Here f**king here FC, some peoples dislike of everything the club does is Pretty weird. This willian signing for example, last season everyone complained about squad depth, so we sign players to ensure it doesn't happen again and were a joke club because we have too many similar players.

 

There was a time when Chelsea fans would have loved to see us sign a Brazilian international winger.

 

Funny old world isn't it?

Deal! We offload two players who arent needed here anymore, take a player who can score goals and has served half of his ban and take Liverpools best player again. We should through in Torres as well.

Here f**king here FC, some peoples dislike of everything the club does is Pretty weird. This willian signing for example, last season everyone complained about squad depth, so we sign players to ensure it doesn't happen again and were a joke club because we have too many similar players.

 

I try not to complain about signings...but I just felt the balance in attacking midfielders was perfect as it was...and anything to add fuel to the 'Mata out" campaign the papers have was more than a small irritant.

Deal! We offload two players who arent needed here anymore, take a player who can score goals and has served half of his ban and take Liverpools best player again. We should through in Torres as well.

He's also had a taste what it is like playing for Chelsea. If Branna's arm is any sort of indication.

He just wanted a taste of success!

I try not to complain about signings...but I just felt the balance in attacking midfielders was perfect as it was...and anything to add fuel to the 'Mata out" campaign the papers have was more than a small irritant.

Questioning a signing is ok, no problem at all with that, I`m also not sure the Willian one is such a good move. Losing your sh*t and slagging off the club anytime any rumour appears is just bloody stupid. 

 

Not aimed at you or the majority of posters to be honest, just the more, erm, "special" posters.

Edited August 28, 201312 yr by dkw

Shed End posters the Marmite of life.

Scouse rag last night reporting Suarez move with Moses and Mikel part ex !

You are pretty accurate with what you have predicted of late Star but this sounds more like you having a laugh rather than believing the source which you talk about.

 

Suarez is better than what we have, but no way do I see 2 of our players going there plus cash for him.

You are pretty accurate with what you have predicted of late Star but this sounds more like you having a laugh rather than believing the source which you talk about.

 

Suarez is better than what we have, but no way do I see 2 of our players going there plus cash for him.

 

In truth, I don't think Liverpool would want/need Mikel anyway.

 

They've got Gerrard, Allen, Henderson, Lucas and Coutinho who could all play in the middle so I doubt they would be chomping at the bit for another midfielder to be included in any deal. 

Agreed ForeverCarefree, I can see them wanting Moses but that would likely only knock off 10mill from the price and we would still end up stumping up 35mill odd.

I can see them wanting Mikel, if they played 4-2-3-1 like I think they should at the minute Lucas and Gerrard are their best option for the 2, Gerrard can play the dm if Lucas gets injured, which is very likely, and Henderson plays the other side. Other than that depth and quality in the dm is lacking for Liverpool. So Mikel would be a great signing for them. Mikel and moses might knock the price to 25 mil for Suarez. I don't want him though, and tbf it might make Liverpool stronger

I try not to complain about signings...but I just felt the balance in attacking midfielders was perfect as it was...and anything to add fuel to the 'Mata out" campaign the papers have was more than a small irritant.

 

Bang on. As much as we can all say "it doesnt matter what the papers write", the Willian thing just comes as a real surprise for everyone who is waiting and hoping for Mata to come storming out of the gates again. The longer he waits on the bench, and the more they write, the realer the nightmare of him leaving the club starts to seem.

 

In a bubble, the Willian signing is fantastic. The fact that the club have chased him for 2 years, and then stole him away from Spurs, is enough for me to think he will be yet another star (considering how quality the creative additions of the past few years have been)

If we can throw away £30m just to give Tottenham a fisting then we can spend £40m on a player we actually need. The price should come down towards the end of the window anyway, I'm sure Jose still has a rapport with them.

 

 Willian has been linked to the club over and over the last few years. Someone obviously wanted him, despite the logjam that now exists for wide players, so it clearly wasnt just about screwing Totteham 

 

And 40 million for Mangala? A world record bid for a defender would be a bit crazy considering the squad has adequate cover and quality at the position (dont know how it can be argued, once Luiz gets back to fitness). And that number will definitely go UP at the end of the window 

 

If this were a striker, I would say that kind of money is justified. But not there.

