a level of quality that just hasn't been there. There are prospects like Chalobah coming through who still need a year on loan before they're ready. McEachran most likely won't make it. Loftus-Cheek needs time on loan as well. As Uno above says, English players are expensive, although using a Welsh player is an odd example. English players are generally not that good, either. Look at the national team for an example of that. The players need to be good enough for us to sign them and there aren't any around at the moment, so we have to produce our own, it takes time, but we're getting them closer.

Sorry to not respond to it before, but honestly I don't think many people outside of the Netherlands will have seen much of him so it's hard for anyone to really comment. How good do you think he can be? We already have backup defenders in Cahill and Ivan and what we really need is someone who can with a season or two take over from Terry full time to partner Luiz, do you feel he'd be capable of that?

From what I know (and I will admit that isn't as much as I would like it to be), he played on the left at Genk before moving to the centre when we signed him and loaned him back, but plays on the right more often for the Belgian national team and has played pretty much exclusively in the centre for Bremen. It's kind of hard to pick out a preference, really.

I wasn't so much comparing them as saying that most of the traits he were saying make Mikel a terrible defensive midfielder are shared by the best ever. I wasn't saying they are the same or anywhere close in terms of quality, I was using it to point out that most of his complaints didn't make sense or are just wrong when there are valid ones to be made.

I did not. I didn't feel it was worth my time based on the post.

But you're complaining about traits that Mikel has that aren't good in a defensive midfielder and the perfect defensive midfielder had them as well. That was as far as the comparison went, I'm not saying they're in the same league in terms of quality.

If that were entirely true, he would never play any forward passes, but he does. He just does so very sparingly. Cautiousness is generally a good thing in his position, which is why we shrug it off and his inability to shoot is rarely a problem seeing as he doesn't (and shouldn't) go far enough forward to use it. It isn't bizarre when you see that the player who had the position named after him, Makelele, had a lot of those traits. Yes, Mikel is a bit more cautious and he's often lazy which is an issue, but that doesn't make him as terrible as people on here make out. He's useful and he's the most easily upgradeable player in the team, but he's far from the terrible player you and others have made out.

If Pardew commits an act of violence in the workplace, surely that's instant dismissal and they won't have to pay off the 8 year contract? Also, there is the question on Kinnear, is he a pathological liar, or is he actually insane?

We sent him on loan there because we thought he'd get decent game time seeing as Pellegrini personally enquired about him. He got a few games, but mainly off the bench. Personally I think he might go back there next season and he'd certainly get more opportunities if Isco isn't there. There was nothing ever said about 1st option and what does being Home Grown compare to improving him as a footballer to the point where he can actually play for the first team.

Well... it doesn't look more and more likely. Just because the world renowned sportwitness.ning.com the most highly reputable of establishments is reporting something which is very unlikely doesn't make it more likely. It all started because Marca wanted to unsettle him and other places have since reported it. It's not going to happen as we actually have quotes form Mata himself saying how he's happy here and that the club is happy with him as well as quotes form Mourinho saying he's looking forward to working with players like Mata and Luiz. Please don't post rumours from such unreputable sources, it's disingenuous at best and more likely just mischievous.

From some Newcastle supporting mates of mine, so far he has said. He got John Hartson on a free when he was at Wimbledon and had no money - John Hartson was signed for a club record £7.5m He said he signed Tom Krul when he was 15 - Tim Krul signed for Newcastle when he was 18 and long before Kinnear had been involved with the club. He said he made a profit on Robbie Earle as well - That's the Robbie Earle who retired while at Wimbledon, the year after Kinnear left.

He's a very talented player, but I've seen a fair few Malaga games where he's looked quite quiet. That's entirely understandable for a creative player of his age and Oscar is similar, but I just feel that we've got the better deal with our attacking midfielders (not by an incredible amount, but at the top it's only ever going to be small advantages). Admittedly Man City's central midfield and strike force is significantly stronger than ours right now. Thank f**k we beat you to Hazard is all I say.

I don't watch much German football (other than the occasional Leverkusen/Bremen match to look at Schurrle and De Bruyne), but from the Champions' League and was under the impression that because I saw him deeper he was the more defensive of the two. Having just asked a few of my mates who do watch it, it seems I was very wrong. Apologies.

