Tomo

I haven't taken the PL proven thing seriously since we didn't sign Aguero and went for "PL proven" Torres. Not to mention we nearly ended up with Rooney instead of Diego Costa.

Sevilla just don't seem to lose EL finals Same was being said about Unai Emery and we saw to that. Although that said i hope Sevilla's record carries on for this one, can't bring myself to root for Conte unless he's facing a rival or we need a favour.

What would you feel if one of our lot did that?

And ironically, Reina is the keeper with the next worst save % outside of Kepa

The last one before last year was when Exeter went to Old Trafford and got a 0-0 in i think 2005.

Sarri wanted Kepa at Napoli.

I think ADM was more a case of he quickly realized how shit that United side were and if they were going do anything of any note he'd have to carry them in ways never seen in the PL before.

Swap Lukaku for Costa, put a DM/DLP in instead of Mata (who could be the impact sub) and make it a 4-3-3 then we're talking. DM/DLP Kante KDB Salah Hazard Costa

How the hell has it gone unnoticed that both Conte and Sarri preferred Pedro?

I think that's a bit harsh, that City 17/18 side were incredible. Apart from the 2 league games they did lose the only other they looked in even remote danger of losing was Palace away. There were games that year, including vs us, were they were simply taking the piss with how good they were.

Why should he have stuck by us when fans were chanting at him to fuck off while giving him all of the blame and none of the credit? Loyalty works both ways!

Well it's a default argument when you're involved because you passionately defended that selection before the City game then walsed round the forum with your dick out after we won the match.

Because playing a "proper DM" Vs Bayern really made us solid at the back. That said, if Lampard prefers a sitting DM instead of a Jorgi/Gilmour type player there then I get behind it if he signs an appropriate player, sticking a past his prime box to box player there isn't going to cut it.

It is our money if we've put anything into the club in terms of tickets, memberships, merchandise etc.

I know this is going to sound Moyesyish but we really didn't do that badly last week considering the team we took to Bavaria, especially before the late goals.

Barca without Messi is going to be worse than United without Fergie.

When have we faced him?

I'm talking about last summer when he was available. The reason why the comparison to Klopp is made is because Liverpool's early Klopp teams bare similar resemblence, promising attacking plays and some excellent games which pointed at an excellent projected end product but didn't have the consistency or defensive nous in the side to trouble any of the big ones and it led to many games where they dominate yet still drop points. There's no guarantee Frank will make the same jump into a title winning side but for a first season it's quite a similar situation in the sense that there's a lot of riddling inconsistencies but when they projected end product games have come about we've been a match for anyone as our performances Vs City and 3/4 of them Vs Liverpool show.

Tammy was first choice pretty much the entire time till just before lockdown, and he only got dropped because he was injured and Oli hit arguably the best form of his career rendering him undroppable. Hudson Odoi was starting after his return from injury and got dropped due to Pulisic reacting by having that purple patch. Then he was starting all the time in January/February until he got injured again. If you want to look for a scapegoat to CHO getting dropped, you should turn your attentions more to Willian. Also Mount hasn't exactly been given the Torres 12/13 treatment as you're suggesting. He was sub for the last two CL group games, away to City, home to Arsenal, home to United, 2 out of our 4 games against Liverpool and hauled off at halftime twice since the restart.

If it's all about what they've done before, why didn't we just reappoint Jose or even stick by him when 15/16 happened?

Hazard got 4 assists in 34 league games in 17/18, is he uncreative? And no I'm not saying Mount is that good but if you want to start debates about creativity bring key passes/dribbles to the table, because that's a stat that doesn't rely on your teammate doing their job to go on record.

Summer 2019 "I'll be happy with top half aslong as academy players are playing". Summer 2020 after a top 4 finish largely thanks to academy players "they're overrated".

They scored from an unlucky slip and a half chance other than that couldn't get in the danger areas let alone score, the fact it ended 2-2 was not the defense fault (apart from Emerson for not kicking out despite Mount screaming at him too). Likewise with Norwich, we wasted a lot of good chances while Norwich created jack, had that ended 1-1 I wouldn't have blamed the defense even if one of them did a Varane Vs City. Leicester yes was a bit of a horror show, but the point being we should have killed them in the first half hour to which point they'd have played damage limitations and move on to the next one.

But there's also games like Arsenal home, Bournemouth home, West Ham home, Leicester home where any defensive mistakes would have been amusing sidenotes in comfortable victories had we killed the game off, those games alone should be an extra 8-9 ish points with our new signings. There's even games like Villa at home and Watford away where we blew them away in general play but the games ended up nail biters due to our wastefulness. Even some defensively chaotic games like Palace became that way in the first place due to us not finishing them off (we should have been 4 up before Zaha's strike). I don't argue we need defensive changes to ultimately challenge for the title (unless a best of a bad bunch season comes about), but with an attack that takes it's chances and a keeper like Onana in goal I think improving by 10 points is very much a realist aim and that's even assuming we don't sign any defenders, which I'm sure we will.

I seem to remember you equally dismissed our chances of finishing above Arsenal in the season just gone, but I digress. United conceded as many goals as us in the league last season as we did this, did what you suggest we should do now and prioritized the defense and while they did concede less goals, they still had to sign an attacker in January to even gain parity on their points haul from last season, and even that only happened because he had a major instant impact. Lack of consistent attacking threat has been just as big a problem all season, whenever Pulisic or CHO wasn't on form trying to break down the low block teams was becoming next to impossible, we really missed that standout magic Hazard gave us to grind these teams down (for example, the WHU home games this season and last were similar type of performances only last season Hazard danced through half the side to get that crucial breakthrough) and replacing that is every bit as crucial as any defensive reinforcement.