Tomo

If it's between us and United I think we could do it. We clearly have a much clearer direction going forward than United, Jadon is best mates with Callum and was a Chelsea fan as a kid. Hopefully he will look at his peers all coming through here and say "I want to play with them and make history with them". However if Pep let's go of his usual stubbornness (not giving a player another chance to play for him if they reject him once) or worse Real and Barca knock hard we will face an uphill battle.

Even so, at that point (six months of regular playing time) it would have been crazy to drop that much on him, but I'm still not that convinced they would have sold him so soon (given it looked like he was dragging them to the title at the point we went for Christian) and even if they would, I don't think he would have left, certainly not for us at a time the uncertainty around his best mate Odoi was at it's peak.

As for Pulisic he reminds me a bit of Loftus before last season. Not in style (obviously) but in the sense that he has a lot of talent and the idea of him is great but it's currently not really translating into reality. Hopefully at some point it comes together for Christian like it did for Ruben.

Sancho wasn't available last summer for any price and certainly not on a buy in January to loan back basis like we would have had to do due to the ban. We may still go for Sancho if/when he becomes available.

I think Liverpool will be a similar team to tonight with Kovacic or Kante in somewhere which should be enough against the type of teams Klopp puts out in the cups, especially if we get the home tie. City is a completely different story though.

Went to that one, me and my mate when back to our accomodation (don't live in London) thinking we got ourselves a bargain in Zappa and Moses was out of the team for good.....

Was Conte really hated? I thought the excuses created for him at one point (second half of second season) in some quarters was only topped by the one's for Torres.

Just shows how flawed the way TPTB define the word 'assist' is. To give a couple of random examples Mount last season for Derby away to Millwall I think it waa dummied the ball for Nugent to go through and score but doesn't technically get the assist because he didn't touch it while whoever passed the ball before Hazard ran through half of Arsenal's team technically get an assist on the record book. Unless they assist at a crazy rate like KDB or prime Cesc I tend to ignore it as a barometer of a player.

People aren't kneejerking based on tonight, they are basing it on years of watching him.

I'm going to bring it up again at some point but I created an article about 4 years ago asking if our academy will eventually help us dominate English football. Itwasn't just on a hunch it was based on what I heard about the lads still to come to the fore (at that point the guys we're seeing now) and was laughed out of the room. I will bring the subject up sometime when it feels right to see opinion now.

Not sure but it's something I've read, potentially his start at Dortmund but don't quote me on that.

Could be a 4-3-3 with Pulisic going in the 3. He has played there before albeit a while ago.

Legit critism fine, it's comments like "HAHAHAHAHA Willians better at doing nothing" I take issue with and the fact that post has enough likes for the heart feature to appear on the top makes it even worse.

What excuses? Seems you can't even be as much as neutral regarding Willian these days without being branded an apologist. I was never that huge a fan of Willian even when he was all the range but the scapegoating at this point is getting ridiculous, in pre season I read someone criticize him for having the cheek to take his entitled holiday.

A manager that spent half a season taking the piss out of the entire fanbase no less.

With the news Emerson's out for a few weeks I hope Maatsen plays tomorrow. In my opinion a lot of the problems with Marcos last season was playing too much, when It got to the festive period and beyond he looked tanked but after Emerson took over for a few games around March time he responded with some strong performances of his own. Whether we like it or not Alonso will be needed for Brighton, Lillie, Southampton so he must stay well away from the team tomorrow to keep up freshness.

It always amazes me that no one can see middle ground with Willian. He's either amazing or hopeless when in reality he's always been something in between.

It honestly wouldn't surprise me if he still genuinely believes 15/16 had nothing to do with him which would have in turn meant he naturally felt he had a chance of coming back. He made it clear while doing punditry for the CL final he was up for a 3rd coming if offered. Furthermore even if he wouldn't have took it the fact alone that he wasn't offered a job Lampard with one year of championship experience got serves to further demonstrate how far he's fallen which is what he can't stand above anything. When he signalled his intentions to return last time we changed the direction we were heading in to accommodate him whereas now we're choosing his former player with one year of managerial experience over him, he must be absolutely seething.

It must have absolutely destroyed him that Lampard was given the Chelsea job while he was available. I would wager that hurt him even more than Conte's title win here.

Although I didn't expect him to get zero minutes this week I did say he needed to be took out of the firing line a bit. He was great Vs Liverpool and all right against Norwich but against Leicester and Sheffield United to say he was largely anonymous is being kind. Remember when Conte kept playing 21 year old Christensen through his shit spell only to damage him further?

Gone a bit unnoticed with Tomori's masterclass but I thought Kurt was very good today. He came into a very awkward situation and did well.

He always seems to respond well whenever Emerson has a run (case I'm point this fixture the year before last which was in my opinion his best performance for us).

For me it's all right at the minute because we are at the stage of development where performances take just as much stock as results and to match who are whether we like it or not the best team in the land right now and one of the best in PL history is a very positive sign at this point. I however do agree that over time that these type of soundbites will have to erode and be replaced by more substance. That's where Arsenal went wrong 2005 onwards, even when Cesc/Nasri etc hit their prime it they still had the same targets as they did when the players were teenagers (ie play well and get top 4).

Pep done the exact same thing after City drew against Spurs, does that mean City are not a top team anymore.

I think the open play defending has improved since United/Leicester/pre season however set piece defending if anything is getting worse, look like conceding every time we face one.