Tomo

This has been diabolical but we have rested our best 9 players so it's par for the course. If we play like this vs Arsenal with the first team then ill start to panic.

That's exactly why he resents Conte so much. Conte doing better than him not only with the same Chelsea squad but better than what he's doing at United is killing him. Not only that he has to deal with Pep and Klopp leaving him behind at United's two biggest rivals rivals and to add further insult to injury even Wenger's started working him out. This is basically his worst nightmare playing out. I feel genuinely embarrassed and ashamed supporting him as much as i did in his 2nd spell here, and im talking hungover shame of your actions the night before embarrassed.

To be fair 24's still time, i mean a certain couple of our legends were going nowhere fast at that age. Im not saying Barkley will hit those heights and i still need to be convinced myself but he has the talent to work around.

I would say Willian will be the casualty if anyone.

I know two Barca fans and both would be happy with even a 0-0.

Being reasonably content with a draw in a big away game is not the sign off a small club, i bet you Barca fans will be more than happy to leave Stamford Bridge with a share of the spoils.

Is he our first ever Scouser?

Bakayoko, and im not even intending that as a compliment to him. David's technical ability is overrated, yes he can ping passes from defense, but in midfield you won't get as much time on the ball and he's not very good at driving with it and getting past players. He is, for me, a big reason why the ball keeps coming back at us whenever he playes CDM.

Forget all the oyhers collectively, outside of City i'd only want Pogba and Dembele, the rest we either don't need (Waynama, Wilshere) or ain't good enough (the rest).

Wasn't really the plan, Atletico were a mid table team when he went there and no one saw their or his rise coming. After Atletico got in the CL with him as the star turn we could hardly do what was initially planned and loan him to a midtable side in England. In hindsight we should have probably brought him back in 2013, if not 2012.

He has, but he is poor on the ball for a midfielder and nearly everytime he plays there our possession levels are embarrassingly low and he's a big part in why. Maybe in the CL in games we are not bothered about how well we play he can be an option, but as a week by week option i'd personally consider Azpi and Christensen for midfield roles before David.

Think with Torres it was more defending off the circumstances more than the performances, i and many others turned against him very quickly the next season, infact i made myself very unpopular for giving him next to no credit for Barca. Morata has in general been performing and even getting into the position's to miss those sitters shows good awareness. The type of awareness tactically helps the team flow, we looked absolutely turgid at Palace and in the first half vs Burnley because Michy was getting in everyone's way, look at the difference even Eto'o made compared to Torres. Not saying Morata will be as good but Cavani misses a lot of sitters, but it's also excellent awareness that gets him in those position's.

I really couldn't care if they made a pact to toss eachother off once they sign new contract's, all i care about is they sign them.

Both Drogba and Hasselbaink had frustrating times, lets not let nostalgia cloud that.

Tbf that happens all the time, i remember even Benitez became the second coming of christ for a while everytime Jose had a couple of sketchy results.

It didn't, but despite a poor performance and woeful finishing i never felt we were as good as playing with ten, something which i felt with Torres 99% of the time. When Morata has a bad or average game, it's just that, bad or average, not the anonymous hoodini acts Torres "treated" us too.

Well it does it it free's up Hazard due to a defender being occupied by Morata, as what happened vs West Brom for example. Torres was a limited footballer with outstanding pace and stength, as soon as injury's took those attributes away and he needed his technical ability that's when his career went South.

If it was just about scoring goals, Mario Gomez would have been the most sought after striker of this generation. Movement and positioning is important, defender's ignored Torres because he had literally not a single redeming quality about him, they can't do that with Morata.

Torres being compared favorably against Eto'o and Ba was bad enough.

Because he was never in a position to miss three sitters.

In my defense i thought Azpi was 27 and Cesc will always be a teenager in my mind.

Us, Liverpool and Spurs are getting the last 3 places im pretty sure.

And to add, it's not like we have many over 30's in the squad, only really Cahill, Luiz, Caballero, Pedro and soon to be Willian are over 27 even and one is about to leave, one is a keeper and two others have had there roles reduced. If our squad was in a similar position as 2009 (ala over half the squad ageing with a manager overreliant on experience on the way in) i would say no, but this squad could really do with a player off Arturo's profile.

I definitely agree with that.

If we are getting a natural LB to play LWB then we need to be looking at wingers for RWB, Moses isn't particularly great defensively but barely gets exposed because he has Cesar looking after him in that regard, so we need attacking impetuous over defensive solidarity in that position.