I don't really keep track of football journalists, but isn't Guillem Balague supposed to be well respected? He blamed Casillas' awful performance last night on Mourinho
Was he to blame for the dire performance of the rest of the team as well ? Ramos, Piqué, Alonso, Jordi Alba..even Azpil wasn't his usual reliable self.
I think 5-1 was a freakish result, but Spain are a team in decline..simple as that.
also, Toni Kroos may be joining us according to the press.
That would be quite an attacking midfield.
Why ? I can't see the point to be honest. We just seem to be going for anyone who Man Utd shows an interest in. Kroos is a good player, but doesn't offer us anything that we don't already possess..several times over.
Must admit, I'm beginning to turn off Lukaku a bit. He (or his agent) appears to be touting around for offers. If reports are to be believed, he's not interested in returning to Chelsea unless it's as our number one striking option. Of course, you can't believe everything you read in the media, but it might explain why Jose appears to be quite chilled out about losing him.
If we can get a decent price for Lukaku, I think Mandzukic would be a great signing as back up to Costa. He's been happy enough at Bayern without having a permanent place, it's only the imminent signing of Lewandowski that makes his position untenable. He also has one of the most accurate shots to goals conversion rates in Europe, better than Messi ! That alone would make him a welcome change from our strikers in the past few seasons.
A lot of the Lukaku stuff comes from our current obsession with age.
Yes he is a very good player but not quite at the level needed for a title winning team. Just because we don't have strikers that can get goals doesn't mean we should give him a chance. He is bench player for a team with our agenda.
Last season with Torries,Ba,Eto'o he was always going to be 4th choice so loaning him out was the only option. This season with Eto'o gone and maybe more to go he could be 3rd choice, Its in his hands. He is only young and if he is willing to bide his time then in a couple of years he could be first choice striker at one of the biggest clubs in Europe or he could go for a move now but unless it was Real,Barca,Utd I don't see the point
The Belgium game is the only game I've actually bothered watching in its entirety so far apart from England's. If it's not Chelsea playing thesedays, I just struggle to summon up any interest. Wasn't the best of games though.
Shame Nigeria were so poor the other night. We really could do with Mikel and Moses putting in some decent performances to tempt someone to take them off our hands!
Must admit, I'm beginning to turn off Lukaku a bit. He (or his agent) appears to be touting around for offers. If reports are to be believed, he's not interested in returning to Chelsea unless it's as our number one striking option. Of course, you can't believe everything you read in the media, but it might explain why Jose appears to be quite chilled out about losing him.
If we can get a decent price for Lukaku, I think Mandzukic would be a great signing as back up to Costa. He's been happy enough at Bayern without having a permanent place, it's only the imminent signing of Lewandowski that makes his position untenable. He also has one of the most accurate shots to goals conversion rates in Europe, better than Messi ! That alone would make him a welcome change from our strikers in the past few seasons.
He is 2 or 3 years playing week in and week out at a decent level playing club from being good enough to be a Chelsea starter.
Yes he will be a regular goal scorer during those games and the hype over him will continue but it's when the high pressure games come along that we will see where his true level at the moment is.
Best bit today is seeing all the games kicking off at 3pm on a saturday as it should be, Yes its not for long and Sky and BT will soon ruin it but for a little while things are right.
Mr Fixture Computer has not been that bad to us. October not a good month for us but thats about it. Would perfer a different set of games coming to the end to the end of season for us but its not a major problem
F'knows. Spain play the same way every match for a few years then act surprised when people find them out. Happened to Arsenal, now happening to Barca as well. Hard to judge Costa in this team.
Snails move faster.
Oil tankers turn quicker.
He couldn't trap a medicine ball if his life depended on it.
He's the most overrated, overhyped, massively overpriced player i have ever seen!
Imho, Willian is an extremely ordinary Europa League level player, but at least i can see what he does.
It will be an insult to Costa for the club to pull out of the deal now, but it's their money and they should not go and piss yet another shedload up the wall on yet another useless striker!
However long it takes, they should bide their time until they can find a quality striker who will improve the team.
Anyone but this donkey!
Yes because we should ignore a seasons worth of scouting due to two games playing for a poor team with little or no pace
A season worth of scouting, my arse!
We are only interested because of the number of goals he scored in the Spanish league,
Sheva was signed because of his past.
Torres was singed because of his past, though he was stll young enough to have returned to his peak, unlike Sheva.
Apart from Drogba, we have a history of making bigtime mistakes with strikers.
Costa will be another one, if we are mad enough to still go ahead and sign him.
It's difficult to say. The way Spain played didn't suit Costa, and the way Costa plays doesn't suit Spain..not at the moment anyway.
I couldn't understand Del Bosque at all, his selections, his set-up, his tactics..the players looked confused right from the start against the Netherlands.
