Tomo

Got a feeling in the UCL opponents may start to play keepball to prevent the change happening.

I like our squad depth in the sense that one or two can come in to the first Xl with not much change but when the scratch side play together it's a clusterfuck.

I'll be annoyed if he's wingback vs Newcastle but this is practically a scratch side tonight. On another note, if Guehi didn't leave we'd be seeing the youth cup back three tonight most likely.

Conte will go tits up at the end and it will be hilarious viewing when it's not happening to us but he will likely win them the league or at atleast have them as a serious player again before it happens. We won with Conte it went tits up we both moved on and won again, it's the way football is these days with managers and it's no coincidence the club's that embrace it are successful (Us, Bayern, Real) while the club's that cling on to this idealistic notion of long term managers are a shambles (United, Arsenal). You will get the odd managers that last a while for modern day standards like Pep and Klopp but even they're both dropping hints about leaving in the not too distant future after a mere 5 years. United are stuck in the dark ages because they stumbled across an anomaly in Ferguson, he will never be repeated and they will never truly be back at the top table until they shelve their ideals and get with the times (hopefully they never do).

If that was the case we'd have dropped points vs Norwich or atleast made it into a battle. Pretty much every single fanbase think their club fall into that category.

Hopefully they beat Spurs and Atlanta unconvincingly while narrowly losing to City (ideally they would take points but realistically they won't go from that against Liverpool to beating City in two weeks). Just have him hold out until they come here.

Probably Tottenham doing that at The Bridge is the equivalent.

I use to think that but United fans actually tell me otherwise as according to them he's positionally pretty shit. Pogba played his best football of his career under Conte and Allegri. Under Antonio we will likely see the Pogba of France unfortunately. I don't actually agree the strengths would he diluted, quite the opposite. Most of their attackers actuslly want to be the ST so the inside forward formation Conte plays will suit them down to the ground. Bruno will be the odd one out but that was predictable anyway, he was always doomed as soon as a manager who wasn't having his brand of heroball came in.

I think that squad could quickly be moulded into the way he wants tbh. He won't need to play AWB as Dalot will be excellent for wingback (Dan James would have been his Moses wildcard so it's good he's not there anymore) while Telles is the perfect wingback. Lindelof, Varane and Shaw is a good back three aswell. It will eventually go to pot and when it happens it will be hilarious looking at it as an outsider this time but it's very bad news for the short term.

Board signing is a bit of a copout, at absolute worst Tuchel was happy with the signing hence him beaming in the presser (after his arrival) and then playing him for every minute he's been available for bar the last part against Brentford (League cup doesn't count as we were always go for a scratch side in that competition at the early stages unless we get a big draw). Also given our entire squad bar about three players have now scored it's looking more increasingly like we've been a little overzealous compromising our system to accommodate a focal point, as I absolutely feared would happen.

I'm fully sold on Tuchel tactically but my one worry from the minute he arrived was his record in the market and his signings so far have done nothing to alleviate my fears. Although that said I think the one we missed (Kounde) would have been a huge hit.

Fernandes makes Lukaku look like the ultimate big game player.

I would like to think of this fluidity in our game remains in Lukaku's absence he'll have to work his way back in (ala adapt to us instead of the other way round). Unfortunately I think he will be straight back in regardless however.

I would start to think it's possible if Edou was largely unbusy but these last two games aside we've been relying on him too much for my liking.

They were actually all right when they were last here. Okay their lack of quality told in the end but they had a style, were competive most weeks and claimed a few scalps along the way (beat City and Leicester at home, Everton away, drew to Arsenal, they also only lost to Liverpool at home by one and us by one both times and had a case for being the better side in two of them). At a loss to work out what's happened to them this time, Buendia alone can't explain such a drop.

As for Mount, remember when he was only playing cause he was sucking Lampard and Southgate off and would be dropped the minute a world class manager comes in? Good times!

Ofcourse but 7 isn't the norm no matter who we face. To put into context, it's more than Liverpool managed vs them in two games this season.

You've still got to beat them. As poor as they are, they don't concede 7 every week.

Yeah huge respect for it. I was in Australia for a month in the Conte title season and it was torturous at times keeping up.

If Tuchel I going to insist Rom is a nailed on starter when fit I really hope he plays him in the RF role. Could actually suit him with a false 9 dropping in creating space for him to utilize.

Is it just me that's still finding it surreal seeing our 2020 signings playing Infront of a crowd?

That's one of the reasons I couldn't subscribe to the ESL outrage. The PL and top end of the Championship is a super league in all but name.

Every signing turns into a board signing when they have a few bad games.

It's ridiculous that even the idea of dropping Mendy for Kepa gets banded about, never mind not even a week after he produced one of the keeper performances of the season.

I wish it happened under better circumstances but I really enjoyed seeing Kai as false 9 again. We simply don't have that fluidity playing with a vocal point. It's going to be really really infuriating if we build some momentum with this system in the next few weeks (easier opponents or not) only for Rom to be thrown straight back in.