16 minutes ago, bola said:

This myth about 'can only afford 1 luxury player' is just bullsh*t..

which top side in the world has more than one luxury player?

Just now, opinionsarelike said:

which top side in the world has more than one luxury player?

 

The MSN? what about BBC? even in domestic, city use silva,kdb and sterling all at the same time..

Just now, bola said:

The MSN? what about BBC? even in domestic, city use silva,kdb and sterling all at the same time..

suarez and neymar presses extremely hard from the front, it's one of the pillars to their (guardiola's) system. i could give you messi, but he's also the best player ever in the history of the game. barcelona even sold fabregas because he was a luxury player and not defensively disciplined enough and replaced him with a less talented rakitic.

bbc, or at least bb, works pretty hard, especially in winning the ball back. even ronaldo helps out with that, even though he doesn't track back a lot.

city has consistently been failing in europe against top sides. with pep coming in, toure has been degraded to the bench because of a poor work ethic on the pitch and the trio you mentioned are working incredibly hard for the team.

So that's how we define a luxury player? One that doesn't run?

Fabregas does actually run and covers defensively, just because he isn't an expert at is doesn't suddenly make him a poor player. Even Mikel isn't an expert at it and he never gets out of jog mode.

City has Sterling, KDB, Silva and Nolito all going forward yesterday with just Fernandinho sitting.

22 minutes ago, opinionsarelike said:

suarez and neymar presses extremely hard from the front, it's one of the pillars to their (guardiola's) system. i could give you messi, but he's also the best player ever in the history of the game. barcelona even sold fabregas because he was a luxury player and not defensively disciplined enough and replaced him with a less talented rakitic.

bbc, or at least bb, works pretty hard, especially in winning the ball back. even ronaldo helps out with that, even though he doesn't track back a lot.

city has consistently been failing in europe against top sides. with pep coming in, toure has been degraded to the bench because of a poor work ethic on the pitch and the trio you mentioned are working incredibly hard for the team.

I would blame Pellegrini more for Toure than anything. He kept playing him in a midfield 2 when it was clear he don't like running or any defensive duties. Play him behind the forward and his lethal with two CMs behind. Abit like Fabregas.

Real Madrid have 3 luxury players up front. You can even include Modric and Kroos isn't exactly bad.

Barca have the 3 up front and then Iniesta.

Arsenal play Carzola in a midfield 2. Now I don't think his any better than Fabregas in that position.

Point is with Matic and Kante who is a beast and does the running of 2 you can easily accommodate Fabregas in your starting line up if you really wanted too. 

Fabregas runs, I just don't think he runs fast enough to cover the necessary areas of the pitch. He isn't fast enough to put good pressure on the opposition, he's fairly stationary which makes him easy to dribble and he can't track back fast enough when the opposition counters.

I have nothing against Fabregas and I've appriciated his honesty and effort for our club, I just think we'll lose a lot of what made us good vs both West Ham and Burnley (total dominance in midfield) with Fabregas on the pitch, the area on the ground becoming more and more important as football progresses.

I hope Conte can find a place for him because Fabregas is a phenomenal player to watch, but I see where our manager is coming from and I can't say our results thus far has been anything to throw a tantrum over yet.

Edited August 29, 20169 yr by opinionsarelike

5 minutes ago, opinionsarelike said:

Fabregas runs, I just don't think he runs fast enough to cover the necessary areas of the pitch. He isn't fast enough to put good pressure on the opposition, he's fairly stationary which makes him easy to dribble and he can't track back fast enough when the opposition counters.

I have nothing against Fabregas and I've appriciated his honesty and effort for our club, I just think we'll lose a lot of what made us good vs both West Ham and Burnley (total dominance in midfield) with Fabregas on the pitch, the area on the ground becoming more and more important as football progresses.

I hope Conte can find a place for him because Fabregas is a phenomenal player to watch, but I see where our manager is coming from and I can't say our results thus far has been anything to throw a tantrum over yet.

 

5 minutes ago, opinionsarelike said:

Fabregas runs, I just don't think he runs fast enough to cover the necessary areas of the pitch. He isn't fast enough to put good pressure on the opposition, he's fairly stationary which makes him easy to dribble and he can't track back fast enough when the opposition counters.

I have nothing against Fabregas and I've appriciated his honesty and effort for our club, I just think we'll lose a lot of what made us good vs both West Ham and Burnley (total dominance in midfield) with Fabregas on the pitch, the area on the ground becoming more and more important as football progresses.

I hope Conte can find a place for him because Fabregas is a phenomenal player to watch, but I see where our manager is coming from and I can't say our results thus far has been anything to throw a tantrum over yet.

I just don't think you need 3 defensive minded midfielders who run a lot. Chelsea can easily have Matic and Kante sitting with Fabregas ahead. I know who I would rather have to break down a team. Burnley is one thing, the big teams are another. Chelsea won't have enough creativity in the majority of matches relying on just Hazard.

Once Oscar went off against West Ham and Watford, Chelsea went on to win.

14 minutes ago, opinionsarelike said:

suarez and neymar presses extremely hard from the front, it's one of the pillars to their (guardiola's) system. i could give you messi, but he's also the best player ever in the history of the game. barcelona even sold fabregas because he was a luxury player and not defensively disciplined enough and replaced him with a less talented rakitic.

bbc, or at least bb, works pretty hard, especially in winning the ball back. even ronaldo helps out with that, even though he doesn't track back a lot.

city has consistently been failing in europe against top sides. with pep coming in, toure has been degraded to the bench because of a poor work ethic on the pitch and the trio you mentioned are working incredibly hard for the team.

