2 hours ago, Slojo said:

He changed as soon as he got that new contract, he went from youth wages to Premier League footballer wages and since then we saw that decline, he was going out with that lass off Corry and god knows what else. I heard all those rumours aswell. 

This is why you have to be careful with youth players getting big contracts, CHO... Who knows what a big contract could do to him? Micah Richards a big example at City. 

 

Exactly, as soon as he got the prem wages he became Billy Big Bollox, sadly.  Loads of pics of him and his Soap Star girl friend, or him and his mates out at clubs sticking their tongues out at the camera.  Such a shame as I think a lot of us had high hopes for him.  

RLC on the other hand seems to be a decent lad with a more solid head on his shoulders.   It's a shame about his back problems.  I've had them my whole life and they can niggle and niggle unless you get surgery.  So, I hope if he does get teh surgery needed it's successful and he can come back into the team.  Sadly, I think he'll get the surgery, recover, and then we'll sell him to someone like Palace. 

Shame he got injured when he did would probably have made that left sided midfield position his own.

Back in full training and could be in contention for selection this weekend. 

Hopefully he's recovered properly from his back injury, would like to see him back in contention for the LCM role be cause I still think it's very much up for grabs with neither Kovacic or Barkley overly impressing there in recent matches. 

We can field out strongest team now:

Kepa

Azpi  Rudiger  D.Luiz  Emerson

Jorgi

Kante               RLC

Pedro/CHO     Higuain        Hazard

Great news to hear he is back in training. There is no doubt he would be featuring a lot more recently if he hadn't got injured. He offers more than Barkley for me, and he's capable of dislodging Kovacic too, even though Kovacic hasn't recovered fully from his previous knock. 

23 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

We can field out strongest team now:

Kepa

Azpi  Rudiger  D.Luiz  Emerson

Jorgi

Kante               RLC

Pedro/CHO     Higuain        Hazard

I would love to see that line up get a run of games.

Good if he's back, i cant stand watching Barkley play another game.

Yessss will be so happy to see RLC back! Much better than Barkley!

Poor Ruben, he always gets injured at the wrong time. I really believe this would have been his time to nail a starting spot ahead of Kovacic/Barkley but every time the stars seem to align for him, his back shuts down. Hopefully there is something that can be done to fix his problem once and for all - otherwise his career is unlikely to ever take off

Same thing happened to Remy, everytime Costa was injured or suspended Remy was injured.

I reckon with the recent form of Jorginho the best midfield we can potentially play is Kante, Kovacic & RLC, I think this combination offers us energy, press resistance and power. I really hope to see this combination on a more regular basis as the persistence with Jorginho is just not working, it would be beneficial even for Jorginho to just take him out of the limelight in order for him to regather himself.

I think Sarri may be concerned with RLC starting games due to his fitness levels but realistically if we can get 60 minutes out of him that should be good enough for Jorginho to come in for the last 1/3rd of the game where usually the opposition press is not as prolific and he may get a little more time on the ball. 

I thought he was supposed to be having surgery after his last injury? He seemed to just run it off and be 'better' a couple of weeks later. They need to just take the hit and go under the knife, he'll probably miss the rest of the season but be ready to go next year.

21 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

I thought he was supposed to be having surgery after his last injury? He seemed to just run it off and be 'better' a couple of weeks later.

I wonder if it's Ruben not wanting surgery? 

Perhaps he keeps downplaying the injury because he wants to try and get back on the pitch... That LCM position has been up for grabs for weeks now so maybe he's thinking this was his chance to make it his own. 

His back does seem to be made out of glass though, seems to miss a lot of football through back injuries. 

I remember JT had a lot of back problems at the early stages of his career too so there's hope for Ruben yet. 

Now that the fan favorite is back, our midfield looks suddenly 3 times better. 

Christensen, Emerson, Loftus Cheek and Hudson Odoi have to start against City. They are the future.

Willian, Alonso, Luiz and Barkley are nowhere near good enough to start for us and should be on the bench. They are the past.

 

Much more polished on the ball than Barkley. 

For whatever reason, the closer we get to the 18 yard box, the more awkward Barkley looks. RLC just looks much smoother operating in those tight spaces. 

Not sure if he has enough match fitness to be playing the Man City final, but really hope his back holds up the rest of the season and he really kicks on from here. 

 

5 hours ago, dustbin719 said:

Much more polished on the ball than Barkley. 

For whatever reason, the closer we get to the 18 yard box, the more awkward Barkley looks. RLC just looks much smoother operating in those tight spaces. 

Not sure if he has enough match fitness to be playing the Man City final, but really hope his back holds up the rest of the season and he really kicks on from here. 

He brought good energy when he came on yet consider the game had changed by then, no more cat and mouse we were two goals to the good. 

 

LOL if you ever think that any of our players are too much time off cause of injury:
 

 

I reckon I could help RLC with his back as I had to stop exercise due to injuries, though eventually found some I could do without irritation.

That ball to Hazard was incredible. Not sure if it was offside...

7 hours ago, IliyaKrostin said:

That ball to Hazard was incredible. Not sure if it was offside...

And the touch just before 

 

 

12 hours ago, IliyaKrostin said:

That ball to Hazard was incredible. Not sure if it was offside...

One of two very controversial moments overlooked by pundits (maybe because of kepa)

First was a red card for city in first half when Kante was through. 

Second was this. Shouldn't have been given offside full stop - VAR was in force and so the linesman shouldn't have waved until after the play developed. 

I thought the Kante challenge was a foul too, though the pundit said the ref was right.  Given the VAR on Aguero could have been called either way I am not too upset about the Hazard call as again that looked so close.

Pedro in the closing stages had a decent chance that I though he should have blasted instead he chose to pass to Hazard.

Sometimes it just isn't your day.

 

 

Edited February 25, 20197 yr by strider6004

8 hours ago, Strider6003 said:

I thought the Kante challenge was a foul too, though the pundit said the ref was right.  Given the VAR on Aguero could have been called either way I am not too upset about the Hazard call as again that looked so close.

Pedro in the closing stages had a decent chance that I though he should have blasted instead he chose to pass to Hazard.

Sometimes it just isn't your day.

 

 

This, I guess you make your own luck and most of our defeats this season have been deserved but we don't seem to get much luck this season, things just haven't fallen for us. I mean look at Man City draws in cup competitions this season, pretty laughable. We had to play Spurs twice, Liverpool away to get to Wembley.

2 minutes ago, jack_super_class said:

This, I guess you make your own luck and most of our defeats this season have been deserved but we don't seem to get much luck this season, things just haven't fallen for us. I mean look at Man City draws in cup competitions this season, pretty laughable. We had to play Spurs twice, Liverpool away to get to Wembley.

In some years where we won trophies we had an easy passage to the final with perhaps just one tricky team. Not this time though and we were very close.