King Kante

Be interesting to see how the back 3 and wb's line up. Personally, I hope to see Dave back at RCB as our defensive record since he switched to RWB hasn't been as good. Personally, I think the reason for it is that Zouma isn't trusted at all and James isn't giving the output expected at RWB.

We need a LCB though. Personally, I can see us doing something like this for the CB group next season: RCB: Dave/James CCB: Silva/AC LCB: Rudi/Guehi Do that, then we could use the €30m for Tomori and the £30-£35m for Zouma on a player like Hakimi. As that would give us: RWB: Hakimi, James LWB: Chilwell, Alonso I know a lot of people complain about Alonso, but I do not see the issue of him playing another season as LWB here as in the LWB2 role he is handy enough.

He will be loaned again. Probably to France, Holland or Germany this time I would expect.

We won't sell both of them. We will be lucky to sell one. Personally, I am ok with Chilwell and Alonso if we're playing a wb system. Alonso only causes real problems when he has to play LB.

I am more talking about fans in the ground. When I go I find AC never gets mentioned as a HG player, whereas Ethan does.

Agreed. Moses has actually been ok, it was more in reference to the bloated squad list.

1 piece of dross down, 251 to go.

Nah, UEFA aren't like the league. They're more particular on colour clashes so I always thought we would have to play in the 3rd kit. To be honest, I am surprised we can play in our home kit against City in the league as it is too close.

We've got more chance of seeing Maradona upfront next season than Kane.

In general, I think we need two physical players to play in the side. At the moment, I would say the easiest place to slot those in are at CM and CF. Personally, I think our attacking play gets stymied a lot of the time as teams know they can low block us and get physical in the middle of the park and that will get them results. As for CF, I kniw there is an arguement for a small 9/false 9 but I am not really a fan of that. I think it is fine when you're playing in the CL or against teams that want to play on the front foot but generally in the PL against 3/4 of the teams it isn't going to work unless you have some bruisers to do the dirty work or at least some CM's/AM's that can deal with that side (KdB for example.) For me, getting two CM's to do that isn't really visible owing to the number of good players we have in CM, so for me it is a case of getting one in CM and one as a CF.

But the Dippers and City have players like: Henderson, Fabinho, Wijnaldum, Rodri, Fernandinho, KDB (ok athletically he isn't the greatest) Kun (small but physical, even if a bit old/slow now). I mean we do not have many players in any of the CM/AM/CF areas that can match any of those players physically/athletically. Giroud can strength wise, but athletically he is done, Kante athletically matches them or beats them, but his strength/height is disadvantaged.

This is a prime example of why in the PL you need some big physical men playing in the forward positions. Out problem is that we are a complete bunch of lightweights these days. Absolute minimum we need is a physical CM and a physical CF (who can run, Giroud can't unfortunately.) Have you forgotten Lukaku's first touch? It is still dire, it is just that he is playing in a slow ass league these days that he gets away with it. If he came here Tommy Boy would have a stroke with him playing up front. As for Kane, not going to happen boys and girls, even if Levy agrees to sell, he doesn't fit our age profile and he has a dodgy ankle. There is no guarantee you would get more than three years out of him in the PL, especially with how we get reffed.

Yeah, the whole Kepa thing is insane if we follow it all the way back to January 2018 and look what happened with TC. There was an interesting article in The Athletic a couple of weeks ago about Courtois' departure from the club. In the piece Johnson hinted that Kepa was a panic buy by the club and that Courtios has always insisted that the club had agreed he could leave in March 2018. Personally, I have always brought TC's story as all the rumours at the time had us in pole position for Alisson. My theory has always been the following: 1) Real pull out of buying Kepa in January 2018 as Courtios has made it clear to Chelsea as he won't sign a new contract and ZZ is fairly happy with Navas and prefers to wait 6 months to get a better GK. *this buyout of Kepa's is important as if Chelsea had been tracking him and thought so highly of him to pay an extra £55m six months later and good knows how much more in wages (he was rumoured to be on as low as €5k a week before his contract extension) then why not loan to buy him like they love to do with everyone else? 2) Club realises after January 2018 that they will not get TC to re-sign and start to scout other GK's. 3) in March 2018 the club have selected Alisson to replace TC and believe they pretty much have a deal in place for him. Tell TC he will be able to leave in the Summer. 4) Somewhere along the line Chelsea drop the ball with Alisson. Wages are clearly not the issue as Alisson is on a reported £90k a week at the Dippers. I suspect that the club tried to fu*k about with his fee/agents fee as they felt they had a strong hand as he indicated he wanted to come here. Dippers swoop in and get the deal done quickly. This bit is all speculation on my part as there are no reports/comments to back it up. 5) Club go back to TC and tell him he has to stay. This I think was done to hopefully push Real to buying another GK which would force TC's hand to signing an extension. TC calls the clubs bluff. 6) Now in full panic mode, the club trigger Oblak's release clause. Oblak refuses the move has it comes at too late notice and his family are settled in Madrid, while AM promise him a mega extension which he does get 6 months later. 7) Chelsea go into full meltdown and start working through their other options that have not been fully vetted and somehow end up settling on Kepa (probably due to release fee/age profile) as all other clubs know we are over a barrel. 8 ) Chelsea reluctantly sell TC and go ahead with Kepa even though the kid had only playes 54 La Liga games and wasn't even convincing in those.

