Tomo

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.

3-1.

Never really got the agg with Barkley tbh, he's a pretty useful squad player.

One of my only two serious gripes with Frank so far.

Kova should be first name on the teamsheet.

His absolute best position doesn't exist in this system so it's about trying to get the best out of him within the current set up. Sitting DM in an area that requires playing out from the back isn't I'm my opinion that.

We were winning before the break, and a lot more convincingly. Furthermore isn't that the Chelsea we're trying to move away from? We were critisized under Mourinho for going all in for the title and not thinking about the bigger picture. I've always said this season is first and foremost about how players and the team shape is progressing.

Lampard is going to ruin all his good work (from a evolutionary point of view) if he keeps persisting with him there.

Billy drops back in regista and like magic his two best pieces of play in the game that culminates in our best chance.

He was in a similar boat against Liverpool. He also had a similar stinker Vs United playing in this position.

He was fine against Liverpool and Everton. The difference today is he's been played in the wring position.

I like it although I'm easily pleased with kits. Only one's I've didn't like is 08/09 home and 05/06 away.

If we didn't have 5,000 CM's coming through i wouldn't have been against bringing Cantwell here. For some reason and this is based on nothing more than gut instinct at this point but I think Norwich will go on a run and avoid the drop.

Is this type of hyping that will lead to him being ridiculed when he hits a bad run.

I wonder what Bruno's pass completion % has been this game so far, cant be more than 50.

Fair enough, maybe my memories being selective but I'm sure we were playing out and playing through them a lot more than we were yesterday (in Wembley I'm sure there was a spell or two in the game when we had City penned back), I may go back and watch those games and get a higher perspective. Front foot was maybe the wrong word but I'm certain we tried playing more to our (new) style. Regarding the trade off, early days but it looks like we've got that player (to do both) in our ranks.

I just don't think these tactics will work against City consistently, it relies on mistakes they simply won't make every time they face us. The point is last year we beat City and kept clean sheets in 2/3 trying to play with the ball and on the front foot, the idea that we have to approach it defensively or we get thumped is already proven to be false. I got this approach in 2012 and 2015 because with the squads we had at that point all that mattered was getting over the line but at this point we aren't near the two major trophies, it's about building a team that will eventually get there (and one that will hopefully stay there this time).

We may not be superior to City but the previous 4 times we've played them since the style change we've only been embarrassed once (admitedly spectacularly but still), the other 3 times we went toe to toe and we done very well, only conceding twice and even keeping clean sheets in 2 of them.

I've watched the match again and i'm even less convinced it was some sort of masterclass tactics than i was at the time. Most of our chances came from City mistakes, the only exceptions being Mount's scuffed shot in the first half and the move which led to the penalty. Kante also made 0 tackles and 3 interceptions while many times miss passing in dangerous areas, watching this again without the raw emotion i'm even more convinced (if that's even possible) he's not for that position. If Lampard keeps persisting with this experiment it will ruin all the excellent work (in evolutionary terms) he's done up to this point, i'm sorry to keep repeating myself but it has to be Jorgi or Billy there. We've dominanted many games only to drop points this season so i'll take a team self imploding for our benefit and cashing in, but i really don't believe last night's approach is sustainable in the long run in direct head to heads vs City, let alone over 38 games.

Although we're still a level below our title winning sides in regards to first Xl we're a level above them in terms of depth. Our Xl that didn't start against City could probably compete for Europe. Imagine if we went into this schedule with Conte's squad especially!

If he stays on that's an even bigger indication Ziyech is playing in CM/CAM.

Hopefully we break the curse the way we did with the one Liverpool under Kenny had on us (the cup final).