I think we can forget how any of the Spanish team played in those two games, few of them come out of it with much credit anyway. It's back to the drawing board for Spain as a team, but they haven't all become bad players overnight.
I'm not crazy about Costa, but I'm fairly confident he'll get us goals. He's not the exciting type who will leave fans drooling, but we were supposed to getting that when we bought Torres. I think we've just got ourselves an honest goal scorer who should find the net quite regularly.
It's difficult to say. The way Spain played didn't suit Costa, and the way Costa plays doesn't suit Spain..not at the moment anyway.
I couldn't understand Del Bosque at all, his selections, his set-up, his tactics..the players looked confused right from the start against the Netherlands.
I think we can forget how any of the Spanish team played in those two games, few of them come out of it with much credit anyway. It's back to the drawing board for Spain as a team, but they haven't all become bad players overnight.
I'm not crazy about Costa, but I'm fairly confident he'll get us goals. He's not the exciting type who will leave fans drooling, but we were supposed to getting that when we bought Torres. I think we've just got ourselves an honest goal scorer who should find the net quite regularly.
Costa is a striker who gets his goals from inside the box and Spain play outside the box. We have a number or players with speed where as Spain are about as slow as you can get.
Anyone could have seen Spain's performance's coming.
Yep I agree with what type of player he is, he will put that little round object into the big netting thing at the end of the pitch and that's what he has been bought for.
For drooling purposes I suggest watching Penny Dreadful Billie Pipper and Eva Green are both naked quite regularly
A season worth of scouting, my arse!
We are only interested because of the number of goals he scored in the Spanish league,
Sheva was signed because of his past.
Torres was singed because of his past, though he was stll young enough to have returned to his peak, unlike Sheva.
Apart from Drogba, we have a history of making bigtime mistakes with strikers.
Costa will be another one, if we are mad enough to still go ahead and sign him.
Sheva was signed by the guy who works in the post-room or some random
Torries was logical signing but did not come off due to a number of different reasons (medical,dressing room and board-room issues amongst them).
Costa is more likely come from the football managment side of the business (and we all know what a fan of our current management you are).
He was a reasonable priced player (who wont lose that much value), one we could get quickly and easy and is one of the best box scorers around at the moment (which is the role we was recruting for). The sooner we get all our business done the better. After the World Cup PSG,City and Utd and Barca and Real will all be getting out much bigger cheque books then us buying the lastest fad. Everyone of our signings (and players let go) makes sense from a business point of view and from a football point of view. Yes they might not work out BUT the odds are in our favour
The only reason he dropped Casillas is because he knew in a couple of years he would be back at Chelsea and buying Costa and wanted him to have as much as rest during the Summer as possible.
This man is the devil and will bring the end of Football. He has wreaked Spain's World Cup dream just for his own glory
Comments
Was he to blame for the dire performance of the rest of the team as well ? Ramos, Piqué, Alonso, Jordi Alba..even Azpil wasn't his usual reliable self.
I think 5-1 was a freakish result, but Spain are a team in decline..simple as that.
Thats the GK position sorted for 10 years then!
edit:
also, Toni Kroos may be joining us according to the press.
That would be quite an attacking midfield.
Why ? I can't see the point to be honest. We just seem to be going for anyone who Man Utd shows an interest in. Kroos is a good player, but doesn't offer us anything that we don't already possess..several times over.
I'd like to hear a bit more about our plans for some of the loan players this season. Chalobah and Piazon, especially.
If we can get a decent price for Lukaku, I think Mandzukic would be a great signing as back up to Costa. He's been happy enough at Bayern without having a permanent place, it's only the imminent signing of Lewandowski that makes his position untenable. He also has one of the most accurate shots to goals conversion rates in Europe, better than Messi ! That alone would make him a welcome change from our strikers in the past few seasons.
Yes he is a very good player but not quite at the level needed for a title winning team. Just because we don't have strikers that can get goals doesn't mean we should give him a chance. He is bench player for a team with our agenda.
Last season with Torries,Ba,Eto'o he was always going to be 4th choice so loaning him out was the only option. This season with Eto'o gone and maybe more to go he could be 3rd choice, Its in his hands. He is only young and if he is willing to bide his time then in a couple of years he could be first choice striker at one of the biggest clubs in Europe or he could go for a move now but unless it was Real,Barca,Utd I don't see the point
I hope Hazard has a fantastic WC.
We're 'looking' at expanding Stamford Bridge again.
Shame Nigeria were so poor the other night. We really could do with Mikel and Moses putting in some decent performances to tempt someone to take them off our hands!
How did Atsu look for Ghana?
Ramires was awful for Brazil last night. Oscar pretty anonymous, too.
Plus he was hopeless yesterday & subbed.
Yes he will be a regular goal scorer during those games and the hype over him will continue but it's when the high pressure games come along that we will see where his true level at the moment is.
We get the trips to Everton, Man City, Liverpool and Man U over and done with quite early in the season too.
