Tomo

Regardless of how much he has or hasn't played, he has been a member of the first team squad since the start of the season so obviously if he's injured it will be reported.

We would have stood in the way of both the latter two had they not acted up the way they did. in fact, we did just that with Hazard.

Solanke's a Defoe replacement (the latter's going/gone to Rangers)!

I never said it was all about training time, but it plays a massive part of it. @Unionjack this is in some ways a reply to what you're saying too. To use another analogy, if you were an officer trained on homicide cases and move to child protection, you will need a fair bit of training to perfect it. In a footballing sense the shift from Conte to Sarri is almost as extreme and the training time since Sarri's arrival has been pretty broken. Of Course there's some average players that need overhauling, but sod all time to train and implement a new system is a killer, especially when it's miles in difference from the last one.

Sarri was asked his opinion on Pulisic a month ago and his response was positive. Many clubs have transfers decided above the manager these days (when Levy does it he's branded a genius) and Sarri has already said he has no intention of going all football manager on the board like Conte did. The youth signings of the early 10's were board driven but if we had a manager who utilized them properly we'd be the best in the league right now. The only time it becomes an issue in my opinion is if the signing is against Sarri's philosophy (for example Lukaku) or is not/has no potential to be the required quality, neither apply to Pulisic.

Think he's best as a winger for now, his arrival on the pitch against Bournemouth and Leicester coincided both times with us losing control in the middle, he's still got a lot to learn in that area.

Forget that, I'm more excited by the fact we are rebuilding the right wing!!

The decline in performances is a lot down to one thing, The lack of training pitch time. He is coming in, trying to teach the squad a totally different brand of football to what the players are accustomed too, he has a broken pre season where most of the key players are on holiday from the world cup then when they come back they are getting upto speed for the first few weeks and by the time they are we end up starting the midweek marathon where we have played in every single midweek since the PAOK away game in September which renders training time as manly warm downs, that is a killer when learning a completely new system and style of play. Imagine you are doing weekly theory test's for driving (to pluck a random example), the first few weeks you have all the time in the world to revise and perfect things, but after that practice time is cut down significantly, eventually it's going to start to show in your results, won't it? The chances created and attacking play in the final 3rd isn't anywhere near what it could be, but one thing he has got right is how we are defending and how comfortable we are on the ball. Now i know some may reply with "possession is pointless if you do nothing with it" and all the usual stigma cliche's and as a rule i would agree, but with us/Sarri it's not the end game it's a hopeful building block onto bigger things. I remember a few years ago that video came out on YouTube of Napoli expertly playing the ball out of the back under extreme pressure and people on here were posting about it with the green eyed monster wishing our defenders could do that, well after six months we are doing that, we have been seamlessly playing out of trouble even against Liverpool and City with defenders that were supposedly not capable of it. The 65%-70 possession per match and how comfortable we are in possession is a starting block to where we are trying to go and in fact i think Sarri's done very well to implement that so early, i actually thought that was the part of his tactics that were going to take the longest to implement but it's been done seamlessly. Also i am very impressed with how good we look defensively, again that's another part i thought was going to take a while and i expected us to be vulnerable at the back for pretty much the duration of season one, the last two against Palace and Southampton both barely got a sniff at a chance, apart from the last ten minutes against Palace i didn't even remotely fear we would concede, that is quite remarkable all things considered, now i may get the usual counter of "it's only Palace and Southampton" well they have smashed a combined four past City recently and we gave neither a sniff. While we are on the subject of City remember how awful Pep and Klopp's defense was in the early stage? For Sarri to have us looking quite solid so early is a massive plus for me. Now when a manager is not getting it all his own way there's always one thing you need to ask, can you see what he's trying to do? It doesn't matter how well he's currently doing it but just to focus on the question. Moyes would be the greatest example of the answer to that question being no, there was no real blueprint or idea on what he was trying to achieve and it looked like he was making it up as he went along. An example of yes would be Klopp at Liverpool, didn't get it all his own way for the first two years but the blueprint was there, what he was trying to achieve was there. With Sarri i can see what he's trying to do he wants us to play with speed and decisiveness but unfortunately that's beyond some of the current players, it's not even about getting the best players it's about getting players more suited to the style. Willian doesn't fit his desired tactics, neither does Barkley, neither do the forwards, neither does Alonso from an attacking POV, Kante's getting there but still learning the ropes, we can't consistently play the style he wants but we are trying to work towards it, for example Alonso's post hit at the end of the Leicester game would have been a typical Sarri goal. All things considered Sarri right now i wouldn't say should get a free hit, but there is definitely mitigating circumstances which means he deserves the benefit of the doubt and we should give him a couple of windows to see where he could take us. Now don't get me wrong if we are still performing with such sketchy end product this time next year i will be as skeptical as anyone but what would the options be at the minute? Bottle it and go pragmatic for the end of the season and be back to square one in the summer? The big pro argument for that in the past is it would put us with a chance of the major trophies (2009, 2012) that isn't the case anymore so we have nothing to really lose by seeing the process though unless we bomb badly. With the emergence of what City, Liverpool and to an extent Spurs are doing we need to build something sustainable to keep up, the sticky plaster route was only ever going to work for so long!!

