Tomo

I actually preferred him there to RB. His not so great attacking ability was emphasized due to Ivanovic, I reckon a dynamic RB and Azpi at LB would make. decent combination.

Giroud, Cole and Cesc come here from Arsenal and are quickly get transformed to true Chelsea boys. The latter two making no attempt to hide as much whatsoever. Cech by comparison goes to Arsenal for more game time but makes sure he's back at the first opportunity.

It was only really the middle bit that was all LVG United esque, in between there was a fair few decent games. If you were to argue it was the biggest let down in comparison to expectations then I could agree to that but when you say about all that sideways possession that alone puts it above those season's I mentioned where we could barely string two passes together.

It really, really wasn't. Football under Sarri may not have lived upto the hype, but it was miles better than what Conte and Carlo produced in their respective second season's and Jose's meltdown season will never be topped in pretty much every negative you can think off (style of play, defending, results etc).

This is the one injury that shouldn't prove too costly. Luiz and Christensen with Ampadu on the bench is more than adequate cover.

He was absolutely dreadful in his first season at United (finishing 6th with Zlatan as your striker is god awful) and got out of jail due to the kindest Europa League run in history. But even if that's the case, do we really want the one-step forward then three back yet again? Last time you can justify it by the fact we got a title out of it, I guarentee we won't this time. If anything our current transfer ban makes him even less suited, part of the reason it all went wrong last time was because he wasn't getting his expensive targets and it was arguably the sole reason it went wrong the first time, also we've just recently sold the two players he built his attacking structure around last time. Also with the ban the need to promote our brilliant academy players comes to the fore even more, do you honestly trust Mourinho to do what's right by Reece James, Hudson Odoi, Mason Mount, Ethan Ampadu? Make no mistake those guys are the real deal and if we don't nurture them others will nab them off us, most likely rivals in this league. Mourinho won't patiently develop them, it's not in his nature, he won't be able to do a Klopp and take on a 3 year project (it's three years minimum until we're challenging for the league and the CL again bar a written in the stars run in the latters case) he won't be able to, his ego won't be able to stay calm through all the punches he will have to ride to get there. Lampard while a risk as the unknown, it also means we can go into it with hope. With Jose back we all roughly know what the script is going to be only this time it will almost certainly be all the bullshit with no league title to show for it. Jose will always be a massive figure in the history of the club, no one can ever take that away from him, but he should never be our manager again.

I think he's a bit overrated personally, and it has to be noted (although not totally his fault) the business end of last season is the first time he's been a regular in a defense that's not a disastrous one. Furthermore he can command £40m this summer potentially, it would be a bit of an economical waste to have a player who can command such a fee sitting as 4th choice which he will be with everyone else fully fit and even that's assuming Ampadu goes out on loan.

Needs to be looked at it context, given where we are right now just looking at trophy record is counter productive as it's likely going to take atleast two years to get challenging again and even that's only if we get almost everything right in the interim. One of the main musts with these job now is who can bring through the next generation. We have the best set of youngsters in this country since the Busby Babes, would you really trust Jose to nurture them and be patient while they grow? Could you really imagine him patiently building for a few years while Pep and Klopp run away from sight at 1st and 2nd? I can't, his ego won't allow it, he'd lose his shit more than ever before. You think its bad seeing KDB and Salah at rivals, wait until homegrown Chelsea boys are doing so which could well be the case if we bring back Mourinho. One of the big remits of this next few years has to be to bring through the cream of our current crop, and with that in context Lampard (especially given he has Jody Morris in his staff who will openly advocate giving these players chances) seems as safe a bet as any.

Is he? Historically absolutely but is he really one of the best active managers in 2019? I see no evidence to suggest so, ever since his title in 2015 he's been stumbling across one disaster after another. You wouldn't bring a washed up ex great player to next season's lineup based on what he did in the past, so why would you with a manager?

He's lead his team out of the top four three out of the last four season's. He finished 6th with Zlatan leading the line for god sake. Nothing against you but I'm genuinely stunned that there's so many people entertaining the idea of a Jose mark 3 after how it ended with us and United, it would see us away from challenging for years and years and years, will probably be as damaging as Souness's spell at Liverpool was,if not more so.

