Mhsc

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

Its almost like they don't want us to like them anymore

I will not say "I told you so" about Jorgensen I will not I WILL NOT

Maybe Cole was a one season wonder :) It was nice while it lasted

I wasn't gonna watch but I guess I'll check out Acheampong

Its so hard to care about a game against Legia Warszawa These guys aren't even good in Poland And they'll probably beat us.

We should just get both and spend the cash at this point. Bring back Petrovic for GK or go and spend the money on a decent option there too. I am increasingly a big believer in just spending the premium to buy established PL players, and only rarely spending big cash on players otherwise. At this point, we are simply out of time, the club is out of excuses, and they need to put together an XI that can put on a respectable showing against any team in the world - at minimum one that can battle and conceivably take us to pens in a final against the truly elite teams. These two seem like the most realistic PL targets in that regard. Just offer them good money and get it done. Ship out Colwill and other HG players if needed to cover it. Its just worth it., even if Colwill finally comes good in 3 years for a different club. We need CBs that are ready now.