₦airaland Forum

We're being overrun in the middle.

It's actually a 352, with James Barkley mount in the midfield and Saul at lwb. Hmm.

popizaino:
Barkley has already impress me with just few touches.

Likewise. He's on point so far.

Nice one Werner.

AnfieldFan:
No be laughing matter naaa...E get why I ask

What of them?

The boss is present today. Hope it motivates this 2nd team.

Enugurangers:
One can get angry reading stories like this:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10278121/A-black-couple-erased-home-value-went-nearly-500-000.html

Black couple SUE real estate agency after their Bay Area home was valued at just $995,000 - but $1.42m when they removed all photos and asked a white friend to pose as its owner for viewing with second expert.

The couple bought their home in 2016 for around $890,000 but was valued at only $995,000 despite spending $400,000 on renovations.

When their white friend posed as the owner, it went up in value to $1,482,000 - almost $500,000 more.

Their friend even put photos in their home to make it appear that she lived there in a process dubbed 'whitewashing'.

This is shocking.

Too many changes. It's unlikely we start strong.

AnfieldFan:
Asides Madrid, which other club would you say gives him stronger claims?

Bayern, barca, Madrid and juve to an extent.
These are clubs that usually guarantee trophies. So, with that stat and the trophy to go with it in these establishment clubs, he would be a shoo in for the balondor.

Seems we'll finally be wearing our champions league 3rd kit today. I like it.

Ibime:
Salah is already on 20 goals, season never reach halfway. 5 years in a row of hitting at least 20 goals

If he was at a bigger club, he might have stronger balondor claims. This guy is turning out to be the greatest African player ever. I hopes he drops Sha, I can't be wishing our rival well.

Thecassanova:
No one will watch Saul & RLC midfield display & not choose Kovacic. I dey long throat for Benz no mean say I no go drive my Toyota.

You're correct.
Our title challenge this season does rest upon the fitness of this trio.

timay1:
Well deserved. Chelsea have invested va lot in their women's team and they deserve the success.


The Useless fools called Glazers at Man united low key hate the women's team. May be they are low-key misogynistic against women's sports, who knows. Their pattern of behavior suggested it.

When they first bought Man united, the first thing they did was disband the women's team, giving stupid excuse.
They then brought it back because of pressure from FA and other stakeholders accusing them that the most successful team in England doesn't have a women's team. They now brought it back for PR sake, without properly funding it, even though it won't cost them too much money to do so , including their precious dividend.

Yeah, united's women team are still behind and have a lot of catching up to do but I believe they will catch up eventually.
Also, the women's game seen to picking up steam every year.
More and more people are beginning to pick interest in women's football. My guess is that in 10 years, women's football will become bigger than some sports in the world.

Our women with Marina.

The most successful class of our academy. Producing many 1st team starters. Rice, mount, chalobah, Reece, lamptey etc.
It has to be said though that our current class is shambolic. Standards have recently fallen in our academy. They are no longer shinhing bright.

OJURONGBE1:
Don't play the victim card.
You started this subtle jabs.

Sense is very farrr from this one. Shift make I see road. Go learn how to read.

Ibime:
You always type without adding anything of substance, no understanding of midfield work or tactical insight, just repeating platitudes and falsehoods about Jorginho being a good playmaker when stats show otherwise, pointing at what people said about him, and constantly repeating falsehoods. How is Jorginho crucial to 3 successful systems? Jorginho was the weakness of Sarri and Lampard systems who has never been successful until Tuchel found a way to mollycuddle and cover his weaknesses with community defending while simultaneously scrapping his high possession style of football.
It is better you leave defence of Jorginho to those who know what they are talking about like User09 who can at least point out his strengths (which I highlighted). Your defences of him are nothing but empty chest beating with no tactical or technical insight. Your head is vacant.

I think it's best I don't respond so that you don't get more emotional along the line. When it comes to jorginho, you've lost all Sense of rationale. You have become irascible once you see or hear his name.
You cannot be taking a different stance from professionals, some of whom went to university to study football: encompassing the tactical systems, psychology, physiology etc.
These people are experts in their Fields, they live and breathe football and they have a very high commendation and analysis of this player. I defer to these experts on their opinion of this footballer, but of course, an accountant who sits on his sofa to watch football on TV would be arrogant enough to think he knows all it takes to decode a player counter to what the experts have said.

