₦airaland Forum

BlueDiva: Is it confirmed it is for one year?
Or mere speculations?

Not official yet.

So RDM gets a "one-year contract" after winning the CL and the FA Cup against all odds.


I hope this puts to bed finally the argument of all these years what Roman demands from his manager.

dayokanu: Torres has those in bold, thy actually gave him 2 sumptuous passes today and he squandered everything

Just the same way he wasted everything in South Africa and they had to bench his asss for the team to win

The point Coogar is making is that maybe he (Torres) will score the next 2 chances which negates the ones he missed.

Ibime: At least we thank God that Torres is back to his physical best. His pace continues to look good, something he seemed to have lost in his first few months of Chelsea.

However what the game highlights is the riskiness of building your team around a player so mentally weak, especially when you are commiting your whole style of play to create the kinda opportunities he thrives on, foregoing other avenues which have worked well for us, such as having a big target man who can hold up play and set up the midfield, or crosses from the fullbacks, or knockdowns from a strong centre-forward. There was no better example of "switchback" than the passes Spain gave Torres today.

You and this your yeye "switchback" you keep spreading about.
You are the only Chelsea fan I know that knows about this fictitious system.

What a race by Lewis. Literally gained a second per lap until he passed Vettel and Alonso.

Fernando just made me shake my head.
I bet someone up there is probably thinking "Alright that's it . . we cut our losses"

I still have to continue to believe. £50m investment is not small money.

Beaf: I don't see what a public asset declaration will do for the anti-corruption battle in Nigeria.

Then you need to look more.

ritchboy: Of course Marin, Hazard and Hulk won't win you any midfield battles because they are not midfielders. The team that wins the midfield battle dictates possession. The team that surrenders possession can only play up to a certain level("low/medium blocks" [c] AVB) before they get slaughtered by more skilled opposition. So I'm wondering how Hulk and Hazard will turn Miereles/Ramires to Busquets/Xavi(possession kings) that afford you the luxury of "never having to defend as deep as before". How will Hazard and Hulk help you play higher up the field @ Nou Camp, Allianz Arena or The Emirates?

Dude. . Football does not work "only on a set of principles".

Chelsea can line up a very decent midfield in a combination of Mikel and Lamps in a double pivot and Mata in the hole.
This is one of the best midfield 3 in the PL.

However, one of the reasons Chelsea had to defend deep against the opposition mentioned is because almost always broke down on the forward line. With Drogba, Malouda, Kalou, Ramires, there was not enough quality in ball retention. They lost the ball more often and it's only a matter of time before midfield is overrun.

With the inclusion of Marin, Hulk, Hazard and Mata in the hole we suddenly have an att mid/forward line that could cause problems.
Hazard and Marin are players that can pick up the ball and walk into the opposition half.
Opposition knows this and the plan will be to double on these players and that's where it changes.

When two players on the flanks in certain "team A" need to be doubled on, then the opposition suddenly has two midfield players with more work to do on the flanks in addition to dominating possession. Because they know this team has a forward line dangerous not just on the break but even with posssession, they become less inventive with passes. This will cause them to push back a little in preparation for defensive cover. The outcome is "Team A" also has less pressure and allowing their midfielders to get on the ball more. This is an example of how a mobile and threatening forward line can help a team win midfield battles.

A classic example of this is Bayern V Chelsea, Bayern did not win the midfield battle because they typically have a better midfield than Chelsea. They did because they had threatening forward players in Ribery and Robben.

I am not claiming that Chelsea will win all the battles in midfield but we can even it and the hence statement, Hulk, Marin, Hazard and Mata will mean Chelsea doesn't need to defend as deep. However, to you, the midfield battles are only won in midfield. This is a dynamic game and not based on only a set of principles.

philip0906:
what/How much will boko haram offer 4 d capture of GEJ? 10 rats maybe

3 ants.

coogar: how many times have arsenal beaten stoke in the premier league?
that's not isolated....that particular fixture is a pain in the
neck for wenger particularly at the britannia stadium.

how many of the big teams won @ the britannia this season? none!
that is not isolated or coincidental. the resilent teams are very
difficult to beat when they set their stall to be unbeaten.

It is isolated because it is insufficient and inconsistent to have any reasonable success with.
It is sufficient to win a handful of games but that's just about it.

