Tomo

Define, anything of note.

120k plus add ons is hardly outrageous for an elite prospect. If say United have to pay that to keep Greenwood do you really think they wouldn't?

Usually after a bad result has particularly annoyed me I eventually look at it in a bit more context and feel a bit better on refection, not today, if anything it's got me even more wound up. The main reason being it was totally avoidable, I have got a bit of stick for being critical despite the three wins last week but I was doing it for a reason and that was because I could see a night like this coming from Mars. Even if we got away with it last night (which we nearly did as Giroud should have scored near the end) I still would have felt down as it was only kicking the can down the road, make no mistake this was coming, if it didn't happen tonight it would have been Bramal Lane or Selhurst Park (possibly even Watford at home), still could be if no lessons are learned! If that was our best line up I'd suck it up until there's a chance to change things, but it wasn't, EVERY SINGLE PLAYER who was part of that incredible smashing of Everton (which was probably our best and most complete performance since the same fixture in Conte's title season) have been available since the restart, why haven't we seen that lineup (exception being Pulisic in instead of Pedro) again? and worse than that, why has the catalyst for that display only been seen in 50 minutes out of position in 4 games? That game (and the Liverpool game) were beautiful, it looked like we finally found our best core of players, best system, the style of play was mesmerising and it didn't even last another game, ripped up for shit on a stick football where a player that wasn't even playing for us that afternoon is now having to bail us out constantly, just how? Another thing really annoying me are the CB issues. I'm not Zouma's biggest fan but him and Rudiger were slowly forming a really good partnership before the break, WHY THE HELL HAS THAT BEEN TINKERED WITH? I'm one of the minority that think while our CBs will never be world class (apart from potentially Fik) they've been dealt a bad hand with Kepa's form and constantly being rotated about, pick Zouma with either Fik or Rudi keep them there and all off a sudden things won't look too bad. Don't get me started (again) on Kante walking into the side no matter what, it was bad enough earlier on in the season but Frank still hasn't learned his lesson. The fact he's still being selected means either Lampard genuinely thinks we're actually better with him in the team despite all the evidence and metrics saying otherwise or he's playing him because of what he was/is at his very best. I hate being critical of him (Kante) as he's one of my favourite all time players for the club and I'll always appreciate the difference he made when he arrived but that's one thing with me, I'm so club/team orientated that I don't have trouble letting my head rule my heart. Also with Mount in the side, we don't even miss Kante's engine as much as we use too. Then there's the regista issue. Some people don't seem to want to embrace the idea of a regista because they're all on the "traditional DM" idea and can't be moved, but it's actually one of the most important positions in the modern game, having players who can dictate from deep at a high level are absolute gold dust in the modern game, we've got not only one but two and neither are being played, and in favour of putting a box to box player there (therefore neglecting his best attribute), that's Mourinho lite. Frank's a young manager so I will give him the time to fix this shit especially as I have seen serious promise with him (if this was an experienced manager pulling this I'd be going full Claude) but if these tactics and selections are the "new normal" I'll give him till Christmas.

While i'm not trying to say Azpi is up there with them in terms of leadership lets not pretend it was all parties and rainbows with them either. Numerous displays under Scolari and in 10/11 we were everybit as bad as what we can see now, infact in the Avram season they lost 10 points in injury time.

He was crap outside the goals and i'm far from his biggest critic. I really hope Pulisic and CHO are flanking Oli sooner rather than later.

It's happened twice now which makes it even worse.

My expectations for the season and how i'm assessing Lampard have changed. Before the return i would have not had a negative word to say if we finished anywhere in the top 7 because i assumed we would carry on with the building process and if that came at the expense of top 4 then that's fair enough. However now we've resorted to shit house selections and tactics he has to justify that by getting results, so top 4 and Cup final.

Zouma and Tomori together. Jorgi, Kova, Mount midfield. Go back to what was working so well for god sake. Go back to the team that looked so promising and go from there. If we lose top 4 due to growing pains then fuck it, our ultimate goal is to build a side to challenge City and Liverpool and the longer these shithouse selections get rolled out the more regression we make on said ultimate goal.

While i'm not atall defending the defense the wastefulness in attack is probably an even bigger problem. How many times this season have we dominated games without winning? As shown against Everton and Liverpool we can work with this defense with crucial adjustments infront.

It's not as easy as people think to just flick the switch back on, i'd rather finish 5th sticking to the process than shithouse 4th.

It won't be the last time this week. That's twice now Lampard has destroyed our momentum by shoehorning him back in.

Nothing like (most) previous clashes. I passed off most of the pre lockdown defeats (this season and last) as part of the process, frustrating but it was a learning curve, since the return we've resorted to the shithouse tactics Conte was serving up at the end, if he wants to do that then it can only be justified by results.

We're as reliant on Pulisic right now than we ever were Hazard bar the 2015 calendar year.

This is exactly why I wasn't getting all starry eyed when we beat City. It was 3 points up in the table but massive step back in the team evolution.

We're going to see two years of hard work changing our style go down the shitter if we keep setting up like this. I can accept the growing pains while we're genuinely building something but we're reverting to type and doing it with the same mistakes.

Oh look yet again the best midfielder comes off. If only he was world class three years ago in a totally different system.

Would make a quad sub now. Abraham, Willian, Barkley, Kante off Giroud, Hudson Odoi, Mount, Jorgi/Gilmour on

The thing is, he has, he just for some reason thinks Kante has to play 90 minutes every game. Going to turn into our LVG/Rooney situation.

All the positive momentum gained from the last two games before lockdown gone. Really looked like we finally found the right system to truly kick on and now we're back to relying on one individual to bail us out.

Be less of a problem if the correct team was selected.

He was world class in 2017 so must play 90 minutes no matter what.

I find it silly it's being brought up after 2 admittedly awful James games, the lad was genuinely our best player January and probably February too.

It's not just about crossing though it's about genuine link up and all round attacking play. Could AWB be an attacking gamechanger the way Reece was vs Ajax or even Lamptey vs Arsenal? Could he create such attacking chemistry with a winger like Reece does with CHO? I just can't imagine it.

His "assist" tonight shows exactly why that stat is misleading, he passed it on a few yards and Greenwood did the rest, whereas not long before that Lamptey made a clever beautiful timed low cross into the box but was denied an assist due to the forward not trapping the ball propely. Reminds me of 16/17 when Matic got a clutch of assist's by being the one that made 2 yard passes to Hazard before many of his wonder goals. Ultimately you're relying on someone else to do their job to get an assist, even if you make the best pass of all time, it's still out of your hands. Key passes and dribbles are better metrics to judge creativity.

Not going to happen.