As I said, no need for further argy-bargy between us on this issue lest it gets further frenzied.

Funniest thing I've seen today.

airmark:
Lost my mother 2 weeks ago, soon be back. Thanks bro.

Sorry bro. Take heart and be strong. It's never easy getting over such a loss.

Oasis007:
.
"The same happened to Jürgen [Klopp] when he came in the middle of the season and they finished eighth or ninth. Liverpool had a lot of injuries in that time - muscle injuries - because they were not used to that kind of training."

This rangnick man just voiced out what I think is happening to our players. New training techniques that the players are not used to.
Hopefully they adapt completely, soon. all these muscle injuries are a nightmare for us.

AntiChristian:
So God left the world with sin till Jesus came sacrifice himself?

So all those destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, flood of Noah should have been avoided if your Jesus came earlier?

Why the need for all those killings supported by God in the old testament when Jesus could have prevented them by coming earlier?

Why would God use a different syllabus of salvation in the old testament and then change it in the new testament?

What fairness do we have inheriting sins from our father? Shouldn't all man bear his cross?

Sometimes, you sound like an atheist. Rational in deconstructing the myths in Christianity. Surprised to see you're a Muslim. Both sides of the same coin.

Ibime:
As for Lukaku, he is still on the comeback from a one month layoff. Playing 10 mins here and there. You can't expect a big body striker to be back in rhythm that quickly from a layoff. Most folks here aren't old enough to remember how long it took Drogba to look decent after injury layoff under Scolari, talkless of Lukaku playing 10 mins here and there. Scolari season, Drogba hit 5 goals in 24 matches, his belly was protruding, his touch was semi-professional and his movement was dire. It took till April for Drogba to start looking sharp again. I'm sure Lukaku will be scoring again shortly

You are absolutely spot on here, I do believe that people that people are being too rash on Lukaku. There is a fantastic scorer in there.

AnfieldFan:
I loved Napoli Jorginho, knew his deficiencies but I always believed he would outgrow them or something.
But that's were it ends, Jorginho is simply a limited player. From the national team to clubside, a DM who isn't press resistant is simply a disaster and it's started happening already...
Against Westham in the first half, a commentator admonished Westhampton to flood players around Jorginho because despite being a good player, he always panicks when pressed... teams are going to forego the 'ohh, it's Chelsea we are playing mentality,we have to respect them' and go for the press because Jorgs is limited, having so many defenders isn't going to help.

@anfieldfan, the bolded are the 2 biggest misconceptions you have allowed jorginho critics to fill your head with. That is simply not true.

As to your 1st point, when coaches double up on a player, it's not only because they sense weakness per say in the player, it's actually the opposite many at times. It is usually because they sense the player as the biggest threat to their team. Naturally, with jorginho being the fulcrum of our structure, it makes sense for teams to target him to create that disconnect between the attack and defence and interrupt the transitions.
But what you can never say is that jorginho panicks when pressed because we have seen jorginho beat the press successfully numerous times. It is on that basis we usually have far more possession and stability in our game. Rarely are we the ones pressured.
Don't let his staunchly biased critics cloud your judgement on this player.
Funny enough, I'm not even jorginho's biggest fan. Rarely do I ever fan players. I'm just backed into a corner to constantly defend this often misunderstood player. His type of players are usually wrongfully scapegoated because people can't "see" their influence. All they're seeing is short passes not knowing that he's superbly beating or bypassing a press.

And just like defenders, it's very easy to scapegoat him. A defender might have a very high performance in a match, winning duels, clearances,intercepting balls or tackling but all these things are thrown out the window immediately he makes "that" high profile error. This is what jorginho has to suffer. One or two errors wipe away all the positive contributions made. It's football.

Ibime:
Same way Guardiola went all out to sign Chygrinsky, Benjamin Mendy, Alex Hleb, Gabriel Jesus, Claudio Bravo, Nathan Ake etc. Guardiola is lucky he dodged that bullet to sign Rodri, a player who can turn on the ball and never gets dominated, although he is still slow. Better to have a player that can dominate though slow than one who always gets dominated by other midfield playmakers and still slow, lean and weak.

That's how Rodri came on in 69th minute and still completed 50% more passes than belle-face who played 120 minutes in the last Euros. Let's not talk about last time they faced in September.