Unfortunately it appears the Sancho deal might work against us on this occasion. I would honestly prefer to keep him and try to change his mind, if we lose him for free then fuck it!

The thing is, Jorginho isn't being shut down, far from it. He's doing his job just fine, he's always makes himself available for the pass when his team mates are under pressure (which saves a lot of dispossession in dangerous areas) and keeps things ticking over in the middle, it's what's happening infront of him that's the problem. There's many issues that need solving in this side but Jorginho isn't one of them.

I think we will still get 4th because Arsenal are even worse and United's new manager bounce will wear off. Funnily enough i think our defense will be what gets us there, that's one aspect right now that's coming on nicely, Palace and Saints barely got a sniff last two games.

Didn't he leave City to avoid just that?

Rotate with what? Maybe he could have brought Christensen or Zappacosta in for Luiz or Alonso but beyond that the current injury list means this team picks itself!

Tbf the fact Klopp wanted him is a good sign, all of his signings at Liverpool bar Karius have been bang on!

I agree with the first paragraph but i just can't with the second, as poor as Morata is atleast he finds himself in positions to miss his sitters and his movement is okay ish, Torres didn't offer a single positive attribute outside of the goal every 4/5.

I meant the two season's after Carlo's double, they both (alongside Kalou) basically became caricatures because of how bad they became, on here we branded them Kaloudanelka

I'm hoping CHO is fit purely because i can't stomach Willian and Morata in the team at the same time, i can just about get over the former if it's the false 9 system but both together is like post double Malouda and Anelka all over again.

I'm fairly certain Sarri doesn't mean that, ofcourse he's not going to say we need one, imagine if we fail to sign one and Sarri has to go back and ask two players he has basically told the world are shit to deliver for him?

Im a little sceptical myself of the signing, but for perspective Ronaldo's goal record in his first three seasons at United was only slightly better, something like 26 in 138 roughly. Obviously im not saying Pulisic will have the same career but he's got plenty of time and scope to improve that record.

He did at Empoli while Napoli have one of the worst academy's in the top level, can we wait more than 6 months before declaring doomsday?

I think the rules have changed for just one winner (outside the top four) but if both win their respective comps with us in 4th, were done for!

I don't think either have enough to overhaul us tbh, Arsenal because they aren't good enough and United because they are too far behind. If we lose our CL spot next season i think it will be because they win the European competitions with us in 4th, which would be awful.

If Pulisic or Lozano come in i think one of Willian or Pedro will go, unfortunately it will probably be the latter.

If wiki's not lying he's got 78 goals in 210 games as a winger, granted in much weaker leagues but it's a very solid record never the less.

Liverpool also "scraped" a win against Palace and City were beat by them. While i accept this wasn't the best performance ever we were probably a lot more comfortable in general play than any other team will be at Selhurst this season.