Sat Aug 16 Burnley - Away
Sat Aug 23 Leicester City - Home
Sat Aug 30 Everton - A
Sat Sep 13 Swansea City - H
Sat Sep 20 Manchester City - A
Sat Sep 27 Aston Villa - H
Sat Oct 4 Arsenal - H
Sat Oct 18 Crystal Palace - A
Sat Oct 25 Manchester United - A
Sat Nov 1 Queens Park Rangers - H
Sat Nov 8 Liverpool - A
Sat Nov 22 West Bromwich Albion - H
Sat Nov 29 Sunderland - A
Wed Dec 3 Tottenham Hotspur - H
Sat Dec 6 Newcastle United - A
Sat Dec 13 Hull City - H
Sat Dec 20 Stoke City - A
Fri Dec 26 West Ham United - H
Sun Dec 28 Southampton - A
Thu Jan 1 Tottenham Hotspur - A
Sat Jan 10 Newcastle United - H
Sat Jan 17 Swansea City - A
Sat Jan 31 Manchester City - H
Sat Feb 7 Aston Villa - A
Wed Feb 11 Everton - H
Sat Feb 21 Burnley - H
Sat Feb 28 Leicester City - A
Tue Mar 3 West Ham United - A
Sat Mar 14 Southampton - H
Sat Mar 21 Hull City - A
Sat Apr 4 Stoke City - H
Sat Apr 11 Queens Park Rangers - A
Sat Apr 18 Manchester United - H
Sat Apr 25 Arsenal - A
Sat May 2 Crystal Palace - H
Sat May 9 Liverpool - H
Sat May 16 West Bromwich Albion - A
Sun May 24 Sunderland - H
Mr Fixture Computer has not been that bad to us. October not a good month for us but thats about it. Would perfer a different set of games coming to the end to the end of season for us but its not a major problem
Should we change our minds?
Yes because we should ignore a seasons worth of scouting due to two games playing for a poor team with little or no pace
Why has it taken until now to ask that question?
Snails move faster.
Oil tankers turn quicker.
He couldn't trap a medicine ball if his life depended on it.
He's the most overrated, overhyped, massively overpriced player i have ever seen!
Imho, Willian is an extremely ordinary Europa League level player, but at least i can see what he does.
It will be an insult to Costa for the club to pull out of the deal now, but it's their money and they should not go and piss yet another shedload up the wall on yet another useless striker!
However long it takes, they should bide their time until they can find a quality striker who will improve the team.
Anyone but this donkey!
A season worth of scouting, my arse!
We are only interested because of the number of goals he scored in the Spanish league,
Sheva was signed because of his past.
Torres was singed because of his past, though he was stll young enough to have returned to his peak, unlike Sheva.
Apart from Drogba, we have a history of making bigtime mistakes with strikers.
Costa will be another one, if we are mad enough to still go ahead and sign him.
It's difficult to say. The way Spain played didn't suit Costa, and the way Costa plays doesn't suit Spain..not at the moment anyway.
I couldn't understand Del Bosque at all, his selections, his set-up, his tactics..the players looked confused right from the start against the Netherlands.
I think we can forget how any of the Spanish team played in those two games, few of them come out of it with much credit anyway. It's back to the drawing board for Spain as a team, but they haven't all become bad players overnight.
I'm not crazy about Costa, but I'm fairly confident he'll get us goals. He's not the exciting type who will leave fans drooling, but we were supposed to getting that when we bought Torres. I think we've just got ourselves an honest goal scorer who should find the net quite regularly.
Costa is a striker who gets his goals from inside the box and Spain play outside the box. We have a number or players with speed where as Spain are about as slow as you can get.
Anyone could have seen Spain's performance's coming.
Yep I agree with what type of player he is, he will put that little round object into the big netting thing at the end of the pitch and that's what he has been bought for.
For drooling purposes I suggest watching Penny Dreadful Billie Pipper and Eva Green are both naked quite regularly
Sheva was signed by the guy who works in the post-room or some random
Torries was logical signing but did not come off due to a number of different reasons (medical,dressing room and board-room issues amongst them).
Costa is more likely come from the football managment side of the business (and we all know what a fan of our current management you are).
He was a reasonable priced player (who wont lose that much value), one we could get quickly and easy and is one of the best box scorers around at the moment (which is the role we was recruting for). The sooner we get all our business done the better. After the World Cup PSG,City and Utd and Barca and Real will all be getting out much bigger cheque books then us buying the lastest fad. Everyone of our signings (and players let go) makes sense from a business point of view and from a football point of view. Yes they might not work out BUT the odds are in our favour
The only reason he dropped Casillas is because he knew in a couple of years he would be back at Chelsea and buying Costa and wanted him to have as much as rest during the Summer as possible.
This man is the devil and will bring the end of Football. He has wreaked Spain's World Cup dream just for his own glory