King Kante

It is a conundrum. For me there are very few CF's where we can go 'that player will score more goals and not provide a drop off in the all round part of the game'. For me, Jackson for sure has to improve his shooting, but I do not think that is beyond him. The reason I say this is that he does score some pretty hard goals - Brentford and Leicester this season and Everton at home last season spring to mind. For me, it isn't the technique side of the game with him, rather that when he gets a good chance he front of goal he panics/gets over excited. I do honestly feel with him that if he took just half the goals he faffs people would be talking about him as a top 5 CF in the world. As I've said, he has a knack of making the hard look easy and the easy look hard. Fortunately, making the easy not look hard is not as difficult as making the hard look easy with perseverance. Equally, I am not worried about him wanting it/putting in the hard yards. I mean let's just look at his development of his hold up play and his ability to drive with the ball. That is leaps and bounds above what he produce in the first six month. I actually do not mind another CF coming in, but equally I do not see why Jackson gets picked on so much when his all round performances are better than at least half of the others that started around him. For sure, sell Nkunku and get another CF but equally unless they're Häland or Isak don't expect them to actually replace Jackson straight away (I am not sold on Gyorekes translating his Portugese production in the PL, for instance.)

He would probably tell him he wasn't playing top level football until he was 25/26 and to keep his head down and keep learning.

Which CF are we getting that replaces he running off the ball or assists like the one for Palmer against Bournemouth? I get why people get fed up with his finishing, but they get too blinded to what he does well. I am not saying he is irreplaceable, but it is not as if we can pick up anyone to replace him. For instance, I still take him all day over VO as whilst VO may score a couple of more chances, he won't be assisting and doing the donkey work that Jackson does which creates goals in non-direct ways.

Problem is that he is running people into the ground. Palmer for instance, has needed to come off around the 60 min mark for the past 4 games. Yet he has played every minute. Sancho is a half a game player. Plays 75 mins plus every time he starts give or take. I just don't get why he doesn't make subs. Sure Felix is a downgrade on Palmer at 100% each. But Felix at 100% and Palmer at 60% is when you need to swap. Not never.

He clearly doesn't rate Tosin or Disaster. I think the way he has gone about using the CB's since Fofana and Badi got injured is to try them all. Tbf, we all knew Disaster was absolutely awful last season. Losing I never wanted owing to my Fulham mates reviews of him. As for Josh, I saw him starting after not playing in the cup. However, he should be be integrated slowly via the cups. His contract situation really fecked things up as he would've got a bit of Conference/Carabao mins if that hadn't dragged out. As for Enzo, he just really needs to make some subs earlier. Sancho faded out of the game from about 30-35 mins. I was slightly expecting him to not come out for the 2nd half but he made it to the. 81st. Noni disappeared in the second half - made it to the 81st as well. Cole was absolutely blowing out of his arse at about 60 mins. Lasts the entire game. I wouldn't mind if we still had crap/youth players arls back back but Felix, Neto, Nkunku are perfectly capable of 45-30 mins of football. In fact giving Neto and Felix 10 mins was absolutely ridiculous as it took them 5 mins to pick up the pace of the game.

Sell the pair of them. Tosin for profit, Disaster because he is one of the worst CB's we've had in the last 30 years - in fact if the club have to pay someone to take him, then they should do it.

Sancho and Noni where much bigger problems for sure. Jackson is frustrating as his hold up play and runs last night where harder things to do than finish the two chances. He seems to make the hard look easy, and the easy look hard. Brentford was another example of this. Think he may need a sports psychologist to get him to calm down in front of goal.

Sanchez Gusto Josh Colwill Cucu Caicedo Lavia Neto Palmer Sancho Jackson

Well he apprantly went from £300k to circa £100k when he joined us. Wages won't be the issue as at £100k'ish he is around the right level when you look at wages in general. I think the bigger problem is that he will not go to a team that isn't top level/aiming for top level. His teams so far have us Benfica, Atleti, Barca and us. He took wages cuts both for us an Barca, so the issue is actually prestige with him.

Disaster is one of the worst players I have seen down Chelsea in my 35 years+ of going. Tosin isn't great and at very best should be a CB4/5 type that only players dead rubber/lower ranked teams and in an emergency. However, he is nowhere near Disaster bad, even if I do call them them the Disaster Bros as a collective. As for Anselmino, let's see how things go. Really it would be good to see him at the weekend but that may be a bit too soon as he has just arrived.

