talkofthetownsend

some people simply cannot take being wrong. you can't back up your opinion so you are running away. good. i am delighted that i will not have to deal with any of your incredibly retarded responses to my posts again. responses of the caliber of "bellend" and "what an arsehole you are". pissy little twat.

yes...a pillock because i think that the amount of trophies a player has isn't definitive proof of quality and used examples such as phil neville, wes brown and solomon kalou...players who are at best "good, but limited". a pillock because i do not believe that paulo ferreira (a player who by his second season with us wasn't even starting half our matches and by his third season was clearly a back-up player struggling to get games in front of out of position defensive midfielders) was "excellent for us over a long period". a pillock because i believe that paulo ferreira was a player who, at best, was consistent yet unexceptional (a regular 7/10 player at his peak who was never going to win a man of the match award but could be relied upon not to drop below a certain level, a sentiment shared by our then and current manager). yes. i can see your problem. although perhaps you could at least attempt to point out why these points are so unreasonable that you have to resort to abuse rather than pointing out why you disagree...and that doesn't just go for you. alternatively you could just go "absolute bollocks" or call me an "arsehole". that makes you clever.

nope. you just can't seem to cope with different opinions and make it into a childish mud slinging match. to be clear...my point was that having lots of trophies isn't necessarily a proof of quality. this isn't tennis. players who are not the very best at what they do win things too. it is funny how arguments i make, with actual points and stuff, get insulted by you and other knobheads like dkw, who offer literally no points of their own other than insults and cursing...but i am apparently the "troll" in that situation. i couldn't care less about grammar or whatever, i don't even use caps, but c'mon...if you want to insult the quality of my writing...don't make schoolboy errors in yours. hey...it's the guy who likes every single post where someone disagrees with me or insults me...putting his head above the parapet for a change. hi yorkley! doing a post to tell me you've got me on ignore now, huh? good for you man. that is classic.

again, you start the abuse.

"to" not "too". kinda helps if you don't make little f*ck-ups like that when you are criticising someones writing.

does this description do him a disservice? "a player who will never be man of the match but will always score 7/10 for his individual display."? "solid, but unexceptional". someone who will never be man of the match but will always be 7/10, say. as for finding a replacement...he was still here. we needed to replace him, years and years before he left. what does that say? i would take both our right-backs now over him, even at his best tbh.

"a player who will never be man of the match but will always score 7/10 for his individual display."?

"consistently solid, but unexceptional"? "mr. 7 out of 10"? "good, but limited"?

so, you could maybe say "good, but limited"? alrighty-then.

i disagree on the first bit. he was consistently solid but unexceptional. at his best he was "mr. 7 out of 10". as for why we held on to him for so long...what is this reason you speak of?

kalou can match that, apart from the europa league (a final mikel sat on the bench for the entirety of). and kalou was absolutely sh*t, never mind limited. phil neville has 6 premier league trophies, 3 fa cups and a champions league. he was sh*t too. wes brown has 5 league titles, 2 fa cups, 4 league cups and 2 champions leagues. also sh*t. paulo ferreira was the definition of a "good, but limited player" (what sydney blue actually said...something which i take to mean being solid but unexceptional, doing a job without being outstanding; and you have taken to mean "dur dur dur someone sed a bad things about miceal...mbh angrys...stats i must has stats") : 2 champions leagues, 2 uefa cups/europa leagues, 3 premier league titles, 4 fa cups, 2 league cups. that pisses on mikel. so there.

thing is; you're probably right. most of the articles he has "written" are likely him in the pub, pissed off his gourd on the phone to some poor journo who has to put it all together into a coherent piece of writing suitable for printing...the "why i want bayern to beat chelsea piece" reeks of pissed up ranting. tbf he probably thought the journalist would tone it down, which is likely what normally happens, but this time the hack saw pound signs. what gets me about ex-liverpool pundits is that they act like fans. it's ok for fans to be biased, nasty and blinkered...we're fans. pundits are supposed to have a little but of professionalism, but not when it comes to liverpool. if you invented a comedy pro-liverpool troll on twitter or whatever, you would basically just be saying the exact same thing as most pro-liverpool pundits. ffs the club themselves are the same...look at the way they acted during the suarez racism thing, calling for evra to be banned in an official statement...that's the way fans think, not clubs. can you imagine us calling for anton ferdinand to be banned along with jt in an official statement from the club? can you bollocks. one of their directors threatened the creator of a spoof account on twitter like he was one of the sopranos. can you imagine that at any other club? there is a really weird culture around that club. it's like it's run by spoiled, vindictive, entitled 8 year olds and everyone involved has to have the mental age of a 8 year old to fit in.

they play different in roles, and are different players; but i can kinda see where he is coming from. they both provide energy in the midfield, are very mobile and very tenacious. they both do/did the dirty work for the side. he's right to say they both make us tick as well. take either out of their respective teams and they aren't/weren't as good. kinda hard to get over how different their roles are though. that's what makes it a left-field comparison.