I have challenged you to find 2,3,5 teams who have worked their way to UCL success without playing good football.


That said, I do not want to digress further from the focal point. The issue is about "winning midfield battles".
Ritchboy disagrees with me that Chelsea will not need to defend as deep with the signings of Hazard, Marin, Hulk and Mata. He says this is because they cannot win midfield battles.

I say he is wrong because what we do with the ball when we have it is what matters. All the examples I gave was to back up my point.

coogar: how come these resilent teams batter arsenal fc(the closest team to barcelona)
everyday of the week? how did chelsea manage to eliminate barcelona over 2 legs?
for every highly technical team that has beaten the mechanical one, i can bring out
5 mechanical teams that have beaten the artistes of the game. stop isolating games
like stoke/valencia....bilbao/man utd!

inter won the champions league in 2010 destroying teams of artistes like barcelona and bayern!

On the contrary, you are the one isolating games.
Arsenal have finished at least fourth over the past 7 seasons. That's a testament to walking over these resilient teams more times than not. These scenarios you mention are isolated.

Inter, Chelsea, are "the isolated events". Mention 2, 3, 5, teams in recent memory who have won the CL not playing good football?

ritchboy: Ibime is the only nucca making brain here. . .

I see Nateevs is still living in la la land thinking signing Hazard/Hulk/Marin means Chelsea "will never need to defend as deep as we did" forgetting teams with better offensive units(i.e Man City) still come to the Emirates and camp in their 6-yard box. Abi how will Hulk and Hazard help you win midfield battle against Song-Arteta-Wilshere

Coogar also thinks Rivaldo, Kaka and Figo aren't skilful

Dude it's all about the setup. Suckers for English football don't see football any other way.
The obsession with winning 50-50s, midfield battles, defending deep, makes you think football is science.

Do Iniesta, Xavi, Busquets, Sergio, Alcantara look like midfielders who "can win midfield battles" ?
But they win battles except in a way unfamiliar to many. They win the midfield battle "attacking".

Hell Atletic Bilbao won the midfield battles over two legs against United.
Valencia destroyed supposedly one of the most resilient teams in the PL - Stoke.
These guys are not built like tanks, yet they run English teams to the ground in midfield.

Football is an art and there are more than one way to reach your goal.
While many believe that sliding tackles and power play is the way to win midfield battles, there are others who believe possession and zonal pressing, even with seemingly little and weak footballers, is the way to win it.

My point is, whether Hulk, Hazard, Mata and Marin can win midfield battles is heavily dependent on the system employed by the manager not their size or their strength.


I also like how you make Wilshere, Arteta, Song look like the best discovery ever.
Let the season begin.

Ibime: This view will go very far.

The world is littered with players who thought they were too skillful, neglected to learn how to work for the team and never achieved their potential. Berbatov and Riquelme are two of such players, and your boy Ganso is likely to go the same way. Whenever Manure has a big game, Fergie will drop Berba, and just like Mata shoulda been dropped by RDM against Barca if not for the political ramifications of such act.

The likes of Mata and Hazard will come up against umpteen players and teams that will outskill and dominate them where simply waiting for their team to do their work and recycle possession to them will not cut it. Whether playing against Yaya Toure, David Silva, Fabregas, Xavi, Iniesta, Ribery, Robben or a hundred other players I could name, there will always be matches where if they do not work within tactical instruction, they become liabilities.

Why should Messi be strait-jacketed when any manager can guarantee within 98% certainty that he will outskill any of his opponents?

Mata and Hazard may not even be able to outskill some Athletic Bilbao and Montpellier boys who may dominate them from time to time talkless of the top guns. Any player that throughout his football development forgot to develop all aspects of his game, thinking he would always be the best player on the pitch and dominate every game is doing something seriously wrong. Nani has proven in this regard that he can handle all situations as the opposition full-back is strictly Nani's responsibility, not like Hazard and Mata who have spent their whole careers passing on opposing full-backs for their midfielders to mark for them.

Some of those statements came across as though it's the first time Mata played against Messi and his Barca mates and as though Mata never played against Bilbao boys. It may be worth, for the purpose of proper analytical review of Mata to find a DVD of how he played against them.

There was no need for Mata to sit back and chase. Because at Valencia, there were very skillful players and he definitely will not have been a liability against them.


