Tomo

Claude Puel totally outsmarted Pep last week, knew exactly when to press City and when to sit back, so if anyone finds an answer to this 3-4-3 it will probably be him so it's up to Antonio to find the tweak that will catch the Frenchman of guard.

What last night and the previous couple of games has helped show are the big winners and losers in this system. For Moses, Alonso, Kante, Matic, Hazard and Luiz this system is a godsend and brings the best out of all of them and plays to their strengths, it's actually probably saved Cahill's at least immediate Chelsea future as he was surely going to be condemned to the bench if we remained with four at the back. For Costa he looks right at home in both systems we have played under Antonio, as does Azpi. Chalobah out of the youngsters has benefitted from this system as he in the last two league games got brought on for Pedro when leading as we switched to 3-5-2 to shore things up and he has done very well. However the big losers are quickly becoming apparent. Terry, Cesc and Oscar have absolutely no place in this system, Cesc maybe as a desperation last 15 minutes sub if we are losing but beyond that, no. Ivanovic will be condemned as a squad player but as a back up RCB he might work, certainly more likely to somewhat work in this system than JT and he will probably be needed at some point. Out of the youngsters there doesn't seem to be a place for RLC unless he improves his work rate, fuck this romantic one club man thing, he needs a loan, fast!!!! Aina doesn't look to comfortable as a wing back to say the least, ill give him time because he's young but he looked like a total lost puppy last night.

I was another who doubted Moses, but if we look at in the sense of his positioning we haven't really been proved wrong, i don't rate him as a winger and likely never will, however wingback is a total different role required tactically and he seems tailor made for it. Winger makes all his weaknesses stand out like a sore thumb where-as wing back bring's his strengths out (mainly pace, power and stamina) to the fore, and he's surprisingly quite good at defending too. His average decision making, technical skills and final ball is still visible on occasion, but he isn't in such an advanced position so regularly these days for it to be that big an issue and unlike on the wing doesn't hold back the team at wingback. Would be like someone not rating Thierry Henry as a winger but loving him as a striker, or Danny Rose as a winger but love him as a left back, players just simply average/not great in one position but very good (Moses and Rose) or world class (Henry) in another.

I think that at this (and most) clubs it's a sort of in the middle thing between the manager and board/owners, i do however think if Carlo was so dead against Torres and gave a detailed analysis on why say Aguero would work better, i'm sure that would have somewhat changed the water. Also Roman may have been considering sacking him in January but wasn't in the summer when we looked almost certain to get him until he signed a new deal with Liverpool last minute. He was probably not the only one that wanted Nando but i'm fairly certain he wasn't hoisted on him against his will. Also this notion of manager's having total control on everything is a romantic myth that only Fergie had the privilege too, most clubs have a hierarchy were a number of people, manager including, have some say about all the logic regarding transfers etc, i mean after all if we gave our manager's total control on the transfer side Drogba would have been replaced by Adriano, which would have meant no glut of goals in 2010 and possibly no double, no magic Munich penalty and possibly not the trophy atall.

The board deserve their fair share of the blame but some of Carlos tactical decisions and were baffling, I don't blame him for not playing Josh, Gael etc because they weren't ready, but Danny was and to carry on playing the stagnant Kaloudanelka over him was criminal. And Wilkins said Carlo chose Torres.

Yes very much stale, that 10/11 season most of our group stagnated and totally lost their hunger, apart from the man united game at home I don't think we had a convincing display all season, and I include those early 6-0s in that, very flattering scores. We finished 2nd due to a combination of two things, the league being the weakest for a long time and the sheer mentality of the leaders ability to grind out undeserved results. That season set us back years and left uswitha a massive rebuilding task.

And you have just gone for the sensation headline. I'll tell you why I think Carlo is overrated, because his league record for the teams he has managed is rubbish, and call me old fashioned by I consider the league the bread and butter, always have always will, he even blew the league with PSG, which is apparently impossible. I also don't like him as a tactican,his team's get complacent at inappropriate times and he takes far too long to change things when they go wrong, which usually see's off his team's title bids in the proces, compare that to Conte reacting almost on the spot to change things after the awful Arsenal firat half. Also Chelsea and Milan went badly stale under his watch, and neither have fully recovered. I'm not saying he's a bad manager, far from it, but I'd much prefer a Conte, Simeone, prime Fergie or prime Jose type manager who's teams regularly challenge for and win titles. Of course I find the 3 CLs impressive, but as an overall package, there's quite a few managers I prefer before Carlo.

Conte is a lot more astute tactically than Ancelotti, who in my view is somewhat over-rated as a manager despite his 3 CL titles. Also Conte has another advantage to Carlo back then, he doesn't have a set of players so set in their ways, ultimately every manager between Avram and interim RDM had to revert back to Jose's tactics as that was all the squad knew, even Wenger or Pep would have probably conceded defeat and reverted back. Antonio on the other hand has a squad that can still go any which way in terms of style of play, and a squad still young enough to learn new tricks. Having said that there will be counter tactics to the 3-4-3 sooner or later and i'm worried that it might be sooner with Claude Puel to face on Sunday, he produced a masterclass at The Etihad and totally outfoxed Pep, he knew exactly what moments to press and exactly what moment's to sit back and that got them the goal and a well deserved point. But when the time comes it's up to Antonio to keep making those tweaks (whether that is another formation or tweaks to the tactics) to keep the opposition on their toes and make it hard to predict what we will do from week to week.