 

 

 Willian has been linked to the club over and over the last few years. Someone obviously wanted him, despite the logjam that now exists for wide players, so it clearly wasnt just about screwing Totteham 

 

And 40 million for Mangala? A world record bid for a defender would be a bit crazy considering the squad has adequate cover and quality at the position (dont know how it can be argued, once Luiz gets back to fitness). And that number will definitely go UP at the end of the window 

 

If this were a striker, I would say that kind of money is justified. But not there.

 

We didn't bid much higher than ~£20m for Willian last summer, why is he worth over £10m more just because he had 2 good matches against us in the Champions League and is a year older? We didn't bother to bid against Anzhi for him in January; preventing Willian from playing for Tottenham added value onto this transfer for us, it's indisputable.

 

Jose always talks about 2 players for every position. Ivanovic is his first choice right back, which leaves us with 3 CBs (unless we weaken the right back position by moving Ivanovic across). Is Terry a long-term choice? Is Cahill universally recognised as top-class? Is Luiz faultless? There's room in there for a Varane.

Jose always talks about 2 players for every position. Ivanovic is his first choice right back, which leaves us with 3 CBs (unless we weaken the right back position by moving Ivanovic across). Is Terry a long-term choice? Is Cahill universally recognised as top-class? Is Luiz faultless? There's room in there for a Varane.

Kalas, like Ivanovic can play at both right back and centre back.

That gives us three players who can play at right back and five who can play centre back. Essien too can play those positions if needed.

As for Cahill and Luiz, they've played in two European Cup finals for us and we have won both so they must be doing something right.

JT, one of our best players so far this season so he is showing there is life in the old dog yet.

One goal conceded in three games so far, I would say the defence isn't something to worry ourselves over.

Wow, a bit of frustration in these responses I see. It's gotten me annoyed as well. 

 

****I know you probably won't read all/most of this but I've written out my thoughts regardless****

 

What other Premier League has the strength in depth that we have at centre back?

 

Manchester City? Well they fielded a central midfielder in the heart of their defense in only their second league game of the season. Kompany and Nastasic are no doubt excellent but Lesoctt wouldn't get a game ahead of any of our centre backs with the exception of Kalas. 

 

Manchester United? Again, Vidic is a fantastic player if not a little injury prone, in fact injury is something you could level at all of the United centre backs in truth and again, outside of Vidic not sure there is a huge amount more quality there than our central defenders. Jones looks a talent but is still developing. Smalling hasn't progressed to a point he is pushing for a first team place.

 

Spurs? One injury and they themselves are struggling for cover. 

 

Arsenal? They've fielded a fullback at centre back in their first game of the season.

 

Our four centre backs (JT, Luiz, Ivanovic, Cahill) are all international level defenders. 3 of which have captained their countries. Cahill is ahead of players at Spurs, United and City for England and Kalas at 20 years old is already capped for Czech Republic.

 

Why are you mentioning depth when I'm speaking about the quality? Yes you need depth there but I'd rather be in United's situation than ours right now. 

 

I disagree. What about Ferdinand? He was very good last season! Even though the Rio/Vidic partnership isn't as good as it was in the past they still showed that they were top-class defenders together. They've got 3 very good CBs aside from them as well. Jones yes, is still developing but he's only 20 and he's shown how promising he is. Evans also had a very good season (probably even better). Smalling was looking great before but injuries had set him back which is why hasn't progressed for a first team place as well. Can't say I've met people who rate Cahill for example all that highly compared to the rest. 

 

Man City need a CB as well. But Kompany/Nasty is certainly better than our current partnership. Lescott/Cahill are on similar levels but he still has a good partnership with Kompany. Can you really say that the Terry/Cahill partnership is as good? 

 

 

Spurs? One injury and they themselves are struggling for cover. 

 

Arsenal? They've fielded a fullback at centre back in their first game of the season.

