Tomo

Now I've got a nervous wait for the release of the fixtures, due to travel commitments if matchday 1 isn't at The Bridge the only game i'll be able to attend before December is Macclesfield/Grimsby.

Would have preferred a cakewalk group but atleast we avoided all the best teams in the other pots (Real, Dortmund, Leti, Lyon and Leipzig). Next to no serious travelling aswell which is a bonus.

Not talking the fans, I'm talking the result.

Would love Inter. Conte is due some of the Karma Jose got first time back at The Bridge (for the way he acted at the end).

I think in general squad players being regular starters in our squad has held us back for a while, then in 2017 we made it worse by adding more squad player's to go with the one's we already had. Not only that but when our top player's decline to the level of squad player ability we tend to take years to act accordingly (Ivan and the old guard), hopefully the same mistake isn't made with Azpi. To truly push forward and challenge again we need to make top quality signing's while pushing the squad player's back to appropriate roles, with the player's we now have coming through the system that should be a lot easier as we have less spaces to fill.

Luiz in CM was okay when we're playing strictly on the counter (City, Paris, Spurs), however games we were expected/wanted/had to take the initiative (Roma, Leti) he was a horrible choice.

I think this is the game to bring out the diamond with the combination of Sheffield's 3atb and the injury to Pedro. Kepa, Azpi, Rudiger, Zouma, Emerson, Jorginho, Kovacic, Mount, Barkley, Giroud, Tammy.

It's quite the opposite i feel, around 2013 it peaked with almost every non top 6/7 side playing low block in games vs the big boys but now we are getting those type of managers whittled out. No clubs are pushing the Big Sam or Pulis panic button any more and even Stoke are sacking managers because of their style of play. More and more teams going toe to toe with the big boys, apart from Palace and Newcastle i don't think we will face many if any pure spoiler tactics all season.

Its seems the club and the fanbase have all universally learned their lesson from the De Bruyne and Salah situations and are firmly pulling in the same direction with producing the best pathway for these set of youngsters. I think the early contract renewals are in part to the fact if they have screamers of a season they could demand ridiculous amounts early on (like what Rashford did at United) whereas this way by the time it gets to that point they will be that little bit older and already be firmly established in the first team.

It's becoming even worse than I feared. Its not rectifying clear and obvious errors (like Azpi getting tripped up, what should have been a Cahill red card at OT) and worse changing correct decisions (Zouma's goal). Not only that it's punishing ball to hands where a players arm is stuck to their body (meaning no real advantage with it touching the hand) aswell as getting all particular about whether the tiniest part of a players body is offside. It's been completely counter productive so far.

Willian being untouchable with managers is the biggest urban myth I've ever heard. For both Conte and Sarri Hazard and Pedro were the first choice wingers and early evidence suggests he won't be starting all too often under Lampard either.

Does that mean in about 20 years time Frank will be in the Sky Sports studio having lost his mojo criticisising Mount (who's just got the Chelsea job) for his team selection?

I would say he's perfect for a squad role, he's inconsistent but does have natural quality which usually will mean a burst of good form once or twice a season. He can also play in a variety of shapes and positions. If he's happy to play such a role we should keep him, there's always a game or two a season which he will be a match winner (Saints, Malmo) or match saviour (United).

I would bet anything most if not all of those tweets were posted as bait. We should stop giving these people a platform.

They have definitely stagnanted, i called it last year even when they were getting results. The notion that's it's a sign of a great team to grind out results is a myth, well one off games ok but if you are doing it for an extended period you're always on borrowed time and the results will eventually dry up, happened to us through 2015 and to an extent the 17/18 season, United through 2018 and now Spurs. I didn't expect them to fall this badly but it's beenclear for about a year that Spurs are on a downward spiral, not adequately replacing Walker and Rose (the latter is still there but he's been crap since his long lay off) while neglecting a declined midfield (until this summer) is the start of where it all went wrong. 2017 i felt it was only a matter of time before they won the league, thankgod that never materialised.

While i agree that's probably the best way to use both that will also lead to more problem's defensively. I feel we will need better individual defenders before we can get away with doing that.

Maybe but they as it stands are competiting for 1 position. Moving Kante to sitting DM just to have both on at the same time just won't work.

If he's happy to stick around as a squad player I'd keep him. It's easy to say cash in but there's not many even good squad player's available in the £30-40m range these days as we found out in summer 2017 and while Ross isn't good enough to be a regular starter he's certainly good enough for the B team (we will need a competitive back up lineup if we're to compete with Pep's City).

That just screams of trying to shoehorn Mount and RLC in like Sven did Lampard and Gerrard. If the system only allows one then we have to pick or rotate it's a simple as that. Furthermore the average age of the attacking 5 is just too young, we need some experience to balance that out, especially in times of adversity.

Personally i think 19 suits him. Unless he specifically requests 8 if/when Ross goes i would keep his number as it is.

The fact a lot of people had Spurs as dead cert for 3rd and even in some cases challenging the top two just goes to show how lazy the average fan and pundit is in predicting things. Any proper research and knowledge of Spurs's situation and you would know they are in a lot of shit, they started last season well results wise but performances declined then the results caught up with them, a riddled by luck run to the CL final has masked over what has been a spectacular collapse. I wouldn't be remotely surprised if they're the ones who end up 6th.

Tbh I would say is winning the CL when we did is one of the biggest miracles in sport, truly written. There's no logical way it can explained, even with Leicester you can point to Kante, Mahrez and Vardy in the form of their lives and just broken to world class level (Kante) or borderline (the latter two). With us we didn't have a single world class player. The old guard were long past their best , Luiz, Danny and Mata were good but flawed, the rest of the squad was awful, Di Matteo was in charge (I love him but he's not a great manager), absolute madness!

I stand by what I said re Loftus back then, he just wasn't impacting games atall. He would make one darting run or near turn every half hour ish which fooled people into thinking he's doing more than he actually was. That's why I kept emphasizing my delight at his progress from November onwards because I really thought it would never come, credit has to go to Sarri aswell for properly working with him instead of shoehorning/hiding him in positions where his weaknesses least hurt the side.

Early days but it feels like Hazard leaving has free'd up the attack. Hazard was such a good talisman that the rest of the attackers seemed to let him take charge and take a back seat which often lead to nullified attacking play when he was doubled/tripled up on effectively, in theory that should have meant our other players were more destructive with the extra space but it never quite panned out that way. There were signs last season we could cope well without him (we won 20/21 he didn't start although granted he did have to come on in a few of them) but at this minute it looks like we can more than cope. I thought we were better defending the open game today but set pieces is a serious problem, we look capable of conceding at every high ball into the box and so nearly did again, thankfully there's not really any Bolton, Stoke esque sides in the league these days, imagine us facing Delap's long throw's