Mhsc

Thought Madueke was our best player tbh But basically everyone had a good game except for Cole who was anonymous for the most part. Nico gets a pass because he scored but he was pretty shit otherwise tbh Problems with Sanchez are still there though, his problem has always been consistency - on his top game he is one of the best shot stoppers in the league, which was the whole bet that they placed when they bought him, that with a consistent run and a show of faith he could do it on the regluar. He has not been able to so he still has to go. Problems with Colwill also still there. Just like the end of last season, we are doing very well against sides with nothing left to play for.

Cole's whole "thing" was nonchalance and insane confidence He's lost that for now so he just wont be the same until / if he gets it back

How the hell did Nico not get the ball and take it around Pickford He was right there

Having Neto's pace reminds me of having Timo in the side, not amazing end product but his sheer presence changes the nature of games as his speed is so hard to live with We were never the same after Timo left, as average as he was in so many ways, every team needs a pace merchant

Pickford is an embarrassing goalie btw As bad as Sanchez

Just what we need for the end of the season, go on Nico If we can get Cole a goal as well we may be able to do something for CL after all

If James willingly walks away from the contract he's on that would be good news overall, he's a non entity for years and not always good when he is fit. Will be a miracle if he has any sort of serious career from here.

Has Colwill ever got the better of another man in a 1:1 battle? In his career?

Personally I like the line up aside from the lack of Tyrique George. I guess Everton is not a side to face with inexperienced players though.

I'm open minded Petrovic might have improved - but he definitely wasn't good enough when he was with us (I don't waste my life watching Strasbourg so can't say, but hear he's improved significantly) Both my heart and head tell me that we need GK and 2 CBs though. Petrovic maybe a backup and competition. Can't be a serious team without serious players in those positions.

What I really want to know is who the fuck are we buying to be Captain? We need an on field leader. International captain of a serious footballing country. That's the minimum Chelsea standard. Can't go another season without a proper captain.

As long as Sancho is taking a huge pay cut then signing him does make sense tbh, we can loan him out for a decent fee every year to a league he can perform at a higher level in, and sell him on for FFP profit (maybe even real profit). He is not a bad squad player either to have if we want, not great but he's a pretty normal looking backup player for a top team. Could send him to Strasbourg for a year to pad his numbers and sell him on for more than we'll pay Utd surely. But that is a big IF about him willingly writing off a huge amount of his salary that we don't have much info on.

I am hugely in favour of signing Huijsen but also agree with those who say he is not what we need - to that I would just say its true he is not ALL we need but he is a huge upgrade on what we have so we need to go for him if he is interested asap - he would immediately become our best CB, by a mile. After that we still need to look for another CB - and ideally that person is also club captain material, at minimum they need to be an aggressive ball winner that is insane in duels with enough basic technical skill to handle modern build up play. Colwill as our 4th best CB behind Fofana would be a much more normal and realistic progression for an academy player with obvious limitations like him. He should be out on loan still really.

I really doubt they'll do anything meaningful to City. Those guys know how to cheat.

Would have preferred a draw but the good thing about the game was no matter what happened one of them had to lose points which is good for us no matter which way it lands

If Spurs weren't pure scum, you'd almost feel sorry for them, the situation there is as bleak as can be. None of my friends are Spurs fans as I don't socialise with scum, but I imagine they must be pretty depressed - makes our situation look incredibly good. Although I do think there is a possible future in which we slide into something akin to Spurs current situation - an owner with "his own take" on how to run a club, featuring massively long contracts on low money that you renew yearly for a little more every year, so that players are trapped like slaves with no way out, and no hope to win anything stuck in a squad with a few decent players but mostly dross. If we don't start regularly qualifying for CL to up our income I could easily see us end up in a "you must sell to buy" situation and start to slide in that direction (surely the cash that was to be injected to turn the club around is close to dry at this point).

Not an easy team to beat at all these days, got to treat it like another final, Everton under Moyes have always been horrid opponents for us.

Missed the game today as I was taking my 8 month old son to see some friends, couldn't even follow the game as it turns out I get 0 signal there Come back and see we won 2-1, I assume it was a comfortable, smooth win with a meaningless goal by them right at the end? #MarescaForever

Forgot they beat us earlier in the season 2-1 at the bridge on boxing day. Just one of many grim results. I'll be a hopeless, reckless optimist and say we'll win 3-0 and see a real reaction from the players. Reece James with a couple of assists.

A lot of bang average players on this list and not a single leader among them. For every 100 they find 1 Cole Palmer (who may be a 1 season wonder).

Yeah I don't think anything will really get better, unless we see a change in SD and the general vision The best we can hope for is a short term boost from a manager coming in, gets the attackers happy and scoring freely, we get a brief run of wins and feel good factor, before people figure us out again and we go back to being shit This team will only truly become good when we sort out the fundamental structural problems in both the squad and the club as a whole.

Agreed about Carlo. Hard to imagine him really doing anything with this group - he has always thrived at maximising the returns of an established group of experienced pros. Players that fundamentally know how to play the game and how to win, he gets them to their max (no doubt incredibly valuable in the right situation). I just can't see it with our group. Replacing Maresca with Marco Silva would just be groundhog day.

I don't really think we've seen Maresca's football since Wes got injured. We have improved in many areas structurally but the way the players have en masse all individually turned to shit has to be down to something and the best hope is that it is down to Maresca's man management. Maybe he simply doesn't have it when it comes to really being a charismatic leader and man manager, as much as he can coach them on positional play. Seen many times elite support staff try to take on the top job for a few years and it doesn't work out and they go back to being support staff for a top manager. Maresca would be incredible working under a man manager like Carlo for example.

Bring back Tuchel I don't care if he was banging players wives Cheating on his wife with every woman he could find Doing coke left right and centre Just bring him back

Reminder that this team isn't even good in Poland