 

 

Arsenal and Spurs aren't exactly our competitors -- Arsenal should be but it seems they're content with trying to finish 4th place. Spurs struggled a lot without Bale, and although they've made good signings, we don't know for definite how effective they will in terms of adapting to the league, gelling etc. yet. (although with Lamela & Erikson they aren't too far off us tbh). Bu we're trying to fight for the title, no? However, I will comment.

 

I don't understand your problem with this. It matters little that a full back has been fielded because Sagna has shown that he functions better there than he did at the RB position. And this was not just against Fener -- he has been fielded there in the past. But the Kos/Mert partnership works so well for Arsenal meaning Sagna wouldn't regularly be deployed there. Sagna has shown he has good strength, has speed, is good and the air and was really committing to challenge. But Arsenal have problems with injury and do need to buy another CB, which is mainly why Sagna was deployed there. But again, I wasn't questioning depth.

 

Him at FB hasn't worked as well because he's good at defending, but pretty poor in going forward if one compares him to the Sagna of 3 years ago -- so the CB role suits him better. 

 

Spurs obviously need to get another CB because Vert isn't enough. 

 

Competitors don't just have be in the PL either. Compare them to some of the teams in the CL -- Bayern, Dortmund, PSG (Marquinhos, Silva, Sakho e.g). Barca need a CB as well but elsewhere they've bloody brilliant so they'll progress better. 

 

 Our four centre backs (JT, Luiz, Ivanovic, Cahill) are all international level defenders. 3 of which have captained their countries. Cahill is ahead of players at Spurs, United and City for England and Kalas at 20 years old is already capped for Czech Republic.

 

 

Being represented at international level doesn't necessarily suggest quality. Ashley Young for example is capped for England but does that mean he's a quality player? Zaha spent his season in the Championship and is already capped for England, yet has done little to suggest he's worthy of a place. James Milner isn't quality and just has a good work rate, yet he is capped for England as well. Similarly, just because Cahill is there regularly doesn't mean he's great. Similar with Jagielka but they're more experienced than the others. 

 

But I'm not doubting Ivanovic at all -- I think he's quality and rate him the highest out of all our defenders however he has been deployed as a RB throughout pre-season and through our first 3 games. I worry about an injury.

 

I have no idea how good Kalas is. I doubt many people have watched regularly in Vitesse either. But considering that he got out from that graveyard he must be good...

 

I'm not sure what the 19 year old kid in the Portuguese league comment means, or what that refers to. Unless of course, this is just speaking in general.

 

So what do we have? Cahill/Terry/Luiz. 

 

Terry: He's actually done well so far -- but the first match was against Hull, the one against Villa we were pretty damn lucky to win, and against United we were all parking the bus. So I'll need to wait and see if he keeps up good performances. If so, then great! But nonetheless, I also think the time when he was a world class centre back are well behind him -- he has declined a lot. He adds a lot in terms of leadership and organisation, and he still a set piece beast at either end, but the ball on the deck stuff has never been his game and I just do not believe that he's good enough anymore -- the weakness is too obvious for teams not to exploit and against slick team it's really going to cost. He's 32 now as well so how long will he keep on going for? 

 

Luiz has a lot of faults. I know there are many people here who really like him but really, I just think he can be an absolute liability at times. He is quite reckless, he often rushes in with his tackles, he always randomly tries to jump in front of attackers and is quite undisciplined positional-wise. While I agree that every top CB does make mistakes, the issues that have been mentioned about Luiz are not just mistakes but habits which he has to get rid of. Until he does so, I won't be confident in calling him a top, consistent defender. You don't see these weaknesses in others CBs. Maybe Mourinho will improve him but I don't know. On his day he's very very good, but he really isn't consistent enough. I just think he's more suited for the role of a midfielder. 

 

Cahill. He almost always backs off an opponent on the ball rather than engaging them. He has often dropped deep, and invited pressure and has given too much space to the opponent on the ball to play a pass or crack one against Cech. We saw this many times last season (Adebayor goal being one of them). Cahill should reduce the gap between himself and the other player so that he would be in a good position to make a tackle or intercept a pass or block a shot. But instead he often just backs off and doesn't stick to the player too well. Also, he mainly does well partnered with someone who tells him what do -- Terry in this instance. But without him (and what if there's the case of Terry getting injured or him getting too tired to play well), then he just isn't as good. 