 

No way neymar is not considered as luxury player.. suarez did press but it's not as extremely hard as you suggest and on top of MSN, there is also iniesta.. Barcelona sold cesc because there were already 4 luxury players in the team, surely they couldn't afford another 1? busquest would commit suicide if they don't do anything about it..

The BBC also has modric in it and toure degrading to the bench actually got more to do with tactic because pep wanted a more defensive midfielder to accommodate his front players who were tasked to focus on offensive and they worked hard on that part.. Actually, pep is asking a lot on his defenders as we can see most of the times, they were asked to engage in 1 on 1 battle..

It's impossible to put out high intensity for the full 90 minutes so it's not like they're covering as much ground as you seem to believe..

But even if you stick to your gun then I just have to ask you this, is there a huge gap between cesc and the likes of iniesta, modrid, silva??

 

 

 

2 hours ago, bola said:

But even if you stick to your gun then I just have to ask you this, is there a huge gap between cesc and the likes of iniesta, modrid, silva??

yes i do think so. andres iniesta played as a lone anchor man as a 22 year old vs benfica in the quarter finals of the champions league i 06, and came on in the same position at 46 minutes in the final against arsenal. fabregas played his whatever-he-wanted-to-play role at arsenal for years (which he did fantastically for half a season every season), contributing minimal if not zero defensively in those teams. as for modric, he is in my opinion a lot quicker than fabregas and he is also imo better under pressure, although not as damaging offensively as fabregas is at his absolute best. silva plays further up the pitch than fabregas' best role is and therefor easier to hide imo.

after last year, where mourinho was accused of playing his favorites based on previous performances, i think it's refreshing to have a coach willing to drop such a star like fabregas to create his own team. and i truly do think conte has earned the right to figure things out by himself, having been both a juventus great as a player and a coach. anyone who can get a midfield of de rossi/motta, parolo and giaccherini to severly outplay busquets, iniesta and fabregas has earned that right for himself.

9 hours ago, Upsetter said:

You're  right of course. Hindsight is indeed a wonderful thing.

However, the intention of my previous post wasn't to gloat, so I won't apologise for including some of the less extreme pre-match comments. By the sane token, neither am i going to highlight any of the more blatantly cringe-worthy comments for ridicule.

All I actually did was to take a selection of comments from pages 5-7, i.e.from the time the starting XI was announced up till kick-off. So it really didn't take much time or effort at all. In fact it's probably going to take me longer to write this post than it did to make that one.

Saying all that, the increasing tendency to bitch and moan and whine and winge gets a little wearing at times. Prior to this match we'd played three competitive matches and won then all.  With a new manager, who has no previous experience of the Premier League. And yet I've seen people bewailing the awful position we we were in. It gets a bit much, you know?

I'm vaguely considering making a the Hall of Shame a regular feature, but at the same time I'm hoping against hope that it won't be necessary.

In which case I might actually have achieved something. Where there's life and all that.

Some on this forum do lay it on rather thick and it does get tiresome at length, as you've correctly pointed out. However, you get some of that on every football forum out there. I just try to focus on the more insightful posts and ignore the dumber ones, otherwise I'd just go nuts. 

I've also noticed that many British tend to lapse into self-loathing and wrist-slashing pessimism a little too easily at times. Maybe that explains some of the more ridiculously negative posts? Just a theory. 

1 hour ago, DaRick said:

I've also noticed that many British tend to lapse into self-loathing and wrist-slashing pessimism a little too easily at times. Maybe that explains some of the more ridiculously negative posts? Just a theory. 

I wouldn't blame the Brits on this one - IMHO it stems from the success CFC have gotten since the 90's & fans feel CFC are the Big Boys of the EPL - many CFC fans feel a sense of entitlement now - I remember back when Don Carlo was in charge & things weren't going good, many were calling for his head & even recalled a thought to have Supa Frank benched for Young Josh McEachran :o

Edited August 29, 20169 yr by robdog

1 minute ago, robdog said:

I wouldn't blame the Brits on this one - IMHO it stems from the success CFC have gotten since the 90's & fans feel CFC are the Big Boys of the EPL - many CFC fans feel a since of entitlement now - I remember back when Don Carlo was in charge & things weren't going good, many were calling for his head & even recalled a thought to have Supa Frank benched for Young Josh McEachran :o

Yep that's a more valid theory than mine. 

Maybe I've been reading too much into sensationalist British media and England's attitude towards its cricketers for about a generation (1980's - 2000's) LOL. 

 

1 hour ago, DaRick said:

Ive also noticed that many British tend to lapse into self-loathing and wrist-slashing pessimism a little too easily at times. Maybe that explains some of the more ridiculously negative posts? Just a theory. 

 

7 minutes ago, coco said:

 

LOL.

You know as well as I do this was far from being the most extremist post at that time. 

Wrong /= extremist. 

1 minute ago, DaRick said:

LOL.

You know as well as I do this was far from being the most extremist post at that time. 

Wrong /= extremist. 

But it was negative, and you are an Aussie, so I could not resist.