He's not a poor passer, he's just a very conservative passer and that is very useful in terms of keeping possession and keeping the game ticking over. A good example of this was the Man Utd FA Cup game where we came back. He came on as a substitute and we kept the ball much better and Man Utd couldn't get out of their half, because he'd mop it up and pass it to someone more adventurous to do something with. His positioning is good which he normally uses to get round his lack of mobility, but when we're being countered he can get played around because he is so slow. He tends to slow the game down which you don't want if you're playing a counter attacking game, but we now have the players who thrive in possession and can change the pace of the game with quick passing so it isn't so much of an issue as it used to be (unless we're planning on going back to a purely counter attacking side). Defensively he is good, not so much with great last ditch tackles, but with his interceptions, although he does tackle reasonably well and I don't see how you can say he's not strong. He generally holds off most players whilst keeping the ball from them. I understand why a lot of people don't like him, I completely see it. He's very conservative with the ball and in his positioning, which stylistically a lot of people don't like and he can be played around because of his pace which makes him look worse defensively than he is and sometimes he just isn't motivated. I completely understand why people don't like it, but his strengths in keeping possession, breaking up play and calming things down are often very, very useful in a side. We can do better than Mikel and of that there is no doubt, but that doesn't mean we should be getting rid of him. I've argued this for a while, now but Romeu looked good for AVB, but poor under Di Matteo and his brief spell under the interim one before he got injured and with such a serious injury doubts over him only grow. Essien looks a shadow of his former self and I can't see him getting back to his former glories and I just can't see either being good enough to step in. If we get rid of Mikel, we'd need to sign two defensive midfielders and signing two who are better than him is an expensive task.

He scored a good goal against Tottenham, but we lost that game so I can see why you'd choose not to remember. It haunts my days and my nights.

Shaw I would be happy with, but we have other priorities this season as in a holding midfielder, striker and finally a centre back if the funds are still available. Fellaini I just don't think he's worth the money we'd have to pay. We'd only use him as the defensive midfielder and in that position he has the same problems Mikel does, he's very slow, he slows the play down and if anything he's worse than Mikel positionally, which Mikel at least uses to make up for his lack of pace. He's a better player overall, but again he's not £20m-£30m better. I'd much rather we go for De Rossi who we've been linked to but it's unlikely (same applies to Khedira) or one of the Bender brothers maybe (although Gundogan would be a better fit for the position). Personally at centre back, I'm not entirely sure. There have been reports linking Mangala, but I haven't seen enough of him to be able to really comment. We were linked with one of the Valencia centre backs as well (I can't remember his name), he's good from what I've seen, although he's not going to be Terry good by any means. I dunno, now. I shall think.

Shawcross is better than Cahill, but he'd cost a lot more than the amount he'd improve the team. It isn't about relying on our defenders' passing ability, it's the fact that we have a threat from any area of the pitch. As soon as we have the ball we're a threat with two centre backs who can pass, even if we have the ball in our own penalty area. Organisation can be taught, and Luiz already has leadership, besides there are enough players out there who are better than Shawcross and/or with greater potential than him that makes signing him a bad idea. We need someone to replace Terry, not deputise for him and so we need to buy someone with that level of ability and that just isn't and never will be Ryan Shawcross.

It negates the advantage of having Luiz in defence. The thing is, Terry is an excellent and massively underrated passer of the ball, so the striker closing Luiz down means that Terry has more space to get the ball into good positions from the back. Shawcross cannot do that. He's also not much of an improvement on Ivan who is much better on the ball.

He started reading inverting the pyramid and got bored in the first chapter. If it fails, he'll keep reading and we'll end up with the WM formation.

They rotated a lot, Higuain played more of the bigger games in general because he's faster on the break and I think he played slightly more overall.

The thing about De Bruyne playing in central midfield is that when he's played there, he's played higher up the pitch than he'd be playing in a 4-2-3-1. He's been part of a midfield 3 giving him more license to go forward. From what I've seen he also spends more time running with the ball than I'd like in a 2 man midfield. He'd need to improve defensively to play there for us just like Oscar would if we were to play him there. The reason I prefer Oscar in that role is because I prefer possession based football and controlling the game and I feel that Oscar would give us that, whereas De Bruyne always seems too direct for my tastes. Now the obvious argument is to play a 4-3-3 and play counter attacking football. We may well do next season, but I personally prefer controlling games and we have the players to do just that. In a 4-2-3-1, we can afford to play a smaller striker as the attacking midfielder gets closer to the striker and we can have better interplay between them. In a 4-3-3 we'd more likely have to play Lukaku or Ba. I don't think Lukaku is quite there yet and I'm unsure of Ba. The only top class striker we could possibly sign who could play in that system is Cavani, who we've been priced out of, whereas there are far more high quality strikers who can play in a formation with another player close to them, players such as Jovetic, Higuain etc. I guess it's just down to my personal preference in what I think is more successful tactically and I think generally possession is more successful than counter attacking as with the counter attacking style, it's relying on your opposition to come out at you, which doesn't happen as often in this league as it does in others (excluding Italy). I feel that the 4-2-3-1 gives better possession higher up the pitch and in better positions as long as you have a good passer in the midfield duo. De Bruyne is a good passer, but I feel he goes long more than he needs to and that gives you a higher chance of losing the ball needlessly. We kind of have the players for both systems, and personally I'd hate to see Mata moved out wide no matter how free a role he's given, he'd still have to track the full back a lot. He'll do it and do it well enough, but I'd rather we didn't and that means that it's either De Bruyne or Oscar playing deeper and I feel De Bruyne is better out wide than Oscar is and Oscar is better defensively and at keeping the ball. I'm probably wrong, but this is the way I see it.

Your account only gets banned if you pirate games. right? Good reason not to pirate games on a console.