Jeremy Mathieu

[God Serena]

But...who exactly is better?

Vermaelen. Possibly. Who knows. Grimaldo. Adriano (Kind of 50/50 on that one though). Hell, probably even Roberto. Maybe if we're really desperate we could even use Godswil or Palencia.

We're running the clock down with Adriano,

Mathieu is older than Adriano and his smoking makes him quite a bit older than that, even. He'll be out of shape far sooner than Adriano will, as pathetic as that sounds.

Grimaldo looks to of burned bridges,

Sounds like petty bullshit to me, but that's pretty in line with Lucho's history as a manager. Poor Grimaldo and poor us.

so what else is there than (BBZ said) keep a pretty reliable performer like Mathieu in this mix?

His logic of using Mathieu at LB to keep him in the mix makes sense, but your argument of "There is nobody else" does not. He is an almost guaranteed screw up at LB. To the point that it is only safe to use him in instances where playing a handicapped grandmother as LB wouldn't ruin our chances, and in those scenarios we could use literally anyone, whether that be Adriano, Grimaldo, Roberto, or Great Aunt Sally.

I touched on this in either Verm or Bartra's thread -- having those 2 both in desperate need of minutes/confidence when they only get cameo roles and ultimately take up each others time is only hampering each other, it's doing neither the club nor those 2 any favors. At least if Mathieu plays LB, we can afford time & patience to Verm and Marc when the opportunities come up.

I can't honestly comprehend how people still think Bartra is even considered for a moment when it comes to Lucho's defensive decisions. He doesn't care not one bit if Bartra gets any minutes. Hell, he barely even cares if Vermaelen does. The club has shown it has no faith in Bartra and his development simply does not matter. Vermaelen is more often than not on the shelf injured and he's already on the wrong side of 30. When we need defensive reinforcements we won't look to them on the bench, we'll look to the transfer market. Just like the summer of 2014.

Our best pairing will obviously remain Pique and Mascherano (Ironic, since we spent all this money trying to shore up our defense and ended up winning the treble using mostly the same defense as usual) and they should start most games, but BBZ is right, we should give Mathieu a run out every now and then to keep him fresh. The notion that there is nobody else is something I disagree strongly with, and I will argue with you about it until Mathieu gets lung cancer.

 

[Kerrybai]

[MENTION=20420]God Serena[/MENTION] How do you his smoking will make him get out of shape sooner than Adriano? Can you tell me how many a day he smokes and then we can ask an expert and come to a sound conclusion. If you don't know how many he smokes then you are making unfair assumptions.

 

[God Serena]

[MENTION=20420]God Serena[/MENTION] How do you his smoking will make him get out of shape sooner than Adriano? Can you tell me how many a day he smokes and then we can ask an expert and come to a sound conclusion. If you don't know how many he smokes then you are making unfair assumptions.

Aside from the fact that he's older and obviously not much of a physical specimen, any amount of smoke will make you lose fitness faster than someone who doesn't smoke.

 

[Co0ter]

For the lack of better words, people are pulling these assumptions out of their asses. Mathieu is 32 already and he has shown no notable decrease in physical ability compared to last season. The guy is like 6'2 or 6'3 and is STILL faster than the vast majority of our team. I don't know about you, but despite the poor quality of a lot of his crosses last game, there was no reason to think he was being affected by his smoking. Shit, and that was as a left back....where he barely plays for us and requires a ton of running in our team...which for a 32 year old, he seemed to do just fine....that's not even considering he is really tall and big boned to begin with...which affects the stamina of any player, regardless of age.

His smoking has no affect on his ability to play as a CB for us, and he has proven very effective for us there...even Vermalean has when he's been healthy and got a game or two in a row under his belt.

I have no gripe with either of them. Are they long term solutions? Hell no, but we all knew that to begin with.

 

[Jamie Cal]

Vermaelen. Possibly. Who knows. Grimaldo. Adriano (Kind of 50/50 on that one though). Hell, probably even Roberto. Maybe if we're really desperate we could even use Godswil or Palencia.



