Samdwich

Mikel fouled Walters. Mikel dived in the box. Mikel called a police officer a pleb.

Fantastic card, I'm sure Didier will appreciate it and have it on his mantlepiece, along with his medals!

add to that: skills, passing, skills, finishing, passing, skillful, pace, finishing, skillz.

Yeah agreed that we need more width, though I'm not sure the standard "beat a player by the touchline and put it in" is the approach to take. Barcelona's width is generally provided by players making runs by one of the side-lines of the box; ie. they're still going around the defence but they can more accurately cut the ball back into the box rather than trying to make their small players beat CBs in the air. I think this is caused by overlaps and midfielders making vertical runs, what we need.

Yeah not sure what Luiz can do in that situation, he knows he messed up and doesn't want to escalate. Good on JT getting in the way, and staying calm when Walters kicked off at him for being in the way.

Honestly... I haven't even bothered to read the post fully as, even 1/4 way down I can see you citing isolated incidents. To describe a player as being able to, for example, play great passes, he must play them consistently rather than having one great one against that one team that we can all remember. Your post just seems riddled with examples from the Barca game. Mikel played an excellent raking pass to Hazard against Juve; does that mean he is a visionary who plays eye of the needle passes etc etc.? I have no desire to go through your list and slag off one of my favourite players, but he's certainly no visionary and doesn't have a deft touch (how many times have we seen him have a dreadful first touch and lose the ball on the wing?). If he were a good finisher, he would have a goal to his name by now this season, too. As for repeating yourself: "fit, fast, can finish, tracks back, tackles, holds the ball up, deft touch, eye-of-the-needle passes, skillz, stamina, unselfish, a visionary, skillful, hard-working, top dribbling ability, acceleration, agility, strength..." How do you differentiate between Fit and Stamina in football terms? Fast and Acceleration - strictly different, but when you describe a person as fast it generally implies they have good acceleration, so another redundant one. Hardworking implies tracking back, so yeah again just another redundant word. Skillz, Skillful - What do you even mean by Skillz and skillful? Tricks? You think the tricks Ramires pulls out once in a blue moon warrant him being called skillful? My little brother can do stepovers, what if Ivanovic pulls off a couple in one game, skillful yeah?

What are those in your hands? Straws?

Lukaku scored today. As such, people have obviously been asking why we sent him out instead of keeping him to replace Torres. There was a chance he got where he was through but took a bad first touch and fluffed the chance, and I thought to myself "oh jesus christ", not because I thought he'd done badly (mistakes happen etc.) but because I'm just so used to our striker getting absolutely murdered on here when they make a mistake.

Stop being arseholes, he made a valid point. It was a long list of adjectives heaping praise on him, both repeating itself and including untrue stuff - we can all agree that Ramires is an incredible player, but eye of the needle passes? really? Lets hope so. He's already a fantastic player, and I was wondering about him vs Toure earlier (because some people are billing tomorrow as Diaby vs Toure), and the only real thing Toure has on Ramires atm is passing - sure, Toure is super strong, but Ramires compensates with his ridiculous pace and this makes him just as good as a ball-winner and carrier, imo.

just seen it on MOTD - the ball was moved quickly, and our front 4 is very exciting. Mata looked great and refreshed, and has shown why he is our number 10 - still better than Oscar and Hazard for me. Excellent flick for the goal. Saw the Torres chance too. He should have done better, but the run is fantastic, the pass is even better, and the control is excellent too. Shame he fluffed it, but it's encouraging that they took a look at each other and knew exactly what the other would do. Saw a little of that with Torres-Hazard against Newcastle and, whatever you think about Torres, such an understanding between our forward and his supporting cast is encouraging.

Michael Cox â€@Zonal_Marking Terry has laid into the rest of the defence for dropping too deep, which is a fair point - it favoured Crouch (then Jones) True leader.

He tweeted saying that Marcelo is the best LB in the world the other day! I couldn't watch the game, but it sounds like we lacked width. That's why I've always been in favour of playing Oscar deep with Mata, Hazard and one of Marin or Moses, who can provide some sort of width for us. Alternatively, we need fullbacks who bomb forward. Cole is good at it (though could possibly be encouraged to get forward and overlap a little more as we know he can) but Ivan just isn't and Azpilicueta needs to be at RB when we've got 3 AMs who like coming inside to provide us width. I see a lot of negativity for Torres here, and I've read that he missed a sitter, but have also read that he created 3 clear cut chances, more than Hazard and Oscar (2), second only to Mata (5), so it doesn't sound like he could have been that bad.

Getting the ball back faster is presumably due to Ramires being central? Also are we playing a high line? That would contribute to it. How's our distribution from defence? Is Oscar dropping deep to get it or are Ramires/Mikel linking defence to attack quickly?