He would be the ultimate wet dream of a signing, would be worth smashing the transfer record and then some(which we will have to do to stand any chance). A 3-5-2/3-4-3 variation with Dybala, Eden and Costa interchanging in the front 3 would be the best attacking trio around save for MSN, and with (hopefully) CL commitments next time round there be enough game time for Bats, Willian, Pedro and hopefully Tammy too. Before any kill joy pisses on this theory i know it's very unlikely to happen and he's more likely to go Spain if he ever leaves Juve, but it's nice to dream, sometimes they do actually come off (Kante and Hazard).

-------------------------------Begovic------------------------------- ------------------Cesar-------Terry------Luiz------------------- Moses------------Chalobah--------Kante---------------Alonso ----------Willian------------Batshauyi--------Hazard---------- Subs:Courtois, Cahill, Aina, Matic, RLC, Pedro, Costa. With us being out of Europe there is no desparate need to rest the stars, this competition kicked off the winning era of Jose mark 1 and Ronaldo/Rooney driven United, so we should go all out to try and win it. Nate and Bats deserves a chance and Begovic is trust worth enough to come in for Courtois but we need to try and win this cup and that means relatively strong lineups so sorry Ola and Ruben. Plus we need to play 3-4-3 tonight, if it's the route we are taking for at least the medium term then the squad players that will play tonight need to get use to it.

Jose actually played it quite well in 14/15, he played the footy in the first half of the season and got the job done in the second although it was far from pretty. When the title is in reach i can't imagine the players had that big a gripe about playing more defensive, but when we came back for pre season and the tactics were the same, that's one of the things that probably started the chain of events that made Jose's position untenable. The board deserve there fair share of flack for the 2015 window, but did Jose help with this lack of plan B on who he wanted? It seemed like he wanted Pogba and Stones or bust, whereas this summer Antonio seemed to have contingency plans, Alonso and Luiz were probably plan D at best however Conte accepted the higher plans were out of reach, got those two in, and thanks to that we have been able to switch to a formation that has probably saved out season.

He's everything we wanted/hoped Ramires would be.

Since August has he actually been getting any more game time than he did under Jose here? He's only started 2 games out of 6 league games since the return from the first international break, and IRRC 1 in 3 average was roughly how many he started under Mou until he was sold.

Was Fellaini injured at half time or was it a tactical change? If it's the latter that rules that theory out sadly.

I'm not sure if he is starting quality long term, but as has been alluded to he has allowed us to change to a formation which probably with no exaggeration has saved our season, so for that reason alone the price for him was a steel.

Kind off? It's at least 70% his fault and that's probably being generous. In his five full season's here he did a great job in 3 (you could argue 4) and a good job in 2, but those 5 months last season was the worst performance by a manager in PL if not English football history.

If De Gea and Courtois displays were reversed today the media, United and even some of us would bang on about how this proves he's not even close to the Spaniard. Hopefully this is a turn around because on form Tibo is untouchable at #1 in the league.

I appreciate what Jose did for this club, but oh my his reactions were priceless today.

I was not a Cahill fan even when it was almost tradition to brand him the new JT, but in the new back three he hasn't been too bad. My worry re JT is he admitted a while back he didn't like playing in a back three and his only career experience in one was THAT Robinson air kick game vs Croatia.

Why should he? Should Bill Gates hand over his fortune and buisnesses for evening shifts at Tesco just to "prove" he has what it takes in the world? Despite his recent form he is a proven top class keeper, and by hide his weakness I assume you mean play behind a great defense? Well no defense is great without a top or alteast very good keeper, none. Remember what happened to our record breaking defense when Hilario had to go in, even Carvalho looked lost, they even looked a bit more shaky than usual when Carlo went in for Cech. And do you think Donnaruma will go Juve? He's as die hard Milan as they come and the chances of them not having another successful period in the next twenty odd years is highly unlikely.

Since about February after his return, I remember that United game he made two top saves I've only seen bettered since by Lloris the other night. After that he was actually keeping us in games but unfortunately he was still at the same time making point costing errors (like against Stoke, ironically the media love child did the same thing against the same opponents two weeks ago) and that was overshadowing it, I guess rightly. And he has more than just the year with us, three at Leti and that one at Genk were he practically by all accounts single handed won them the league, yes it's not a strong league but for perspective he was 18, the same age as Tammy now, and we are getting (rightly) all excited over his displays in the Championship.

Well that's a different argument either way, I was responding to the post suggesting we should sell him and get Butland which would be mental. 6 good months with Stoke don't match up to what Tibo has done.

Bants aside it shows that money doesn't guarantee anything and also shows just how good Jose mark one did for us despite the financial advantage.

Yeah let's do that, let's also sell Kante and Hazard for Henderson and Townsend while we are it.

Thats such a media driven myth. De Gea as made as many mistakes as Courtois in recent times, most recent one spunking two points up the wall against Stoke. De Gea makes some great saves for the camera which are often making up for poor positioning, ie stopping fires he starts, which is what we critise Cahill for. It made me laugh when he was lauded for his performance vs Italy in the Euro's when it was his fault they were playing Italy in the first place. I scrutinize De Gea a lot purely because of the overhype he gets, and for the supposedly best keeper in the world he sure fucks up a lot. Im not saying he isn't a very good keeper because he is, but I can't believe even our own fans have fallen for the media propoganda that he is on another level to Courtois, he just simply isn't, Tibo is such a better all-rounder, all be be it not in his best career form. As for Jose, no way in hell was he unfairly sacked, a squad with the quality and value of us should not be fighting relegation at Christmas, he could have won the previous ten titles and deserved to go.for that. If we were say 9th i would have probably agreed that he deserved time to turn it round but 16th? No way. Having said that no doubt in his mind he was harshly sacked, so will for sure be determined to put that right. However unlike when he returned with Inter, I do believe we have the manager to deal with whatever he throws at us tactically and mentally.