Tomo

I would love Mane if he still had something in the tank but he's absolutely finished at the top level. Even as early as 20/21 some Liverpool fans I know were comparing his decline to Alexis Sanchez.

Tbf Silva did the exact same thing when we faced them.

De Gea is getting "shat on". We can never win the league win Kepa in goal. He gives far too much encouragement to the opposition. The fact he always concedes these "unsaveable" shots but Mendy hardly ever did is not a coincidence.

I'll put on record now the next big player to crop up from a promoted side. Scott Twine.

Sounded out my AC Milan friend and he thinks he's very good. Maignan but not quite as good to summarise.

I worded it wrong but I meant players who were world class but have not been cutting it for a while now (that said I'd still play him over Kepa). I'd actually argue the problems we see today have been a chain of events that started as early as 2008/2009 when we didn't refresh the old guard despite warning signs they were (as a collective unit) starting to decline.

You can't pay players based on their past performances.

We were never in a relegation battle.

Who exactly could actually fall into that category? The January signings would have signed knowing missing out of top 4 was highly likely.

For all the problems under Potter we defended well for the most part and could build up play in the first 2/3rds. Many games our issue was 'only' finishing. When all that goes in the blink of an eye there's only one place to look.

We throughly outplayed Liverpool as recently as Saltors sole game. If we concede 2 in this half we've conceded half of Potter's PL total in 4 games. It's clear where the main problem is.

As recently as Bruno's solo game we throughly outplayed Liverpool. If we concede 2 in this second half we've conceded half of our total PL tally under Potter in 4 games. There's problems in this squad ofcourse there is but there's only one reason we're looking THIS bad.

There's only so much any player can do if they're not being coached properly.

Really hope we celebrate in Gabriel's face if we score tonight. I don't usually get annoyed with celebrations but the way he deliberately made a bee line to Auba after scoring at The Bridge was beyond cuntish.

No, because we're not in a relegation battle.

He was a great owner all in all would be nonsense to suggest otherwise but transfers like Kepa and Lukaku have very much done their part in contributing to this situation.

He will if he hasn't already gone over all our matches in recent years with a fine tooth comb, the idea he needs to manage this no win situation to get a head start is nonsense, with respect. And even if we somehow get a bounce with these fixtures it would be hard if not impossible to tell if it's down to Pochettino's coaching or them upping their intensity to ensure a future here next season.

Bolax. The crowd turned against Sarri despite objective improvements from the previous season in almost every metric and the 'academy eight' the following year even when they were exceeding immediate expectation. Pochettino comes in and "plays the kids" with minimal to no improvement they'll be getting booed off to the sound off "fuck Poch ball" in May vs Newcastle.

Muscle memory from Sarri coaching.

Bit harsh on Chilwell, Silva and Enzo.

You need proper coaching to play that type of football, we don't have that. Any even remotely well coached team of even moderate quality will have us for breakfast. Best we can do with Lampard here is make ourselves difficult to beat and hope to shit out something, I don't like it anymore than you do but as I've said we've made our bed.

As brutual as it is I can somewhat understand it. Lampard doesn't have the tactical nous to go toe to toe with any half decent team/manager so our best hope is outworking them and shitting out the result. We've made our bed.

That's true but their general model of waiting and suffering the short term agony is one i really wish we would adopt. I said all through summer 2021 we should have rolled with the same squad due to lack of options out there and like magic our two signings proved a disaster. This one admittedly is more hindsight on my part but we also should have just signed Fofana and Sterling (Enzo also if we had enough time post the owners arrival to gazump Benfica) then regrouped with a more settled structure.

If we're going to start chucking in young players (which I personally think would would more harm than good in this period) I'd rather it'd be one who has a high chance of actually becoming a player of the high level.

I'd rather we tried to find someone that would allow a profit. I'm really not seeing anything in this guy that screams Chelsea level player, eventual or otherwise.