A Chelsea side with Hazard, Mata, Hulk, Marin will never need to defend as deep as we did.

--------------------------------------------------

Like I said Hazard is 21 and still has a lot of time to develop the physical side of his game.
Also, Mata just completed his first season in the PL.
For someone who experiencing a stark difference in football culture, I think he's done very well.

Nani was not chasing wingers and attacking full backs when he joined United.
Infact, some United fans still believe Nani isn't that tactically flexible.

coogar: what flair has rivaldo and kaka got in comparison to your nani,
iniesta, messi or ozil?

Are you serious Coogar?

[quote author=coogar][/quote]I withdraw that statement as Cannavaro works against that assertion.


That said, I sincerely hope that you are not suggesting that those other players were not insanely skillful.
Heck you even had Rivaldo, Kaka in there.

Ibime: Mata was like Hazard, shining all over the place, floating where he wanted. When RDM put him in the same tactical strait-jacket on the wing that Nani has been playing all his life, Mata disappeared and was Chelseas worst player in the latter stages of the Champions League, simply cos he lacked the physicality to be as tactically flexible as someone like Nani is.

This point of view can only go so far.
Put Messi in a tactical straight-jacket and there's every possibility he'll look worse than Ramires.
That doesn't mean he's not 20 times the player Ramires is.

coogar: how skilled is pippo inzaghi or toto schillaci?

Hence the word "most".
There's never been a WPOTY who is just "effective". .

Ibime: Its good to differentiate effectiveness from skill.

Henry is effective and tactically flexible because he has a good physical quality called speed.

The reason Valencia fits better into Utd's 4-4-2 than Hazard would is because he has immense physicality, can run flank up and down, and gives no headache to a manager tactically, as he will handle right wing both offensive and defensive, even attack from right-back if he has to. Ashley Cole never ever crossed the half-way line against Valencia and that tells me more of his effectiveness than a thousand step-overs. United were always able to pin Chelsea left-flank in their half, which allowed United to play most of the footie in Chelsea half. . . all thanks to Valencia. This is something a million tricks and flicks from Hazard could never do. . . give your team the TACTICAL ADVANTAGE.

The reason I would always prefer Nani to Hazard even in a 4-3-3 is the same. Nani has the skill, but also the physicallity to handle to whole wing by himself, offensively and defensively. He gives you the option to play tippy-tappy, swift counter-attack or cagey defensive football. Hazard cannot meet at least one and a half of these criteria. Whether you want to play your 4-3-3 as a 4-5-1 or 4-2-3-1, Nani would always give a coach more tactical options than Hazard.

I am a big fan of Nani as well. One thing we must not forget though is that Nani is 25 and Hazard is 21.

The Hazard you saw in Lille was the cornerstone of the team. Valencia isn't and neither is Nani to United.
For that reason, tactical discipline is easy to surmount.

At Lille, it all went through Hazard, at least for the last two seasons.
He popped up everywhere, which meant that more often than not, he wasn't playing as an out and out winger.
One plus to that is that, while at it, Hazard has developed the ability to play across the front.
Something Valencia and Nani will probably never learn to do.

I won't make any conclusions on who's better for now. I don't and have never seen Hazard's skill-set as that of a pure winger.
I will wait till he settles in the league for over a season. Only then can we tell if he's heads and shoulders above the others.

That said, if Hazard lives up to his abilities, those players should not be mentioned in the same sentence with him.

coogar: but drogba won the champions league playing a central figure
in doing so....henry won it as a peripheral player for barcelona.

in the biggest stage, you can always count on drogba to deliver
the goods but more often than not, henry has choked in the face of
a quality opposition.

valencia is freaking effective. he has no leg-over to throw here and
there. defenders know what he wants to do but he still beats them to it.

Let's not get carried away. I didn't say less skillful players are not effective.
Rather, "the most" effective players in any era are/were the most skillful.

coogar: well, drogba has delivered more than henry at the biggest level.
henry is the king when it comes to wolves, sunderland and sheffield
united. drogba is the king when it comes to winning cup finals.

Well still very subjective.

331 goals and 171 assists V 228 goals and 71 assists say something different.

coogar: so drogba over joe cole?

Unfair comparison.
More like Drogba/Henry.