 

You'll probably think that I'm purposely trying to find faults for no good reason, but really, comparing it our competitors who have more top, and reliable defenders, I just don't feel we have the quality here in comparison to them. 

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Nice analysis ForeverCarefree. It's kind of annoying when someone makes a one line statement then puts zero effort into explaining their position though.

 

Is this better then?

 

Stating the obvious here but if United are refusing to sell us Rooney what makes anyone think we would be open to selling them anyone? 

 

 

 

To be honest I just hate when supposed fellow fans can do nothing but find fault with the club/team. 

 

Rather than getting behind Chelsea some people just think the worst all the time. Too much playing Football Manager and thinking that the team can be improved by signing some 19 year old scouted from a bottom half of the table Portuguese club. If people just took the time to look at the squad we have they would admit there is very little to moan about. 

 

 

Here f**king here FC, some peoples dislike of everything the club does is Pretty weird. This willian signing for example, last season everyone complained about squad depth, so we sign players to ensure it doesn't happen again and were a joke club because we have too many similar players.

 

Wow, seriously?

 

Nothing in my post suggested I wasn't getting behind the club or had serious dislike towards it. I suggested calmly that we could do with another CB so we're not too far behind our competitors, which I currently feel we are. I'm not vilifying the club for purchasing Willian (which I like) like some others are doing, am I? Or as one of you put it; 'losing your sh*t and slagging the club off'. 

 

Everything I wrote before was not aggressively-worded and as such I don't understand why it suggested that I seriously dislike the club. 

We didn't bid much higher than ~£20m for Willian last summer, why is he worth over £10m more just because he had 2 good matches against us in the Champions League and is a year older? We didn't bother to bid against Anzhi for him in January; preventing Willian from playing for Tottenham added value onto this transfer for us, it's indisputable.

 

Yeah, doubtless it added value. I dunno if it was 10 million in value, but here you strike a very different tone:

 

 

If we can throw away £30m just to give Tottenham a fisting then we can spend £40m on a player we actually need.

 

 

Which implies that the whole point of the transfer is screwing Tottenham. I dont exactly see it as the best use of resources either, but the idea that the club would spend 30 million pounds just to hurt a rival without forethought is one straight from the pages of the DM. And since you (or I) are not privy to the club's inner workings, maybe they judged the difference in value to be worth the extra money. Maybe not.

 

 

Jose always talks about 2 players for every position. Ivanovic is his first choice right back, which leaves us with 3 CBs (unless we weaken the right back position by moving Ivanovic across). Is Terry a long-term choice? Is Cahill universally recognised as top-class? Is Luiz faultless? There's room in there for a Varane.

 

Ignoring the fact that he proclaimed Kalas was ready in the summer, dont you think the cover that is there is sufficient? Its extremely likely that we are going to lose two of Luiz/Cahill/JT, and still have to play Brana in the RB spot. 

 

Has JT been much better under Jose so far? (yes)

Does it matter that Cahill is considered top class when he routinely puts in mature, accomplished performances for the last 18 months? (no)

Is Luiz extremely talented already, and about to come under the tutelage of a coach who has improved countless defenders? (yes)

 

There are positive signs and premonitions about the future of the backline right now at CFC. Unless Jose wants to rip out the wiring and start from scratch, I see no reason why 40 million (on Mangala or Varane or whoever) needs to be spent on the position when every position does in fact have 2 players for it. And unless Jose decides, conclusively, that someone like Cahill or Luiz needs to go to get things how he wants them, I would argue 40 million spent on the backline is nearly as superfluous as 30 million spent at wing. 

People in the know Tell me more about the suarez rumour please

Yeah I wanna know more! Suarez is leathal, love him or loathe him, he is the real deal...love to see him destroy teams with us- they can have Moses and if mourinho wants to throw in Mikel too then I trust him, either way I want to see some money thrown down on a quality striker

How are we not?