Mathieu is older than Adriano and his smoking makes him quite a bit older than that, even. He'll be out of shape far sooner than Adriano will, as pathetic as that sounds.



Sounds like petty bullshit to me, but that's pretty in line with Lucho's history as a manager. Poor Grimaldo and poor us.



His logic of using Mathieu at LB to keep him in the mix makes sense, but your argument of "There is nobody else" does not. He is an almost guaranteed screw up at LB. To the point that it is only safe to use him in instances where playing a handicapped grandmother as LB wouldn't ruin our chances, and in those scenarios we could use literally anyone, whether that be Adriano, Grimaldo, Roberto, or Great Aunt Sally.



I can't honestly comprehend how people still think Bartra is even considered for a moment when it comes to Lucho's defensive decisions. He doesn't care not one bit if Bartra gets any minutes. Hell, he barely even cares if Vermaelen does. The club has shown it has no faith in Bartra and his development simply does not matter. Vermaelen is more often than not on the shelf injured and he's already on the wrong side of 30. When we need defensive reinforcements we won't look to them on the bench, we'll look to the transfer market. Just like the summer of 2014.

Our best pairing will obviously remain Pique and Mascherano (Ironic, since we spent all this money trying to shore up our defense and ended up winning the treble using mostly the same defense as usual) and they should start most games, but BBZ is right, we should give Mathieu a run out every now and then to keep him fresh. The notion that there is nobody else is something I disagree strongly with, and I will argue with you about it until Mathieu gets lung cancer.

You've missed the point on a few things:

1/ About Adriano/Mathieu -- it's not about age. Adriano's time is up because of ability and what he offers the team. The smoking jibe is cheap too. He's not meant to be here a decade, he was a quick fix for the transfer embargo and it's worked out pretty well.

2/ Listing b-players -- you do realize they don't even start there for a 3rd tier team battling relegation? Whatever you think of Mathieu, that's absurd and disrespectful.

3/ Blaming Lucho for Grimaldo -- why even bother having a manager then? We've known about Grimaldo for a long time, he was an obvious talent, but again, it's hard to defend a guy who disobeys the manager's orders. People complain about Samper not going on loan to Rayo, but when the opportunity arises for Grimaldo he refuses? I really resent that "in line with Lucho's history of a manager" too btw.

4/ "His logic of using Mathieu at LB to keep him in the mix makes sense, but your argument of "There is nobody else" does not." -- man, what in the fuck are you on about? If he's fine for those games and you agree it's right to keep him in the mix, what's to complain about? Alba's clearly gonna play the big games, soooo.....?
You literally said "

5/ And the fact is -- we have used Adriano in lesser games and he's been pretty bad there. Much worse than Jeremy. And you even said "Vermaelen is more often than not on the shelf injured and he's already on the wrong side of 30", Verm clearly isn't a reliable outlet (yet, at least).

So yes, you COULD play some guys there, but that doesn't mean they should. Neither of them have proven to be as reliable as Jeremy.



Edit:
Co0ter's post was good too.

 

[Kuchi]

Was wondering why lucho would keep mathiew and masche all 90 mins. Hope smokie is not injured, looked worried

Hope masche wont be to tired

 

[Deco 20]

I thought he was very poor in the first half but he did much better in the second

 

[Barcaman]

Waiting to hear news on his potential injury.

 

[xXKonan]

[tw]672166583377244162[/tw]

Had some Discomfort in the quadriceps and was Subbed off as a Caution.

Still undergoing Testing but it seems like it wasn't too serious.

 

[Barcaman]

I guess he'd still be out for visit to his former team this weekend.

 

[xXKonan]

Medical tests tonight have shown that Mathieu, who left the game with thigh muscle discomfort, has no serious injury. #fcblive [rac1]

 

[Ghostmaster]

Official: Mathieu, who left the pitch with discomfort yesterday, has an overstretched thigh muscle, not clear when he'll be back

 

[raskolnikov]

Thank god!

 

[serghei]

Just fucking sell him. Next summer. Bring back a guy who actually knows how to defend.

He's fast they said...



Compared with what?

 

[bismp]

Out ffs