MrExcalibur100

Horrible decision from the manc born cunt ref

Fernandinho, nice intentional knee to Hazard's leg. Fucking nasty cunt.

Pep is playing with a winger and an attacking midfielder as his fullbacks. The plan is obvious. Pin Alonso and Moses to the backline and isolate Aguero, Navas and De Bruyne with our CB's. There's room to exploit for us in behind their wingbacks and through the midfield if we see enough of the ball. Big "if", but we have to play with courage and press them high up the pitch, in my opinion.

Pep is going with Jesus Navas and fucking Leroy Sane as a wing back on the right. This guy is nuts. Gotta admire his stone cold approach to attack all the time. Can Eden see enough of the ball to capitalize on that?

3-5-2 with Oscar instead of Pedro. I'm scared, kellz. Really am.

We're going to be murdered when they have the ball with Fabregas in midfield. I hope not but I fear the worst. Please god, let's not be humiliated.

Matic is injured. Fabregas playing with Kante in midfield. That's not good. Guardiola is insane though. No one could have predicted his line-up.

Matic is injured. Fabregas with Kante. This is not good. Not good at all.

You can't really deduce anything from that.

Fabregas starting in a 3-5-2 is not a disastrous idea as it might help against their high press and for our ball circulation but it's risky. For one, it puts more pressure on our wingbacks to help generate attacks. I wanted to write a long post about this game but figured, what's the point. I'll say this though. We have to start the game on the front foot, if that means keeping possession for the sake of it for say, the first 5 mins, then so be it. We need to releave some pressure on our backline early on which will give us some pressure. We can't afford to allow Aguero, Silva, De Bruyne, Gundogan and Sterling run them ragged early on. We need to find Eden Hazard as frequently as possible early on. He needs to come in more centrally and get involved with the flow early on. I don't want a scenario where he's stuck on the left wing and closed down every time he touches the ball. He sets the tempo for how we attack and if we can't get him going early, then we our prospects of generating meaningful attacks is in some peril. City are soft at the centre. Their centre back pairing is not convincing at all and their players don't get stuck with the same intensity as Spurs or Liverpool. We can exploit that with direct running from Costa and Eden through the middle. I just want to see good football from us. I trust Antonio to do that for us. We can't demand results in such a fixture but at least we can ask for good football. We deserve that after 3 years of (mostly) watching our team cowardly, drab and inept way away from home in these big games. With rarely any shots on goal, chances created or attacking/counter-attacking play of note.

It's funny how people want to talk about the over-representation of Jews in so and so entertainment and banking spheres but no one talks about the over-representation of Catholics in fields that do matter. i.e Politics. Just look at American Politics as a case reference. And I'm not against Catholics or anyone by the way. That's obviously an imbecilic way of viewing the world, putting people in these categories. I just think some people have this cognitive bias against certain groups but are numb to or ignorant of the fact that these pre-suppositions can equally be levelled against other societal sub-groups. To a stronger degree.

Yiannopolous is a troll and the alt right is just white supremacy/neo-nazi thought repackaged under a more acceptable brand.

Lol, you're hilarious @The Skipper. My answer is that Costa is one of the top 5 strikers in the world and can be the best striker in the world if he improves certain aspects of the game. He's a street fighter, a beast who gives us that "yang" to other players' "yin" which is important to win the Premier League.

Just scored two great goals for the U23's. There's a lot of talent there. He won't get a look in now but could develop into something special if given a successive run of games.

The only thing I didn't like about his performance against Middlesborough was the amount of hopeful long balls he played in the opening mins of the match, most of which gifted them the ball. Cahill was guilty of this as well. It kind of set the tone for our sluggish start and there was no need for that. Conte alluded to it in his post-match interview with Chelsea TV. One of the staples of Conte's philosophy is to start the match very strongly, on the front foot offensively, with the intention to win it from the opening whistle. The long balls went against what we've been doing in the last 6 games. Obviously, the disruption the internationals caused to our momentum had something to do with it and the weather conditions probably. But it's something I hope not to see again. We have a philosophy we are trying to develop and we should stick to it.

Never forget how they tried to break our players' legs last season. I hope we stick it to these cunt bastards hard when they come to the Bridge. I want a real thumping. The sad thing is their fans think their squad is all that. They've really been deluded with the over-accomplishment of last season. Tactically, it will be interesting to see if Pochettino plays a 3-5-2 like he did away to Arsenal or if he sticks with their 4-2-3-1. The battle of the wide areas should be interesting. Danny Rose is suspended but Walker and Davies vs Alonso and Moses should be interesting. I hope Conte stands by his philosophy and we have Moses and Alonso as far up the pitch as possible. Teams have no answer to the overloads our wingbacks and inside forwards (Pedro and Hazard) cause in attack. The wing back/fullback situation should be dictated on our terms not theirs as it's one of their strongpoints. I'll also like to see us press the ball relentlessly. We can't afford to sit deep when we don't have the ball. That will be a huge mistake. We also have to keep good possession of the ball and start with a strong intent and purpose to score from the moment the ref blows his whistle. These things culminating together are all a microcosm of Antonio's philosophy. It's what we did to Everton and what we've been doing since the formation and personnel change. If we adhere to these, we should have too much quality for them at The Bridge.

I read on the BBC that this was a "quiet" performance from Hazard. If this is a quiet performance, then it proves the point of him being the best player in the Premier League. How many of the other top players can play this well, create so many chances and it's labelled a quiet performance? Shows the insanely high standards that comes with being the best in the league. That tackle at 0:38 by that thuggish Middlesborough player is a very dangerous one. Possibly pre-meditated to "knock Hazard out of his stride early on". A weaker player than Hazard could seriously have been injured. These are the sort of tackles that need to be punished with bookings all the time. Many times it's not even and sometimes, it's not even a foul, like Coleman on Costa in the last game. It's why the very top players like Eden won't want to spend their entire careers playing in the Premier League. It's a career risk.

A lot of long balls when simple ground passes would have sufficed.

Stop blaming the fucking international break. We're playing stupid. City went away from home and handled their business.

I don't understand all the incessant long balls from Luiz already. Calm down and pass the ball

Was about to say the same thing. Always brings bad luck. Don't we have any say in the jersey we choose to wear for away games? Would have preferred our traditional blue kits.

Congratulations to the kid

I've said it before, the only team I respect in this league is Man City. They have the quality and the manager. I also respect Liverpool to a degree. They don't have the quality but they have the manager. They are difficult to play against. United have some big players but they're either past their best or too young. They also seriously lack pace when they play with Zlatan. For me it's between us, City and Liverpool. Arsenal, Man United and Tottenham are just pretenders.

So we'll go there and not have a shot on target vs Middlesborough? Sorry bro, but that's just being pessimistic for the sake of it. Didn't United players also have International matches? The thing is this is standard Arsenal. They have so-called "world-class" players who are anything but. These players are good at turning over poor and average PL sides but they show their true colours when the going gets tough. We're a better team than them. We have better players. Last season unfortunately blinded many and we've been severly underrated going into this season.

It's a shame we let this hideously overrated team to beat us. Fortunately for them, they caught us when we didn't know what we were doing and still playing Ivanovic, Azpilicueta out of position and joggling between Oscar/Fabregas in that outdated 4-2-3-1. We'll handle either of these.