alex54

I am planning to visit a few grounds next season with a friend. Thinking of: swansea, leicester, stoke, crystal palace, everton, liverpool. Is it realistic to get tickets there as non member? Been to the Bridge couple of times, but always was through connection or champions league group game.

That comment just doesn't make sense...

Illarramendi possibly heading to Real in 30 mio euro deal. Would have liked him with Chelsea. Anyway, this may mean Xabi Alonso is out. How long is he injured again?

Although I think De Sciglio is a very promising left back, I rather like we go for Luke Shaw this summer and then loan him back out to Southampton for next season. He will be much better than Bertrand and PVA after another PL campaign. Bertrand I fear is never going to be more than a back-up left back, a very good one though. We might pay a lower price doing it this way than waiting another year to let him shine and get him immediately.

Those are nice numbers yeah, so he did not play around Berbatov/Hernandez/Welbeck in those season? I thought Ferguson used him roaming around one of those strikers. I find he drops deep often to get the ball and then starts quick combinations or distribute through balls. He has got great vision in my opinion. And with our present players we could lack presence in front of goal because of that.

He has scored 11 or more goals in each of his past nine premier league seasons. Torres had 6 and 8 last two campaigns. His touch, movement, goal scoring is better than Torres, even last year. That being said he would cost us waay too much. Also, he isn't a pure lone striker, so don't see him being very useful in Jose's system. We just have to give Lukaku the striker spot in my opinion, we won't regret it.

European taxpayers who end up financing Real Madrid's deals, crazy

I don't agree that control over games is due to physical qualities. You can control games by keeping the ball in your team, so I think it is more of a technical issue. We couldn't keep the ball long enough in midfield because players like Ramires and Lampard who are physically strong, can't control tempo and are not capable of slowing down the pace when needed. They are not that comfortable ON the ball, so we lost possesion a lot of times and thus control.

It is a hard choice but I don't think the team will be in balance with Hazard, Mata, Oscar and KDB. A Ramires in the squad could also help cover the space for example Mata leaves behind him on the right wing in transition. Edit: But I agree we could use this formation when playing Norwich at Home for example.

I agree that his positioning must be improved, Mourinho should help him with that. If his positioning awareness improves, so that he chooses his moments more and is less tired, this may indeed improve his concentration when passing the ball.

In my opinion we do need a deep lying playmaker à la Carrick etc who sits deep and protects back four, and doesn't make forward runs like Lampard. Lampard's strength has always been these ever repeating runs. I share your opinion that KDB and Oscar can play deeper, but they will always have these forward runs in their 'game' aswell. Therefore, again in my humblest of opinions, I think these players (Lampard, Oscar, KDB) are best suited in a 4-3-3. Not in a 4-2-3-1 where these runs prove to be costly, and which restrict these players' strongpoints With a workhorse like Ramires next to them, who will do the dirty work. And a deep lying playmaker behind them who stays deep all the time and controls the tempo of the game. You may say that these kind of players lack defensive qualities for this position in midfield, but I think that if you put a workhorse in midfield (see Vidal for Pirlo) the balance can be good. We good retain midfield control. So my midfield would look like this: ------Lampard/Oscar/KDB------------------------------ --------------------------------------------Ramires-------- -------------------Deep lying playmaker----------------

Why are they FM/FIFA picks? Because they are good players? Is De Rossi a FM pick? Because he is extremely good in that game. I didn't include De Rossi because I find, so personally, that his playing tempo doesn't suit the Premier League. But he could adapt to it of course.

A list with players I think could strengthen our midfield (now and in future): Illamerrendi Verratti Andrea Poli Strootman Arteta Milan Badelj Benat Ander Herrara (more AM) Arturo Vidal Fernando (Porto and Gremio!) Sandro Neustadter Gundogan Lucas Leiva Ruben Pardo Miguel Veloso Olivier Torres Pogba Borja Valero (more AM) Koke Capoue Maxime Gonalons Luis Gustavo I also wan't to add our our own prospects Chalobah and Ruben Loftus-Cheek, I think they'll become brilliant in a few years.

Maybe they will employ something of a 4-4-1-1 with Aguero behind the top striker. That indeed could be lethal.

I know we have been linked to De Rossi, I just wanted to state my opinion on what our priorities should be.