Thank you RDM <3 Gutted I can't see it, on the way to the airport with Dad (I need to take the car back...). Is Ramires playing in the middle or wide? Also maybe the luiz-Cahill partnership means we're playing a high line? Crouch and Owen are hardly quick! Anyone able to tell?

I think his finishing is a bit hit and miss, but is certainly improving. Particularly towards the back end of last season with the chips against Spuds and Barca. His passing isn't great though

I lost faith in him when I saw the Juve line-up, yet got slated in that thread for getting on his back. Mata looked fresh when coming on against Juve, imo. Gonna miss the game as I've gotta drive my dad to the airport :(

Hadn't seen this before: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwwCtVyQ8V0&feature=related Another goal he "didn't mean"

http://www.theshedend.com/topic/20900-john-obi-mikel-appreciation-thread/page__st__280#entry533595 Just because he's slow and has a relaxed demeanour doesn't mean he "can't be bothered". He was sweating and out of breath when interviewed 10 mins after the game. Stupid posts like this piss me off.

My prediction: 34 year old Frank Lampard is going to start and play 90 minutes for the 5th time in 2 weeks, and will let us down, again.

Spot on. Lampard is the weak link in our current line-up, and causes many problems for us in terms of keeping control of games and playing the ball out of defence, imo. I’m not sure that playing Ramires next to Mikel would solve it, as I doubt Rami can play the ball out of defence effectively either. McEachran is more suited to the deep role and doesn’t look to get forward as much as Oscar so I feel he could play there long-term, but Oscar might have to until he does. Ramires-McEachran Hazard-Oscar-Mata ----Sturridge/Lukaku Frightening.

Before the Juve game, RDM spoke about the tempo of the game not being as high as a PL match. A game against Stoke is obviously going to be played at a much higher tempo with more physicality than your average brazillian league game. The CL game will be low tempo too as it’s a European tie, and I think that (with all due respect to FCNordsjaelland) it’ll be easier for Oscar to impose himself than a PL game. Arsenal aren’t exactly the most physical team and their tempo is generally quite slow (though they played at frighteningly quick tempo against the dippers on the break) so it might be ok to play Oscar. I’m actually quite worried about playing Arsenal because their midfield has been incredible so far this season, Podolski’s been very good and even Gervinho has looked good. I really hope we have Ramires in the middle otherwise we’ll just get overrun in midfield. I think Oscar drops deeper than a classic number 10 generally does, and as such he’d be suited to playing a slightly deeper role, linking up with Mata and Hazard ahead of him. Oscar has come out and said that he’s being prepared to play where Lamps does, and apparently Eddie Newton has too. I’m just unsure as to composition of our midfield, to be honest. Oscar-Mikel with Mata ahead leaves Ramires out, Oscar-Ramires may not be solid enough (in order to make it solid we’d have to curtail Oscar), and having Oscar playing just ahead of Ramires-Mikel may make it difficult for us to get the ball out of defence unless Oscar drops really deep, which is a little counter intuitive?

Wow, what a dreadful post. 1. Are you seriously trying that hard to discredit his goal vs Newcastle? It was an excellent bit of movement (watch him leave the defender for dead when he changes the direction of his run) and a great finish, no matter what part of the foot he uses. Trying to reduce it to “hit and hope†from someone with Torres’ reputation for finishing is ridiculous. 2. 50 million pound striker replaced by barca bench warmer. Lol. The same bench-warmer who was considered a bargain at £35m, would walk into any other starting XI in the world, is better than any player at our club and would certainly be within the top 3 players in the PL if he moved here? 3. City were after Sturridge. Lol. Not denying that Sturridge is a great player, with huge potential, who imo will surpass Torres within the next 2 years. However, we paid £50m for Torres, and we have to stick with him. He looks to be regaining form, and on top form he’s better than Sturridge. You’re just clutching at straws in your attempt to discredit him.

I'd love to see Oscar-Mikel in the middle but can't see RDM playing him, his pre-match comments yesterday suggest that he's worried about Oscar settling in high tempo/physical games in the PL, and Stoke try to keep the tempo up. Then again, I think that Oscar's good enough to impose himself on the game, with Mikel, Mata and Hazard playing with him I think he can put his foot on the ball and set the tempo.

http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/2914/champions-league/2012/09/20/3390289/its-nice-to-be-a-part-of-a-great-goal-like-that-buffon?source=breakingnews :clap:

I think a lot of the stick Mikel gets is down to his relaxed attitude. He's not an energetic player like Essien, Ramires or even Tiote and people think he's very lazy and can't be arsed. The guy's playing style is relaxed (and that's the best way to play, imo, composure is key) but he gives 100% - in his post-match interview 5-10 mins after the game he was still out of breath and covered in sweat - he clearly does his best on the pitch, but his demeanour and lack of speed give people the impression that he's lazy. If he were lazy he wouldn't be playing - just look at Berbatov!