so who does jose think we need mikel to beat? he's started him only 10 times in the 28 games we have had this season (2 of those are league cup ties where we put out reserve teams) and he has lasted the full 90 only 7 times. that's 5 times he has played the full 90 in meaningful games: basel, west ham, schalke, fulham and everton. the rest of his starts are steaua, stoke and spurs as well as the two league cup games. it is clear that jose is not keeping him in reserve, ready to face the fearsome opposition that some claim he excels against. he's just not picking him. he's a back-up player in our weakest area. if he perfectly executed the manager's gameplan every time he stepped out in the pitch, maybe the manager would pick him more regularly? especially as our other midfielders haven't exactly set the world alight (although it seems that is more than enough to stay in front of mikel in the pecking order) and the other options are not exactly numerous in number either.

actually, if your point was that everything mikel gets criticised for is merely what the manager tells him to do, then that is a fair response. however, if you would like a different response: how come all of our managers give mikel this "job", and they don't give it to anyone else who is ever in our team, or anyone else who has ever been in any of their teams? i don't recall any player in carlo's milan side whose sole job was to stand still in the midfield and knock the ball to whichever player was nearest to him over and over again. or jose's real. or *insert massive list of all our managers previous and subsequent teams here*. so either they are giving mikel different instructions to every other player they have ever managed, or you are full of sh*t and a massive twat (fyi it's option two, you twat).

jose: ok obi, now remember, if we are 1-0 up in the 87th minute and we need to defend that lead, what i want you to do is completely ignore the midfielder just a yard away from you and man-mark the referee instead...got it? mikel: but boss... jose: no buts obi...just do it.

while i would have given him a shot to be first choice (i thought he was very good in pre-season and i really don't rate the other options), if a 20 year old isn't prepared to fight for a place in the first team at one of europe's biggest clubs then that says more about him than the club. the flip-side of that is that he probably didn't want another season like his time here under avb, where he wasn't given any sort of chance despite our other strikers misfiring. he's had a season here where he wasn't given a fair shake and that likely coloured his viewpoint (similar to how carlo's treatment of sturridge made him less likely to fight for his place later on and effectively cost us the player). i do think jose would have given him a chance though, and it's a shame lukaku didn't agree, if he had been more realistic about what was required imo that would have benefited both him and us (we will buy a striker in the next close season and lukaku, however he has done at everton, still won't have proved he can do it here, so we may end up back at square one).

not very likely though. it's more likely that he didn't watch an awful lot of chelsea last season and absolutely none of west brom and had no real reason to give lukaku the starting spot.

that is quite the climb-down. anyway, he may have started the season behind torres in the pecking order (jose was always going to give torres the first shot tbh, every new manager needs time to see what works and goes with the known quantities first) but if he'd have had faith in his abilities he'd be first choice by now. if he expected to be handed the keys to the place straight off the bat by a new manager after a single good season at west brom he is deluded (although i personally would have made him first choice straight away, that isn't how it works in the real world).

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/nov/29/jose-mourinho-romelu-lukaku-chelsea-everton "The Belgium international had made a verbal transfer request just before the September deadline to force a move away from Stamford Bridge...His transfer request was dismissed with Mourinho keen for the player to stay and fight for a place in the side. After further discussions with Lukaku, the club and manager relented and agreed to allow him to go on another season-long loan." "Lukaku had earlier admitted to the BBC that he had instigated the move away from Stamford Bridge: "It wasn't the fact that I wasn't wanted. I think I was wanted but I had to make a decision for myself and analyse what was the best thing for me.""

with lukaku, i think it is safe to say that given what our other striking options have done, he would have been first choice for us by now. many believed that would be the case when he went on loan, but crucially, he didn't. he asked to leave. he likely saw benteke banging them in for fun at the start of the season, himself getting a few minutes here and there (you can call it being a supersub or being eased in gradually or whatever) and he believed that his place for belgium was under threat. if he had known what was going to happen (benteke going cold, our other strikers under-performing) and believed in his own ability to break into the side, then i really don't think we would be having this discussion. he'd still be here, he's be first choice and we'd be shilling our other strikers around europe in the hope some fool would bite.

tbf the only question mark there is ramires. lamps now vs lamps then is a no-brainer...as is mikel vs maka. but ramires i would take over tiago easily, and although i think prime essien was a better player i don't think there is much in it or it would have weakened that midfield to put ramires in there instead of him.

that is true enough.

i think mourinho just thought lampard and mikel were good enough. imo he was wrong and he's finding that out now. tbh i would have let lamps go in the summer...but a new manager would never have done that. i don't think he had much to do with us buying up loads of attacking mids though.

yeah. mata's competition is oscar (who many think has been our player of the season) as well as hazard, schurrle & willian...all of whom have had better seasons so far than mata...& also kdb. lamps' competition is mikel...& in the last 2 games they've both been in the team. you're just being a tit. go away.