As far as people go, we have more than enough CB's. Terry, Luiz, Cahill, Ivan, Kalas and even Omereu, if he doesn't go out on loan.

I think that our defence could do with another defender of high quality, but purely because it will improve the team. If you're looking for another defender just to fill the numbers then I don't think it's necessary.

 

Yes but we could use a little higher calibre of CB, this has been a weak spot as of late. Terry not the man he was and Cahill not quite the rock on defence that we need from him.

Yes but we could use a little higher calibre of CB, this has been a weak spot as of late. Terry not the man he was and Cahill not quite the rock on defence that we need from him.

 

Tell that to Van Persie

People in the know Tell me more about the suarez rumour please

 

I'm not in the know so I'm just as qualified as them, anyway, can't see it happening.

Yeah, doubtless it added value. I dunno if it was 10 million in value, but here you strike a very different tone:

 

 

 

 

Which implies that the whole point of the transfer is screwing Tottenham. I dont exactly see it as the best use of resources either, but the idea that the club would spend 30 million pounds just to hurt a rival without forethought is one straight from the pages of the DM. And since you (or I) are not privy to the club's inner workings, maybe they judged the difference in value to be worth the extra money. Maybe not.

 

 

Ignoring the fact that he proclaimed Kalas was ready in the summer, dont you think the cover that is there is sufficient? Its extremely likely that we are going to lose two of Luiz/Cahill/JT, and still have to play Brana in the RB spot. 

 

Has JT been much better under Jose so far? (yes)

Does it matter that Cahill is considered top class when he routinely puts in mature, accomplished performances for the last 18 months? (no)

Is Luiz extremely talented already, and about to come under the tutelage of a coach who has improved countless defenders? (yes)

 

There are positive signs and premonitions about the future of the backline right now at CFC. Unless Jose wants to rip out the wiring and start from scratch, I see no reason why 40 million (on Mangala or Varane or whoever) needs to be spent on the position when every position does in fact have 2 players for it. And unless Jose decides, conclusively, that someone like Cahill or Luiz needs to go to get things how he wants them, I would argue 40 million spent on the backline is nearly as superfluous as 30 million spent at wing. 

The reason I said "just to give Tottenham a fisting " is because I don't believe we'd have gone in for Willian at that price unless Tottenham or another rival (whom we could outbid) were the ones about to buy him. There wasn't an option for buying the player at the 2012 valuation we gave him (not that I even think we would have bid at that valuation given Schurrle/KDB/Moses have since been added to the squad), so it was either £30m or nothing.

 

I had forgotten about Kalas, if Jose sees him as someone he'd be happy to have step in if worst came to the worst in a Champions League final then fine, personally I'm doubtful. Like I said, Terry isn't going to be around forever, Cahill Jose probably does like (although is he unbeatable quality?), but David Luiz... his mistakes seem to be an innate part of his game, whether Jose likes the constant underlying defensive vulnerability you sense whenever Luiz plays as CB is up for debate; assuming Jose likes Kalas we may not go in for another CB this summer but don't rule anything out.

Yes but we could use a little higher calibre of CB, this has been a weak spot as of late. Terry not the man he was and Cahill not quite the rock on defence that we need from him.

 

You watch the first few games?

 

PS. CB is our strongest position.

plenty of good young centre backs out there. So I think we're best sticking with what we have this season which was the 3rd best in league last season, despite terry missing games, lapses in concerntration, and fielding very attacking line ups.

If at the end of the season, we look like we need to add quality in there, then we can go for someone like zouma, martinez, or papadopoulos for reasonable money.

Or throw big money at hummels, subotic, mangala etc.

Or we could even move ivanovic inside permanently, and bring back wallace, or another right back.

Plenty of options, and no real rush.

Alot of negativity regarding our transfers at the moment. Im really excitied to see willian, 26.5m isn't bad buisness, and I think he'll get the byline and produce more than our current players.

Would love us to the window with benzema or lewandowski, but if its eto'o then so be it, I think he'll still score more than torres or ba would.