I wonder why so many people think that skillful, technical and flashy WILL EQUAL not effective.
I really do not know where it comes from.

The most effective footballers in world football are/were, apparently, the most skillful in their respective eras.

timbros: What makes Real Madrid the best team of the century? Brand of football or trophy haul? What make Jose Mourinho one of the best coach in the world? His brand of football or trophy haul?
How can u bag trophies if u dont win? Bros, winning is what every team wants. Winning brings trophies. Go ask Arsenal and Wenger...

It's funny that any time anyone brings up the topic of playing good football, many people confuse it with losing football. Like it's impossible to play good football and win. Straight away everyone's pointing at Arsenal. I don't get it.


On Fellaini

Andre Uweh: Good news. He is a good passer of the ball; ball winner on the air or floor, can retain possession and has good physical presence.
After watching him destroy Man U at Old Trafford last April, I was convinced that Ibime got it wrong all along.

While it helps for useful analysis, it's hardly adequate to draw up moments from a single 90-min game and draw conclusions on a player's "consistent ability".

Fellaini is not that midfielder that transitions play quickly to attack. A combative midfielder but not the midfielder for possession football, neither is he a midfielder for counter attacks.

ritchboy: ^^ Sharap Lateef!!!



What is there to understand from the above? That you'll take a player who "is 21 and has his best years ahead of him. He may or may not become a WPOTY", over a player who is ALREADY a WPOTY winner/perennial contender because the latter is "at the stage where declines begins. He will cost a bomb and will be more of a prima dona than any other player."? Nateevs, is your cranial cavity for beverage use only?

I also find it hilarious you are bringing up Ronaldo's transfer fee as a reason why you'd take Hazard(who didn't exactly come cheap) when the "choice" is clearly hypothetical. It's like i ask a Millwall fan if he'd rather have Messi or Sturridge on his team and he says "I'd take Sturridge cos Messi's wages/transfer fee would send the club into administration", LOL!

Ronaldo just had the best season of his career, still only 27, but Nateevs thinks decline is imminent.

Ronaldo is averaging 56 goals a season, but Nateevs is worried about his "prima donaness".

Nateevs, you are a phat phool!!

Context Ritchie. . . Context.
I will be the first to offer to drive Ronaldo to SB if it is about buying players.
However, the context is "rebuilding", not who I prefer as a player.

Do we have to explain to anyone the Ronaldo is already of WPOTY status? No!
However, wrt respect to "rebuilding" (which is where all this came from), it will be folly to buy a £28 year old for what? £80m? His wages are like 6 times that of Mata, and will perhaps not play for maybe 2 more years in the PL and we are already due for another buy. You cannot do that and call it rebuilding.

So again, with respect to rebuilding I will take Hazard over Ronaldo even though he (Hazard) may not ever reach WPOTY.
What is so difficult to understand?


I see how you conveniently leave out the all important statement that defined the context in my post.

nateevs: But Sagna is not Ronaldo. . . Unless you are trying to tell us something we don't know.
Last time I checked, rebuilding does not mean buying the world footballer of the year.
Hell, I'll take Hazard over Ronaldo. Having Ronaldo doesn't mean zilch. Having a team means much more.

Madrid have had Ronaldo for 3 seasons now, how many trophies have they won.

I wonder if you still remember that this is where it all began from.

ritchboy:
Interesting, considering the fact Sagna is still the best RB in the league by a mile. Ronaldo should be 28ish now, maybe you'd take a Dzagoev over him because he's younger and you're "rebranding"?
Are you Wenger in disguise?

debosky: This is completely different from the nonsense you said earlier - your earlier post implied Hazard would win you more trophies than Ronaldo, and that having Hazard gives you a team while Ronaldo does not. No self respecting bi-pedal mammal since the demise of the neandarthals would accept your previous comment as a product of a functioning brain.

I'll ascribe it egregious post to euphoria around Hazard's signing. Furthermore, this is the quickest recant I can recall in the history of Nateevs - in the past you'd have spent 4 pages trying to defend the nonsense.

It appears myself, DK, Chamotex and others' efforts have not been in vain over the past season.

You cannot confuse your failure to understand my post with a product of unrestrained euphoria over the signing of Hazard.
I wasn't and haven't even said a lot before and since the signing of Hazard.

