Tomo

Usually it's not as simple as add these players and it's good but in our case Werner and Ziyech will make such a difference to avoid situations like this (ala such a cruise becoming such a grind out of nothing).

Who was better? Strange you skipped my points re Mount and De Bruyne.

He was our best player during January/early February and was for the most part excellent pre lockdown, a few poor games in his first season playing top flight football at 20 and all of a season he has to be replaced, the exact same bullshit was spoke about Mount at Christmas and look at him now. That type of thinking is exactly why we don't have De Bruyne today.

Don't be silly.

Newcastle also regularly scalp United, City and Spurs, it's not some sort of special gear they only save for us.

They've lost their last 4 against us and have beaten City, United, Arsenal and Spurs since they last even netted against us. How exactly do they specifically raise their game for us?

I hate these conspiracy theories, not just here everyfan has them.

What he was said was barely any different to what he said about Pulisic in September, now really sure what the fuss is about.

Alonso's goal vs Spurs aswell, all started with him sending Vertonghen into spins twice.

How exactly is it a stroke of luck? As talented as he was at Dortmund he lacked end product and decision making (if you don't believe me check the underwhelming reactions to his signing), if you want to blame the set piece issues on the coaching then they equally deserve praise when a player makes such a metoric rise under their watch. And when I say Lampard managed him perfectly he took him out of the firing line. He was anonymous in August (bar the super cup) so he gave him some time out instead of trying to make him play his way out of a rut which wouldn't have been a good idea, look what happened to Christensen when Conte took that approach.

He's managed Pulisic's integration excellently, not to mention improved him hugely.

It depends on what context we look at things. Do I think he's been decent in terms of individual performance? Yes but I think he lacks some vital skills to play in that role. Also given the fluitidity and build up play we lose by putting him there instead of Jorgi or Gilmour the trade off has to be that we're much more solid defensively, and I'm just not sure we are (even yesterday there were a couple of occasions Watford were a through ball away from a 1 on 1 with Kepa). Kante is more of an proactive hunter, sitting in sticking 100% to his position and playing the patience game just isn't him, even if he learns to reign it in a bit more often there will still be times he instinctively evades position to hunt an interception/tackle and if that backfires we're all of a sudden really stretched (that was a problem for him even at his absolute peak playing there, case in point Ozil's goal against us in that game that forced Conte to overhaul the system), an example since the restart would be where the late free kick Villa got against us, he had to bring Grealish down because he evaded position and got turned.

Fully agree and I've even gone as far as saying how he deals with the Kante situation (plus any future examples) will go a long way to shape him as a manager. A ruthless edge is what separates/seperated the likes of Fergie, Mou, Pep, Klopp and to an extent Conte (elite managers who have had periods of domination) from the likes of Carlo,Rafa and Wenger (very good managers but lacked that extra something to dominante the way the former mentioned manager's have done at various points).

This is the one disadvantage of having a world class player who gives you his peak years, at some point his peak passes but his status remains. It leaves them harder to drop than what a player at their present day level normally would be and it heavily divides the fan base into two groups, the one's who can separate emotion with the new reality and the one's who still cling on. We felt this to an even bigger degree with the old guard. That said I don't think Kante has turned shit he still gives us a solid 6-7 in terms of individual performance the problem is he's just a square peg in a round hole in terms of the system (which is why I moan about the fact he always seems to get in when fit no matter what). He's not a better number 6 than Jorgi or Billy, he's not a better number 8 then Kova or even Ross and he certainly can't link the midfield and attack aswell as Mount does, which means he should be a horses for courses player (if he remains).

Yesterday was a lot more like it especially in the second half (which has eased my fears some what) but the previous game reminded me of watching us in Conte's last few months style wise, City pressed self destruct which allowed us to take advantage but the Villa, Leicester and West Ham games were boring as hell. If Lampard does want to go down the route of a sitting DM with two attacking based midfielders then he needs to go out and sign an appropriate player to do it, sticking a box to box player who's past his prime there is not going to cut it.

I think the main miss above anyone else is Courtois, I kept screaming till I was blue in the face that he's so comfortable claiming set pieces he probably saved us atleast 10 goals and numerous heart stopping momemts a season minimum (looking at what's happened since that was probably a wild under estimate) but no one cared because he wasn't throwing himself around making saves for the camera like a certain (overrated) someone up in Manchester was. He may be an odious human being but he's a bloody good keeper, if he was still here he would be operating on another planet to every single keeper in this league bar Alisson.

This week sums up exactly why i don't take the assist stat seriously unless a player hits ridiculous numbers. In the context of the play Pulisic has 3 assist's this week but none will go on record.

James was vastly improved in the second half (he wasn't as bad as made out in the first half anyway but still).

Looks a bit rusty to me.

Maybe but you still need to assert your authority and we have done. This is why I've been so vocal this past week, imagine how much we'd be winning how if we had Jorgi and Gilmour on dictating from deep.

Second half is a lot better despite the fact we haven't scored yet. This would be the perfect chance to give Callum some minutes on the right.

Even in the winter when Reece was bang in form he was pretty average as a wing back let alone winger.

Not a chance.

It's almost as if no one's learned from Mount's reseurgance.

Will miss feeling so reassured with penalties when Willian and Jorginho go. Who will be next in line? Out of our current squad I'd probably say Mount but I imagine Ziyech may get put on duty.