Okay, let me get this straight, you in your arrogant little mind, a nobody in football thinks guardiola, Mourinho, tuchel, Sarri and a lot of other top football minds, both players,coaches and pundits in the game are wrong about this player, because YOU said so.
Wow!! Just wow!! The guts and arrogance. For your mind to even fathom that, you are trying to say that a player who the best in the best recognize as a top player is bad because YOU said so. I won't even argue with you again on this.
A player who has already shown his pedigree. Crucial to 3 successful systems in the past few years.
There is nothing you and I can say on this that will change anything after all, you will keep seeing him play in our club and you will only continue to grieve. You will sulk and sulk and sulk. Whenever we win, you will credit the win to others and when we lose, you will well up with tears in your eyes with your fangs out lamenting and scapegoating one of the best midfielders in the world. And on and on and on that aimless cycle will go while i relax and enjoy our games.

Maximilan:
What exactly does this have to do with making school boy errors though for his age and experience, plenty words yet so minute points

So there is no other player with "age" and "experience" who have ever made mistakes right??

Let me ask you this, how would you rate a player who makes 50 passes in a game with a 92% success rate and about 7 key passes but makes 2 bad passes out of that 50. How do you rate that player?

Ibime:
Don't mind Donjazet. Anytime you point out factual deficiencies in belle-face game, he will go and pull old Guardiola quote. He even went to quote match Guardiola flogged Napoli 4-2. That's how Guardiola likes it, praising poor man's version of his teams that will bend over for råping. Same Guardiola exploited Jogginghoe jogging to flog Chelsea 6-0 few months after making that quote.

Guardiola also praised Nathan Redmond to high heavens. Let's go sign him.

Make no mistake, guardiola did not only praise him, guardiola went all out to get him. He was close to signing until Sarri stepped in. Don't make it look like it was just one of those professional courtesy things.
You are now obsessed with this player. Desperate to capitalize on any mistake he makes as if there is any player on the planet who will never make mistakes or who will forever deliver 10 out of 10 performances every day.

Jorginho is an excellent midfielder. The world of football knows this. You really do enjoy fighting a losing battle. Don't you?

Of course as expected, the haters would come out with claws and fangs bared out ready to attack because his foe has made 2 high profile mistakes, eradicating every single positive stability he has brought the team. Maybe Mendy haters would also come out as this point too to point at how they always suspected he was a below average keeper.

Let's pretend we did not hear tuchel say jorginho has been playing with pain the last few matches.
Let's pretend that even the best players do not go through a rough patch every once in a while,case in point kane, Messi, Pogba etc.
Of course, haters of players would always wish these players fail even if it's to the detriment of their teams.

Well jorginho has already proven a thousand times what he could do. He can only continue to do his talking on the pitch.
What he can do has never been in doubt to those who do master the game.
A reminder of what the best in the game have to say about this player.

Bimffo:
After that loss, you could have just concluded that we were already in 3rd..

Now, City is top in December. You don't allow City to go top in December. To catch them now will be a very big big problem..

They will drop points, but we will also drop stupid points.

Longest time, you've been very scarce around here.

popizaino:
Depth of incompetence is the squad depth people claim we have earlier in the season.

You just keep bleating since. Calm down n you're too emotional at the moment.

How many teams will continue performing at their peak with these many injury interruptions of KEY players.
Earlier in the season, we were riding on luck and tuchels tactical brilliance to attain results when we had these injuries and now the chicken has come home to roost and the injuries are still piling up.

We've been the most injury plagued squad this season. We've had 19 injuries this season. Some will recover and relapse, while some come back and another player injures. Today Alonso and jorginho have been added.
Kante, kovacic, chillwell, havertz, Lukaku, mount, jorginho, pulisic, azpi, chalobah, Werner, ziyech etc. All injured at one point or the other.
Let's hope for the best, not blaming individuals here and there.

swiz123:
Can we honestly beat our chest that we can use Lukaku to compete against the best in the UCL.

Using Lukaku as a target man against a big team is one of the surest ways to failure.

I genuinely believe that it's too early for this. I want to think that this individual has earned the benefit of doubt. He went on a goal streak the moment he came in, scoring 4 goals consecutively. Some of them created out of nothing.
We have to see him perform over an extended period of time before passing judgement on him.

I staunchly believe we have one of the best striker in our hands. Every striker needs a period of time in the team to form an understanding and connection with those around him. Learning their strengths.

It's too early to start calling him a flop after he's just returned from an injury.