Tomo

He is the type of player that needs his manager to be truly invested in him, well coached he is one of the best CB's around. Conte and Rafa worked hard on him and reaped the reward's, Jose and Carlo couldn't really be bothered and reverted to the "safer" option's of Cahill and Alex after a while and AVB and RDM aren't coaches that know defending to put it mildly.

When did that happen?

You said this in the Swansea game too, are you going to every time were on terms?

Why are people so defensive over the board having a say in transfers? If we left it totally to the manager's Drogba would have been shafted out for Adriano, just saying!!!!!

Got to admit im feeling a little embarrassed now by some ways i use to defend him. Although i stand by the fact i think he overall did a good job in his2 full seasons back (although even that is looking a bit meh now compared to what Conte is doing) looking at the tactics now without the blue glasses and fully moved on and over Jose it was embarrassing i was regularly making excuses for displays like what United served up on Monday.

Was the first half hour similar to these supposed dominant, ultra attacking and "unlucky" displays Jose and United fans go on about to anyone who will listen? If so no wonder they are 6th

Tbh i have always felt that this only cheer ex players no matter whatwas us trying to "prove" we were different to Arsenal, Liverpool and Spurs, "look at us we are different we don't boo or get angry at ex employees" a bit like United fans when Moyes struggled the crowd staying fully behind him felt more a desperate attempt to prove they were "different" because they give managers time as opposed to any real faith in Moyesy.

Brilliant performance, Jose played defensive and we cut them open at will at times. And Conte clearly trained the team to do a lot of flicks tonight to create space and stretch the defense.

Maybe, but the bottom line is it's doable with some good windows in the next couple of years, compared to say 2011 when we looked a million miles away from having a title challenging squad again, never mind one to challenge the previous great one.

Not disputing that, more to the point he was just a shocking ref out of his depth, he refed the Fiorentina vs Bayern game the following season and was just as bad if not worse.

Not yet but it certainly has the potential to be. I consider the respective spines to be very, very close. Cech, Terry, Maka, Lamps and Drogba compared to Courtois, Azpi, Kante, Eden and Costa is really really close in terms of the level there at what seperates this team and that one is the support players around the spine.

Barca also lost a man because Anelka slipped. Infact we were probably robbed worse vs Inter year after.

Henry never scored in cup finals, can't recall him netting in a semi either compared to Didier who has scored loads in latter stages of tournaments yet barring our versions of Ty i doubt anyone would say Didier was the better player. Eden has only had one shot at the late stages of the CL and he just came back from injury and was facing a defense which was almost as good as ours in 2005.

If he stays here for his whole career he will be our greatest ever player bar possibly Greaves, no question about it in my book.

We have that with Wilkins and he's argubly the most cliched off them all.

That suggests serious motivation problems, that's why i can never subscribe to the notion Pep, Alegri, Blanc had it easy motivating winners to go again is very hard infact you can argue that is what seperates the good from the great.

No I don't, no need to twist it. However I still remember how horrific that second season was so for as long as people say Carll was doing an amazing job and his sacking was a total disgrace, I'll keep biting. However compared to Jose, Conte and even then first coming of Hiddink I thought he fell short in terms of overall and I felt that even during the double season. Funnily enough I had similar complaints about him than I did Rafa, when it was good under both it was very good (hence our two biggest wins ever coming under the pair) but neither knew how to react when things were going wrong and the team got complacent at awfully inappropriate times. If i had to make a comparison in terms of what level I see the managers at, Rafa and Carlo would be Pedro and Duff while Jose and Conte would be Robben and Hazard.

He got tactically bent over by Dalglish and brought Torres over Aguero, he deserves the sack for those things alone.

We have only dropped 15 points all season, to be 20 points clear at this stage we could only have afforded 5 dropped points, you surely can't be demanding 25 wins and a draw in 27 games to class the season as exceptional, can you ?

Im all for constructive criticism and would be even if we won every game, but my fuck the sheer pessimism and doom and gloom before and during the game on here was pathetic.Posts conveninced Carroll would brutialise us, that an equalizer was inevitable, that the wheels are falling off (actually that was the Swansea thread after Llorente scored but still equally absurd).

Yeah and he would have done the exact same with City twice.

We have six games coming up now, two of which the Manc clubs but the four games outside of that, the minimum requirement is maximum points. Palace and Big Sam will probably come to The Bridge for a battle but we should have too much for them and i couldn't handpick a better trio of away fixtures than West Ham, Stoke and Bournemouth.

Sorry but that's rubbish, we have a better record vs Stoke than all them teams. Furthermore with the exception of Newcastle away can you name one fixture we fare a lot worse than the fellow top 6?

If we press high and have Cesc, Pedro and Eden starting we will have a field day, i would honestly be more worried about this one if it was at home. The slick big pitch at the London stadium makes it almost impossible for WHU to contain superior footballing sides as we seen vs Arsenal and City twice. Also playing a high line will nullify Carroll for most of the game, if he beats Cesar in the air on the half way line its not that big a deal.