1 minute ago, doctorblue said:

Best defence is in reference to goals conceded last season and current form is in reference Courtois's performance in both games in Singapore...as far as I know this forum is all about expression of opinion both mine and yours...and you can clap to that...

You can certainly express your opinion, not stopping you from that, but people can question your opinion specially when its your definition of "form" which seems to be 1/2 pre-season games.

That truly IS clap worthy by the way.

Well let's see if his performance improves on Sunday...I'll be there clapping for him to do so....

How about you starting a seperate thread, or whatever it takes to get this thread back on topic?

16 minutes ago, Valerie said:

How about you starting a seperate thread, or whatever it takes to get this thread back on topic?

To be fair, that debate was more entertaining than the prospect of Danny Drinkwater joining the club. :P

17 minutes ago, Michael said:

To be fair, that debate was more entertaining than the prospect of Danny Drinkwater joining the club. :P

By more entertaining you mean less tear inducing ? Hmmmm dunno...

When we bought Sidwell I thought to myself 'why did we sign him?!' This is exactly the same. He had an excellent season and that is about it.

 

Hey, guys.

This seems a bit of a strange one - do you think there's any truth in it?

 

 

43 minutes ago, Friendly Fox said:

 

Hey, guys.

This seems a bit of a strange one - do you think there's any truth in it?

 

 

Hope not.

13 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

Hope not.

 

Drinks is not a bad player but, yeah, he's not Chelsea standard.

Do fancy letting us have N'golo back as a straight swap?

The best defence?? Consisting of GC who is ridiculed by his own fans, Luiz whose transfer back to the club was laughed at by most fans in the world, Marcos Alonso whose transfer got chelsea fans so excited (yes that is sarcasm) or moses who was apparently not good enough to even be a bench player just a season or 2 ago. 
Seems like a world class defence. Or maybe, just maybe its the FACT, that we have a world class goal keeper coupled with a system that suits and gets the best our of our players. 
Also, its interesting that now players are classified as good or bad depending on their "form" which is just one PRE-SEASON game. Thats just.... 

Bro I think you need to consider the fact that our defence make Tibo look like a top player. Yes we don't have world class players at the back, which was the reason Conte changed our formation. Trust me, if we go back to our former formation and Tibo gets exposed every now and then if you ain't biased in your assessment you won't see much difference between Tibo and the likes of Shmeichel and Pickford. Though I rate the latter two a lot. They are just unfortunate to play for sh*t teams as a result despite making countless saves in a match they still end up on the losing side which make them underrated.

8 hours ago, wallosh said:

Tibo is world class? Lol

I said top class not world class but yes he is world class I'm f**king bewildered why he isn't in your opinion, top 5 keepers in the world, how's that not world class because he isn't African? Real Madrid have been trying to poach him from us for a reason. 

Edited August 2, 20178 yr by DonAntonio

35 minutes ago, Friendly Fox said:

 

Drinks is not a bad player but, yeah, he's not Chelsea standard.

Do fancy letting us have N'golo back as a straight swap?

I have no idea what you're on about.

 

Thibaut is a WC player but there are times when his concentration fails him. Every WC keeper has a solid backline in front of them. Do we really want to have the likes of Smalling and Jones to justify Tibo is WC?

Apparently our interest in Drinkwater is 'not reciprocated'

Probably doesn't want to move to sit on our bench. Fair enough

If a player like Drinkwater turns us down then you know we are in trouble.

He probably harbours ambitions of playing his way into the England squad for the World Cup, he certainly won't be doing that from our bench. Plus he's probably already on decent money given that Leicester's owners gave a bunch of their title-winners fat contract extensions.

Edited August 3, 20178 yr by Charles Ryder

Cheaper(probably) and better alternatives to Drinkwater(and Barkley):

Adrien Rabiot (Neymar/FFP)
Amadou Diawara (longshot, will NOT come cheap)
Marco Benassi
Danilo Pereira
William Carvalho
*Grzegorz Krychowiak (Neymar/FFP)
*Nemanja Radoja
*Matias Kranevitter
Mateo Kovacic (They've got Casemiro, Ceballos, Llorente, Kroos AND Modric...)
Fabinho? Might be to late in the game.

*= cheapest options

I'm aware that some of these players are too good to sit on the bench, but a 3-5-2 might be the way to go this year, at least now that Hazard(and Pedro?) will miss the first few games of the season.

Edited August 3, 20178 yr by gaamst

Everybody is playing Football Manager.

1 minute ago, evissy said:

Everybody is playing Football Manager.

That's what pre-season is all about, isn't it? Everybody's an expert;-)

we simply won't get a high quality player to sit on our bench. fabregas is tolerating it, but unfortunately it's very rare especially if we're looking at a younger centre mid. 

So after selling Matic and Chalobah, and sending Pasalic, van Ginkel and RLC out on loan, we're buying Danny Drinkwater for £30mill+? Or worse, Barkley for £40-50mill?

Surely there's someone who's thought this through before and during pre-season...

I said top class not world class but yes he is world class I'm f**king bewildered why he isn't in your opinion, top 5 keepers in the world, how's that not world class because he isn't African? Real Madrid have been trying to poach him from us for a reason. 

And you seriously think Madrid can ignore Degea, Oblak, that Ac Milan, keeper and then pay a fortune to sign Courtois?
There is more chance of Madrid signing Caballero than Courtois!

I have no idea what you're on about.
 
Thibaut is a WC player but there are times when his concentration fails him. Every WC keeper has a solid backline in front of them. Do we really want to have the likes of Smalling and Jones to justify Tibo is WC?

Yes, I will like to see him play for a team with sh*t defenders before I rate. Or if like Cech, he can win us points in matches consecutively when we are playing badly, I will change my mind over him. He had that chance in Jose's last season here and he actually prove me RIGHT!

7 minutes ago, wallosh said:

And you seriously think Madrid can ignore Degea, Oblak, that Ac Milan, keeper and then pay a fortune to sign Courtois?
There is more chance of Madrid signing Caballero than Courtois!

Is this the AC Milan keeper you are refering too?

And is this the supposedly vastly superior De Gea?

 

Edited August 3, 20178 yr by Argo

1 minute ago, wallosh said:

Yes, I will like to see him play for a team with sh*t defenders before I rate. Or if like Cech, he can win us points in matches consecutively when we are playing badly, I will change my mind over him. He had that chance in Jose's last season here and he actually prove me RIGHT!

You obviously missed the second half of the 2015 title season then.

3 minutes ago, wallosh said:

Yes, I will like to see him play for a team with sh*t defenders before I rate. Or if like Cech, he can win us points in matches consecutively when we are playing badly, I will change my mind over him. He had that chance in Jose's last season here and he actually prove me RIGHT!

Every keeper has his days good and bad, it's the middle ground and in crucial moments is when their quality shines through.

Plenty of keepers have days where they play an absolute blinder. I'm just grateful we have someone that can hold a candle to the best rather than wishing we have someone like that. Just thank god/religious deities of choice/whatever we haven't gone through Utd's period of mix and match GK before finding De Gea and Van de Sar.

Edited August 3, 20178 yr by Deino