OhForAGreavsie

It's not the outright poor games like tonight. They happen to everyone. It's the number of times he has an opportunity to do something decisive but fails to. Just misses the pass, over hits the cross, miss times a strike so there's no power behind it.

A keeper springing an offside trap. Love it. 🙂

Keep your eyes on the prize Armando Broja.

I'm sorry to say that my long term view of Mase is not moving in a positive direction. He doesn't maximise opportunities anything like often enough. Someone was speculating yesterday about who Conor G might replace if he returns next season. I didn't post it but my answer to that question was, "Mason."

Check Keppa's position

We flatter to deceive. Offside or not.

We are not playing well now.

Hot and cold I felt and, as I saw it, never got out of Didier's shadow while here. So, being behind The Drog automatically puts him behind Diego in my calculation.

I think Diego was the best of all the Roman era centre forwards so far. Even better than The Drog. None of them did the spectacular or the dramatic like Didier, but peak Diego was a better footballer than peak Drog. If Mando even approaches that level then Rom is going to be doing more interviews with Italian journalists before next season is very old.

From what Southampton fans are saying our £40m buy-back option on Tino kicks in after 24 months. So, assuming that's right, if we want to try to bring him back this summer it will have to be a negotiated deal.

Southampton fans are comparing Mando with Tammy and claiming that their loanee is the better prospect. Fair enough, since I agree with them I can't argue with that. They are also comparing our youngster with Alan Shearer and speculating about signing Mando on a similar deal to the one which took Tammy to Rome. That's to say a relatively small fee and a double your money buy back clause. I hope when Saints make that phone call no one at Chelsea will pick up.

Tella had better stop heading the ball.

Yes, I think the question TT is asking himself is whether Emerson is a better LWB than CHO, Malang, or Saul, not whether he is the ultimate answer. If that's the question then 'yes' is probably the correct answer but when the time is right we need to get to work on finding a permanent fix.

Plus I suppose our reputation as a graveyard for young talent. I would argue, and have done for a long time, that this reputation is entirely unfounded but none of us can deny it is, or was at any rate, widely believed to be true.

I'd love it to be true that we want to sign Bellingham and it's easy to imagine that it is. He is such a terrific footballer that every ambitious club must surely be looking at him. What would be our realistic chances of succeeding however? I was desperate that we should sign Bellingham when he left Birmingham but, according to reports at the time, he didn't seem to have considered joining Chelsea. While he rewarded Man United's interest with a visit to Carrington there were no reports of a visit to Cobham. Maybe we'll have better luck when he leaves BVB. We certainly have to put our hat in the ring.

Agreed.

Can't find a side willing to match or come close to his current wage and he's not ready to give it up perhaps? Not a fan but I hope he finds a good move somewhere.

✅✅

Interesting that a seemingly fit Ian Maatsen didn't feature in Coventry's matchday squad against Derby today. Chelsea request to avoid his becoming cup tied?

Tickets for this sold out before Christmas so no walk ups. Don't think there would be walk ups even if it wasn't sold out. It's against club policy. Can't remember the last time you could pay on the day for a men's first team game. 😒

Fair point.

Ah yes, and it was a squeaky one at that.

I'm with MB on this. This feels like great agent work to me. Doesn't want to diminish the chance of a late career 'pension fund' move to Chelsea so, instead of letting it be known that his client doesn't fancy Chelsea, he produces a cover story.

I'm not surprised Barca might be willing to negotiate downward. I've only seen YouTube highlights but I don't like what I see from this bloke at all. His M.O. features way too much in the way of flicks and tricks. Exactly the type of football played by people who think they are better than they really are. I've said before that the best performance I've ever seen was Bayern's demolition of our team at The Bridge. Zero flicks, zero tricks. Proper football played to an exceptionally high standard. Get the ball, protect the ball, move the ball, pass the ball with good weight, move to support the ball again and repeat. Beautiful football played by brilliant footballers. Dest is exactly the type of player I had in mind when I accused our decision makers of being too attracted to the shiny things over the solid, genuinely good things. @Vespercan send me a bill for use of her material if she likes but, for me, Dest is a hard pass.

I think the likelihood is that he will come back the same player. This is why, if we do attempt to sign a left sided defender this window, I want it to be someone slated to be the starter, not a backup.