My post did not in any way try to give Hazard any sort of footballing credence over Ronaldo.
It all emanated from a discussing of "rebuilding over buying" and Ritchie asked a question.

I gave an answer, which if understood as a follow up to my initial post, should not cause more rants.
However, I later discovered after reaching a larger screen that I left a window for troglodytes to explore.
Hence my second post. It's hardly an effort at recanting. If anything, I further explained what I meant.

Perhaps I could have said more at the time of my first reply to Ricthie, as I did it on the my phone and in a rush, the post however didn't deviate from the premise of my initial post. "Rebuilding and not just buying"

It's worse when they are all in the same room. Their comments are shocking.

proudly9ja: I had a strange dream last night that AW was fired (or he stepped down) as Arsenal Manager.

That's a really bad dream. We come against all lingering bad dreams.

4llerbuntu: for the record, i think kagawa is a better buy by a country mile. on attitude alone sef...

he ticks all the boxes, work ethic, ability, will surely play more than 1 position, WILL MAKE THE CLUB MONEY IN ASIA!!! WIn-WIn Situation


i just hope all these loudmouths will still be typing this their trash talk by december when the initial euphoria wears off and they realise its Fernandontscorres version 2 cant wait for the headlines and name changes then

i remember the kinda noise they were making when they bought torres for 50m. obviously then when you pointed out the idiocy of the move, you were a bad belle hater, 6 months later, coogar was the only one on NL still rooting for the guy

Hehehe. Hazard doesn't tick all the boxes right?
No work ethic, no ability and he won't sell shirts in asia.

Kagawa has a better attitude than Hazard and Kagawa is unable to be shocked by the reality of the PL right?

We almost always believe what we want to.
----------------------------------------------------

I won't get into the Hazard V Kagawa debate because he's one player I really love.
To however make insinuations that Hazard could be Torres part 2 and Kagawa not, I don't get where it's coming from.

dare2think: Battersea Power Station in London has been sold to a Malaysian company, beating a rival bid from Chelsea Football Club.

SP Setia and Sime Darby have bought the 39-acre (15 hectare) site on the south bank of the River Thames for £400m.

In a statement, joint administrators from Ernst and Young said it had entered into an exclusivity agreement with the company.

Chelsea was one of 15 bidders for the former power station.

Part of the winning application included plans to build a new London Underground station on the Northern Line.

Ouch!

timbros: I believe in RDM. Let Roman give him time, he will still deliver more goods. Whether he parks the bus or not, as long as he is bagging the 3points, we are okay.
And stop using that "luck" line...RDM deserves all the trophies. Luck only couldnt have seen him through Napoli second leg to Bayern or Birmingham reply to Liverpool.....He returned that winning mentaity to the team, forget his strategy

Forget his strategy!

What we need is total overhaul of societal values and a massive systemic change. Everyone seems to be doing a lot of work now because a plane crash has happened. The true state of things is how people work when all is peaceful.

2 months from now, no crashes. The airport, staff, planes, will all be back to doing what they know how to do. . . Nothing!
Nigeria is unfortunately a country where a crash has to happen often to remind people how not to do their jobs. From President to ordinary citizens.
It's a shame.

Beaf: What a dummy! Maybe you think the June 12 riots were a picnic where you could leisurely walk round and take pictures.
Do you even think camera's were as compact as they are now that you would have a camera on your neck while uprooting the barriers between lanes on Ikorodu Road? Yes, we uprooted the barriers and used them to block the road. Have you ever seen a picture of the June 12 riots? Those who were there will laugh at your suggestion, because it was nothing todays youth can imagine.

Dude, ask your people who were shivering under their beds while he-men were owning the streets just what it was like. lol!
Bro, throughout my youth, I was a student leader. There was no email or twitter in those days, we had to physically travel between uni's.
No be like now when una be coward.

If you were a student leader tell us who you led, what school and find someone to corroborate your claims. Else it never happened.
Propagandists like you how to hide in the shadows of "no technology in those days" and claim Jesus came back but we missed it. Now you are preaching to faceless profiles how you used to be important because you've finally found someone who pays for your deceitful voice.

Just stop abeg. Your reputation for being truthful on this forum is non existent.
Even you fear for your normal life, you can never reveal your identity.

We fought, we led, we cried. . . please man!