Depends. He may be saying this, to try and get Josh to keep his levels/desire up as Enzo does seem to put a lot of value on training performances. Imo, I cannot see him using Disaster much more as he is too much of a liability.

Wow, who would've thought that? Lucky we have Matt Law to give us such insights.

I don't have any option but watch the City game. Their 4-0 is incredibly flattering. First goal was a massive deflection, 2nd two CB's allowed Haaland a free header at the back post, whilst the GK flopped on the floor for no reason as the ball got crossed. 4th was awful playing out of the back that ended up with a tap in. Prior to them going up, if Kudas wasn't greedy/awful at seeing runners they would've had two great chances. On top of that Summerville was clear through and the ref called him back for a very weak foul.

Virtually every club has insurance for injuries. Him being injured isn't a problem financially for the club, except from a premium perspective.

Yeah, there is only so much of the Disaster Bros (Disaster and Tosin) we can watch. I think it is clear that the club were thinking of having him out on loan for the year but as he will likely walk into the team here if he is half decent, he may as well come back. Hopefully Disaster is shipped out. He isn't even squad filler level.

Yeah, if the other defenders aren't Disaster (awful), Fofana (perma-crocked), Colwill (young) and Badi (injury prone and very inconsistent), then maybe. With our current set however, he isn't good enough.

I haven't watched the match as I am away in Asia and it kicked off at 3am local time. However, people shouldn't be surprised by results like this. Our team is still young so doesn't have the experience to manage such games. On top of that Disaster has been starting so when that happens you know you down to 10 men pretty much straight away. That is also before we get to Tosin not being good enough either. Top 5 is the target this season. Hopefully, the club can get us a half decent CB in Jan and we can steady the ship.

Nah, hard pass on Rashford. He thinks he is a superstar and can do what he wants. Last season he went on a massive bender the night before a training and this season he flew to the States and rocked up at a NBA game flanked by two security guards despite people not knowing who he is there/much more high profile people going with none/less. On top of that he had one good season in the last 4 and is paid £350k a week. Absolutely not. Although fortunately, I think the club would also recognise the issues with him.

That game is exactly why I call Disasi, Disaster. Some idiots will go, 'oh, I thought he was OK. Jackson much worse'. However, they fail to realise his: a) inability to run off the ball b) move the ball forward c) read the game so the other defenders and GK don't have to bail him out everytime the ball gets moved forward owing to his brain dead fucking positioing/not allowing his man inside. I mean, let's look for a common denominator of playing sh*t and that fecking idiot in the side. Tbh, I am not even angry at him individually. As he is simply a shit player who clearly looks like he knows he is not at the same level as his team mates and opponents - even when they are decking Noah, dispossessing him numerous times. Yet, he still plays multiple games for us. Fucking joke.

Looks like we ran him into the ground. Went fron always available to as broken as James and Kante.

Not great to hear Badi and Fofana are put for at least a month. For me, this pushes up the need for a CB. We already needed this, but of fitness is also going to start to be an issue, then we will need to push this up. Either way, here is my predicted line-up: Sanchez Gusto Tosin Colwill Veiga Caicedo Enzo Neto Palmer Sancho Jackson I think we will end up with something like the above as: a) I can't see us moving Caicedo out or CM without Lavia b) Gusto hasn't been great out on the left c) Veiga's height will likely be beneficial on set pieces. This said, I hate playing Everton away. It is something like 1 win and five losses in the last seven games there. This really isn't as easy a game as some have made out in the media.

Don't give me hope like this.

Today is a cup final for Brentford and their fans. So, everyone should expect them to be going at it at full steam. I personally hate playing this lot and Bournemouth as they always seem to play at 110% when they play us. We just need to play our game and not let the idea of closing the gap to the Dippers get to the players. We aren't winning the league, so no need to start buying the media narrative. We just need top 4 this year and a cup or two.

I wouldn't worry most of the fanbase didn't want Lampard to begin/after his first year or so either. Some players take a while for people to get. I have always stuck up for Enzo, Noni and Jackson for instance. Caicedo on the other hand took me a long time to get as his skill on the ball isn't at a level that I like in a CM, which then meant I overlooked his other skills. I would say I am typically quite good at judging players, but some can be harder to judge than others - especially if you're biased on certain traits.