It takes no time atall to fly almost anywhere round Europe. They could easily meet in say Barcelona and Frank could be back home for tea time.

Lets not rewrite history, many average players stayed long past the time they should have back then aswell.

Because Barkley's the best Photoshop.

How do you know that? Arsenal don't have a big budget and Auba and Lacazette aside have been pretty pants in the market for years. United throw money away at will. They may sign players but there's no guarantee both or even either will significantly improve, infact (recent) history suggests they won't.

Football doesn't work as simple as that. There's many factors to consider. Firstly, you would imagine Kante, Kepa, Jorginho, Christensen will all be better next season which as a collective will go a fair way to making up for Hazard's loss. Secondly we have coped well without him last couple of years, 20 wins out of 21 last year in games he didn't start, yes the opponents weren't great and yes he came on and made the difference in a few of them but if we were so fucked without him we wouldn't drum up a stat like that. Yes he will be missed and yes games will come by when we seriously miss his magic, however there's been enough sample size of playing without him the last couple of years which suggest we will not be plummeting down the league.

From what i heard he's been offered a ambassadorial role and turned it down as he wants to carry on coaching. Is it me or has his return gone a little bit too under the radar? You would think his return after all this time even as assistant would have caused unprecedented fanfare but he's barely been adknowledged atall, not even an initial fuss was made of him.

This notion that Jorginho would fall apart outside of Sarriball is the laziest myth I've ever heard.

I personally believe Drogba's skill set lies as a club ambassador promoting the club in events around the world.

Depends on the context. Is Lampard or anyone going to win the treble with this squad? Quite clearly not but if you look at by a comparison to realistic targets then I would say there's a comparison. Pep winning the treble with Barcelona is overachieving as I imagine the expectations of Barca that year was one of the big trophies, so in that sense the treble is overachieving. I imagine next season Lampard will be given the target of 4th place, so if he achieves that with a domestic cup or even better a deep CL run by a similar token he's overachieving. So yes Lampard won't instantly turn us into treble winners because as you implied he doesn't have the players, but he will be given expectations in line with the quality of our squad and if he's a similar level to what Pep was in 2008 we would have a chance of meeting said expectations.

If any manager comes in and plays Kante as a lone DM i will instantly question their ability as a coach, it neglects his biggest attribute. Most managers who want to play on the front foot will value Jorginho as the DLP.

I imagine Lampard would make Baka surplus to requirements and have Ampadu as Kante's alternative. Mourinho on the other hand....

We can be forgiven some way to getting him back to build for the long term in 2013 even if it was a bit naive. Given the sentimental connection with him and the fact he hadn't as of yet tried to do the long term/sustainable build thing you can see why we gave it a roll of the dice. United were stupid for doing similar after his lack of sustainable building ability was so brutally exposed back here and got the results their stupidity deserved. If we bring him back at a stage we have a transfer ban and are looking to integrate some talented youngsters into the team, after seeing what happened the last two jobs he took attempting to build something for the long run (one of them being here) wow, i would genuinely wonder if whoever made the choice is unwell.

Never thought i would ever say this but if Mourinho returns i won't be renewing my membership. I fell for the whole "i'm coming back to build something" last time, won't be doing that again.

Liverpool's great window last summer seems to give the illusion Klopp's always been fully backed with plan A's which couldn't be further from the truth. The first summer he got in Matip, Manniger, Karius, Klavan, Mane (when he was still an inconsistent winger) and Wijnaldium andonly two for over £10m, had we signed those 6 players at that point would you honestly have been happy about it? That would be considered a disaster window for us yet he's turned 3 of those into very important players for him and despite such a poor window improved Liverpool's position by 4 places. The following summer he asked for three players to take his side to the next level and began the season with one, although admittedly got the other 2 at a later date. Even the eventual VVD signing were funded by the sale of their best player. He's had all told 1 truly great window out of 6 since arriving.

That's life, if you can't get plan a you go for plan b if not b then c and so on. For example i can't imagine a Wijnaldum who had just been relegated with Newcastle was a first choice for Klopp for example but instead of acting like a schoolchild and moaning about how shit he was every chance he got he instead got on with it focused on getting the best out of him and hey presto, key cog in his European cup winning machine.