Not happening.

Sorry, but the club have to accept they brought a dud. His fee and wages are a completely sunk cost. No way do we get anything better than a loan with maybe 20% of his wages covered. The kid is just not a good player. Personally, I would rank him as a GK2 for a run of the mill La Liga side, maybe a starting GK for a Spanish side in their division below La Liga. As I have stated before, can anyone actually provide any detailed analysis of what he does well? I mean seriously, one thing? I ask as I really struggle to see anything that would make me even comfortable to have him as a GK2, as a GK2 can sometimes be required to play for months.

Wow, I find it amazing that some people on here are trying to defend Kepa even when they have a past history of bigging up RLC and making out like Mount was some sort of donkey. By now, I would've thought these people would've realised they should go a little more easy on their player analysis. However, it seems to be that a lot of people on here who appear to pick their players, then defend them to the hilt regardless of what is actually being seen on the pitch/in the data. Anyhow, what I really want a Kepa defender to come up with is an analysis of what he does well? I mean seriously, please provide some in depth analysis of what he does well. Off the top of my head, the only thing I can think of is his ability to spring back up off the floor after diving as he is admittedly pretty quick at that. As for the goal yesterday, I see a lot of people saying it is unsavable. I really do not think that is the case. First, is that Kepa does not move his feet yet again before the shot is hit, being the funsized GK he is, his footwork needs to be high level and it is not, watch other small GK's such as Navas and see how they anticipate where a shot it going when it comes from range and move accordingly. Second, he yet again, motioned his arms behind his back before attempting the save. This is a big feature of his play that is completely illogical as it means he has less time to save shots and a large reason for his 'weak wrists' as what is happening is that he is getting his hand to the ball too late. Third, and as someone who is 173cm, I feel his pain, but man, he is one short GK, with even shorter arms. With the distance that shot came from, Mendy with his reach gets over to it imo. I say this as whilst it went into the top corner, it wasn't right in the postage stamp. For me, the best thing that can possibly happen now is that the club accept that Kepa is a dud and allow him to become the most expensive member of the loan army or make him GK3. This is not coming after the game yesterday but something I have been saying since his first season. The kid is just not good enough. For me, I do not want him as a GK2 as next season we could lose Mendy for 4-6 weeks and everyone knows with him in goal it is shoot on site. We really cannot afford to play him.

Cannot be true, surely? I mean, who the feck is going to buy that?

I worded that wrong, I meant that the Dippers have closed the gap and we need two wins from two now.

Alonso should have played 100%. Chilwell doesn't run in behind unless he is forced too and offers zero attacking threat in the opposition box. I was kind of shocked he started as I thought Alonso would play this one and then Chilwell play both of the Leicester games.

We need six as there is only two games left. Need Utd to do us a massive favour now.

This is why we need an athletic CM who is able to also score/assist.

They are all but official.

22500 is BS for a CL final. They could easily ramp that up to half capacity/45,000.

Need to win this one. Cannot afford to be giving the teams around us a sniff. Also, these cnuts have been jamming wins against us with no logical reason. Mendy Dave Zouma Rudi James Jorgi Billy Alonso Ziyech CHO Harvetz

Now watch us loose to Le Arse 😅