bjd

You've watched him regularly I assume ?

Adequate signing. Better than I thought we'd end up with at left back if I'm honest. Won't set the world on fire but will do a job and will mean we can have players in correct positions back there for the first time in what seems like ages. Not a world class signing but our team will be stronger and tighter with him there. Don't want to be disrespectful to Ivanovic but let's be honest his time is up and he causes the team so many issues, hopefully this will make us much more solid. Also he's hardly a Sunderlnd reject - he was on loan and from what I recall was pretty good there too.

We don't have a choice. It's a two year loan.

Nope. We would try and get as much money as we could for him too. Like we would with any player. Like any club does with any of their players. It's the same anywhere, no good moaning about another club not selling us their best players if we are trying to get them at less than market rate.

Not really, they just dont want to sell us their best players. Like Everton dont. Like we dont. We dont have a divine right to pick and choose who we want from other clubs and expect these clubs to roll over for us.

Is there anything substanial to this other than some guesswork by the Mirror (which doesn't count!)

Maybe a little harsh G4. If he hadn't had that yellow I'd agree he was just decent. But to play as he he did for 93 mins on a yellow, on his debut, was outstanding I thought. Harsh yellow too in my book.Pretty confident he is going to be a marvellous player for us.

Thought he was our weak link all night too. The amount of times he loses possession is criminal.

I'd agree there are lots of potential names for MOM. But not this one - I thought he was our weak link by a distance. The amount of time he gives the ball away is outrageous. A shadow of the player of 2 years ago.

Only fair to mention that Brana had a good game. He gets a lot of stick, some deserved and some way over the top but he is still a decent defender (sometimes!). Credit to him, he played well tonight. MOM was Hazard for me. First half he was on a different level. Did fade though.

Good God.

Yeah he cost them £42m, he certainly won't be sold on the cheap

I'd have loved to have signed him. Our chance was last year but we pissed around. We will end up paying for the same for the Napoli guy.

History suggests otherwise but i do hope we have a Plan B.

ah ok fair enough. but im stil l am not convinced this was anything other than a total coincdence, im amazed so many are buying into it. I also cant accept the club are prioritising a player in a postion we simply do not need to strengthen over an area of the team that is in deseprate need of an overhaul. but then again...

Apparantley Leciester always stay in that hotel.

All just very obviously coincidental.

Can he play centre back

Are you new? If so, please understand that there is no place for sensible balanced posts on a match thread.Many thanks.

Not serious Koeman says.

Great player but so many other priorities in the squad need sorting first

It's true. There hasn't been anything official or any quotes from either side. Nothing has been made public , in all likelyhood because there is absolutely nothing to it.

The problem with the Stones deal was the way Chelsea approached it. A nonsense plan that was devised of small increment bids. Then it all went horrbily public and they stuck to their guns and wouldnt sell to us. Cant blame them to be fair, it was us who handled the whole thing stupidly. Id love to have had the player, Man City will get a (raw) gem and i dont care what they end up paying for him.

Ok just seen what the Everton guy wrote about what the Liverpool based journalist said. Hopefully that's the case.

Sort of but by now there is normally a well connected journalist who has come out with some 'inside' info. Just seems to be a lot of guessing at feeding off each other's stories. I think this may all be bullsh*t, and its stemming from a guess rumor that has spun out of control.