Tomo

Really am bewildered by the constant questioning of Hazard's attitude, not only has he given us 6 years of service (which is a long time in the modern day, especially to a club you had no previous connection to) but also literally every single interview and video i see him in i don't see this bad egg with a big ego that a lot of people bizarrely think he possesses, what i see is a very decent guy of excellent character. If i was told a player was causing trouble in the dressing room and was then told to guess who it was, Eden's name genuinely would not cross my mind.

I feel with the new batch of 17-18 year olds in general that they seem a lot more set to challenge for a first team place than the last bunch. With Boga, Musonda, Ruben, Kenedy i feel they lack in too many areas to be serious first team players for us whereas the likes of Mount, CHO and Ampadu look like they belong at the top level (Mount's played in the Europa League and looked excellent, small sample size but still).

Boga has issues with end product and sharp decision making which will ultimately see to any chance he has with us. CHO looks light years ahead of both.

I would imagine we have some sort of transfer comitee. Two clubs currently above us run a similar model and even tighter finances.

I heard that Ray's sacking came about because his response to Roman criticising some performances was something along the lines of "we have just won the double what more do you want?". If that was true he fully deserved to be fired, no wonder the team got so complacent if that was the attitude of one of the coaches. Usually i would take rumours like this with a pinch of salt, but Ray says some unbelievably stupid things as a pundit and because of that i can actually visualize him saying the above, infact it sounds like exactly something he would say.

Going by Conte's money logic we should be 3rd. And you think Conte has no say in transfers? The shift pattern to the type of players weve gone for under him strongly suggest otherwise.

It's got to the point i want us to build a structure going forward. Lets be honest, Pep isn't relinguishing top spot for the forseable future so we might aswell turn that negative into a positive and build a style of play while integrating the young players which in the long run will see us competing if done right. I was happy with the solid shape first, everything else second when it had us amoungst the favorites for major trophies, but if we are going to be an outside bet (which we all are for as long as Pep's here) id rather we started playing attack based football.

If he was 26/27 i would say he's finally upped his game and is coming of age but at nearly 30 i can't shake away the feeling he's just on a fluke purple patch. I hope im wrong and if i am he's taken the phrase late bloomer to whole new dimensions.

Your profile picture's Danny Alves and you seem absolutely delighted United look set to finish above us. I try and give people the benefit of the doubt but you ain't exactly subtle are you?

If we are going by the form/consistency from their time at the club, then i would probably choose Azpi over Cole. Ash had two great years (08/09 and 09/10) but his first two were very hit and miss and he was well past his best in the last four.

Who cares? I mean 99% of Chelsea fans would happily throw Cahill and (uptill a couple of months ago) Willian in the bin if they got the choice yet they are arguably the two players out of this current squad who love this club the most. We can't do that then get pissy because our actual best players might want to try new things before their careers up loyalty works both ways and ultimately the most loyal party is always the one who needs the other the most (Cahill needs us more than we need him, but we certainly need Courtois and especially Hazard more than they need us). Drogba did the same now he has legend status and is often used as an example of how our current players should behave, if Hazard does a u turn the same way and stays till late in his career (which given how good he is will almost certainly get him equal legend status) in ten years time it will be "(insert new player here) is a mercenary cunt, Hazard would never do this".

Lukaku actively rage quitted on Mourinho's Chelsea twice yet he's now giving the same player the same unconditional 90 minutes he gave Ivanovic, so it clearly runs deeper than that. I might have been up for the gamble had we still been playing a flat back four, but apart from at a push LCB i don't see how in a million years he would fit in here in the back 3/5. Martial however i agree with, Rashford's hit his ceiling so not to bothered with him.

You need much more than goals in a striker. Bats goal record shits on Giroud's yet we look 10x better as a team with the latter leading the line.

Can't be explained with a honeymoon period, that would be a more apt description for Malouda's first season, the sheer drop after Leti away is something i have never seen before. I don't even get that mad watching him i am just staggered, only explanation i can think of is that his injury that was supposedly delaying the medical was more serious than we thought and rushing him back for Spurs while it helped on the day has ultimately cost us.

He was actually really good upto and including Atletico away and was giving us the drive and power we lacked from Matic, which makes his fall from grace since then just truly bizarre.

They will be occupied by the CL and still have to come to Stamford Bridge, obviously a lot of things have to go in our favour but it's possible. It's a shame we blew the game at Old Trafford, had we won we could have targeted them too.

Spurs will have another strong af end and claim second i think, if we are going to get in the top 4 Liverpool are the team we need to target.

Wouldn't even say it's that big a plus. Firstly because aside from that 5-3 we have dealt with him pretty well and when Kane's not playing Son, Alli, Eriksen etc seem to thrive on the added responsibility, a bit like how Malouda, Anelka, Lamps did during the double season whenever we lost Drogs.

Why should a winger be judged purely on goals? Figo never hit more than 14 in a season, did he not have a ruthless mentality either?

Doesn't even have a quarter. There was an influx of trolls around 2013 time who were left free to cause havoc on here for months, it frightened away numerous quality posters, most of whom haven't returned to this day and the trolls most likely frightened away potential new members too. This place when i joined was genuinely the best forum i have ever visited, today it's unrecognizable to those days.

De Gea fucks up a lot more than general opinion suggests, he's made many errors vs us alone in the past (including being easily beaten for Willian's recent goal at Old Trafford) and single handedly derailed Spain Euro 2016. I mean he's very good but he's helped by playing for such a shite defense that gives him the exposure to make up for his mistakes, i just can't subscribe to have a keeper who's average at best at commanding his area (even United fans are picking up on this) and makes silly mistakes often as the worlds best keeper (not saying Courtois is either). For the supposed best thing since sliced bread there ain't half some embarrassing blunders in there and that's only last season (plus Euro 2016). De Gea actually reminds me of Cudicini (he's better but they share striking similarities), excellent shot stopper and in his element when facing shot after shot, but when we started building a top team where Cudicini only needed to be called upon once or twice a game, he looked lost and couldn't keep concentration. If/when DDG transfers to Real i will be very intreged to see how he copes with the transition.

So after Wednesday it's clear most of you want a new keeper, maybe De Gea or Donnaruma, they would never let their team down and concede avoidable goals on a big European night.

Yeah like Wenger's going to outsmart Simeone

He's MUCH better right now than what he was in 15/16. During that season he was playing his normal level but that just looked amazing because of how bad the others got (and his free kick purple patch), last couple of months he's stepped up beyond anything we have seen from him before.

Is this purely based on shot stopping?