Tomo

Kante to Lampard is what Rooney was to LVG. I thought players playing on reputation was the one thing I thought we'd never have to worry about under Frank given how vocal he was against Sven doing it, but clearly not!

Even though we lost at The Ethiad we went toe to toe with them and we were excellent. Only way we get a result with this lineup is if we shithouse it which won't be good for the bigger picture. Lose lose, fuck sake!

No.

It would be quite fitting after all their nearly bottlejobs that they needed someone else to get them over the line.

Their defense is only "good" because Ole's tactics protect it, if they appoint a manager that plays more progressively (which they'll have to do to make that step forward to title challenge) they'll suddenly be very bad and need a complete defensive overhaul.

I'm not sure we would, we're quite big on respecting our player's wishes.

It's mainly down to who's playing regista. If it's Jorginho or Billy i fancy our chances if it's Kante or even Kova then we're in for a long night.

Ask me once the lineup is out.

Most still have something to play for. They won't have it as easy next week vs Lamptey and Brighton.

I've always said if they got CL (which I think they would have if the league wasn't called off) it would be the biggest achievement in PL history, even over Leicester's title.

Because us being heavily linked leads to more attention on him and focus on his game, maybe watching Levekusen especially. I know he's a manager but a similar example would be Conte, when Jose was sacked he wasn't mentioned by anyone for months until the links and rumours started to hot up, to which people started doing their research (I came to the correct conclusion he was going to win us the league after studying his career and methods) and the excitement built due to what we were finding out.

This is the down side to having so much talent in the ranks, some will leave simply because there's no room.

I'm sorry but I just can't imagine it, apart from the Jose honeymoon period they haven't strung any real run of wins together all season. If we conspire to finish below this Spurs side we don't even deserve Europa.

I almost feel for them at this point, they're not even pretending to want to compete anymore.

Spurs aren't catching us, the problems are United and Wolves.

I can see Lamptey going to one of our rivals in a few years sadly. Why couldn't he have been a LB?

Where's all this stuff that Mount's just a workhorse coming from? An admittedly poor winter period has seemingly distorted reality and made people think that's his level. Things like his goal at Norwich, run against Spurs (before Alonso's goal), and piece of play yesterday to set up what should have been the easiest goal of the season have all been excellent pieces of individual brilliance by him. I was as happy as anyone with the progress made by RLC at the back end of last season (Sarri doesn't get the credit he deserves for the work he did with him) but unfortunately for him he's got a mountain to climb now as a player that suits Frank's system down to the ground is playing in his position (and personally I think Mounts form before the second international break and Spurs away and beyond is better than anything I've seen from Ruben with the exception of those last two months I mentioned, comfortably so aswell).

It's why i feel reward outweighs risk vs City, especially now we've proven we can compete vs them in head to heads playing our way. Ofcourse i'm not suggesting reckless attack but i'd rather focus on how we can hurt them instead of panic about what they may do to us and shit ourselves into defensive submission.

In the other two games we got clean sheets going toe to toe with them, and equally looked good doing likewise in the reverse game this season.

Because if he's infront of the defense we won't be able to play out effectively and the ball will keep coming back at us and eventually with all that pressure they'll crack us even if Kante has his best ever game. I can accept losing to City but i can't and won't accept more games like 17/18 where they toyed with us and we couldn't string any proper moves together.

This is going to sound crazy until i've added context but i though Torres's finishing in isolation while here was quite good. Torres's problem was he didn't have the tactical brain to get in those scoring positions regularly which meant he'd often go weeks without even a half chance of a goal. The rare times he got in i was confident he would finish and he usually (with a few high profile exceptions) did. If he was a genuine bad finisher like Morata he wouldn't have even hit double figures here.

The last time Kante played sitting DM against a big team we were 3 down at half time. City will bait him into vacating his position to press and it will carnage, and that won't even be the biggest problem. If you see Kante's thread Nikki posted a clip where we were struggling to play out against Villa because Kante wasn't taking up the appropriate positions for a pass and this was against one of the worst sides in the league who weren't bothering to press us, imagine how it will go against City? Also as i'm assuming Tomori won't be starting we won't be playing with a technically astute CB which makes Jorginho or Gilmour (possibly both) an even bigger must. Furthermore Kante's been fine against the big sides at RCM, these type of games aren't where the current issues with him lie.

He wasn't that technically gifted, if he was he wouldn't have declined that badly. David Villa was a much better all round player and that came to the fore almost every time they played together for Spain even when Nando at his absolute peak. His main attributes that gave him that crucial one second advantage over many defenders were his acceleration and his underrated upper body strength (for reference see how he knocked over Ferdinand to score at Anfield against Man.United). As soon as injuries took them away he was reliant on his technical game and tactical mind and as we all know, neither were good enough. I don't 100% agree with @OhForAGreavsieas I did rate him in his prime, but it wasn't his technical ability that got him to where he was.

Pep would be doing cartwheels if we do that.

Tbh i've sort of made peace with our set piece issues, as @NikkiCFC has just alluded too it's runs a lot deeper than height. I'm not even sure it's (hugely) on the coaching either as we were just as bad if not worse with them under Sarri (that's why i never brought the theory things would improve once Rudi returned). There's ways round it though like anything, minimizing the amount we concede in the first place being the most obvious one, City (who themselves have set piece woes) have done that.