Tomo

If he starts actually delivering constantly (and that includes big games) I would "make peace with it" quite happily.

Educated guess. Rudi has made his position clear (aka likely leaving but still 100% committed until then) while Christensen is pissing us about.

That's the issue for me, if he still had a good number of good/great games amongst his greeness (or still produces strong metrics ala Callum) okay but he's doesn't. Real (admitedly a huge one but still) and Palace away is genuinely all i can think off since the start of last season.

Oh In fairness he was fantastic today and was even making visible attempts to adapt to the system. I still need a lot more sample size before I even think about reassessing my opinion in the grand scheme of things but I'll let him have his moment today.

?

Is he? Seems like we're managing his game time.

If it means we get Edou for this one then I'll take it.

It's so odd and quite infuriating how the unperforming expensive players get molly coddled to such an extent. Yet by comparision Mendy has his first true disaster game a season and a half in and there's instant talk of replacing him with Kepa. It was the same with Torres vs Sturridge, Eto'o, Ba etc, the cheaper they are the higher the standards they get held too, it's ridiculous.

Tell that to the people who went to that game at City.

Is Jude even in the training squad? If the stats are anything to go by he's nowhere near ready yet, they (his stats) look like Messi in U18's but (our version of) Torres' in the U23's. I haven't watched much of that level this season due to travelling so he may (like Kai at this level) still be playing well despite the lack of goals but 2 in 18 (spread over the UEFA youth league, PL2 and EFL trophy) doesn't look great at face value. He's got U18 level well and truly sussed though, 3 in 2 this season added to 18 in 18 last, but he had a hard time in PL2 last time out also (1 in 9).

Yep it's a shame as with City out we really should have been winning this (unless Liverpool roll out the A team) but I can't see how we can go with anything other than a scratch side tonight. Maybe put in Edou and hope he can repeat his heroics from the league game there (and obviously switch with Kepa if a shootout is looming).

Yeah and we deserved more than what we got vs Everton, West Ham, United and Burnley. Shit happens.

Exactly, current form. Current from a few weeks ago had us on track for a quadruple. The reality is we're somewhere deep inbetween both extremes.

They've lost twice in recent weeks we've lost once. They've apparently been on the verge of dethroning us since 2008.

6 points behind City = title gone 6 points ahead of Arsenal = they're definitely going to catch us. Make it make sense 😂

Pedro Neto.

Is he actually banned? Genuinely heard nothing about it.

Not that I know off..

I thought this Arsenal loving was gone when Mana was banned....

Hindsight is great and all but I think we should have started Barkley and used Pulisic as a super sub.

In his full season he achieved top four with Kepa, Zouma, Alonso, Willian and Tammy/Oli part of his best Xl. If Tuchel with clear upgrades on all of them (plus better versions of Rudiger, Kante and Mount) struggles to even make parity with that position then yes that wouldn't reflect well atall. I don't think it will come to that but others seem adamant it will.

If we end up in a tight fight for top four then that makes Tuchel inferior to Lampard domestically.....

Despite everything of late we're still in top four relatively comfortably. These sweeping statements of our season is getting ridiculous.

Things ain't great right now but this queing up to wank off Arsenal is as reactive as it gets.

I can't say I'm confident for this but to do a bit of barrel scraping if there's one team I'd handpick to face in these circumstances it would be Wolves. Not because they're bad (far from it) but they are probably the only team in the league less clinical than us, they battered United almost as much an Leicester and Watford did and still came away with nothing. If there's one team that will let us off the hook it will be these.