Tomo

Could be wrong but I think they refresh bookings at this stage now.

Although that said Zizou may respond with Hazard.

We should throw a curveball and bring Callum on to run at him.

We need to dig in and show we can do it on a cold wet night in Valdebedas!

Why does Torres get compared favourably to every striker that struggles? For all his struggles and yes his finishing is inexcusable Torres was 100 times worse.

Feels really surreal watching us against Real, shame it's not at the stadium.

Will be interesting to see what possession based manager would do with that squad, the midfield is utter poverty in that context.

I wasn't being (totally) serious but I can't imagine it left a good first impression.

I think long term (especially Vs the shit house sides in the league) atleast one will need to drop back into a hybrid position for me. Short term it's okay especially with all the do or die games coming up but I feel it's too much closer to back five than three with both those two on.

There's no/barely such thing as a specialist in that position really, it's primarily a position for failed/unconvincing wingers to shine (Moses prime example).

He's probably had some resentment for the journalists in this country ever since his first Chelsea interview featured a question about Giroud's new contract before it turning into the Jason Sancho show.

You're right Torres was actually pretty clinical but he had to be as you've alluded too, if he was genuinely a poor finisher like Werner/Morata he would have scored about 5 for us if that. My issue with Torres is he had not one positive attribute to fall back on, even at his worst Werner gives us pace and pressing, Morata gave us good movement, honestly what did Torres give when he was playing relitevely 'well' let alone poorly? What positive did he give us?

Yes, he got chance after chance after chance and not only wasted them sulked and played the victim constantly. The fact a goal in a CL defeat is being used to make a case for him says everything you need to know.

I don't even think James should be playing at wingback let alone Azpi. I guess it's understandable for the minute but if this formation is going to be what's happening going forward a minimum of one fullback playing the hybrid role and one natural winger at wingback is a must.

Torres played up front and had players signed to try and coax form out of him, Werner has played most of the season on the wing. Werner still gets the chances to miss, Torres would often go weeks/months without a sniff of a chance because his movement was so outrageously poor. Atleast with Werner we can utilise his pace and pressing abilities on a tactical level if all else fails, Torres didn't have one positive attribute to fall back on. Teams will still be wary of Timo's pace, defenders practically ignored Torres because they knew he carried little threat.

I disagree, we did have the odd poor result but the quality of football was up there with the best we've ever played if not the best outright. Problem was he had no plan B, soon as it was sussed that his style relied on Bosingwa and Cole he was stumped.

It's easy to forget how great we looked under Scolari for a while. Dreadful dreadful at the end but pre Rafa nullifying the system and every other manager copying we were looking genuinely sensational.

Outside of finishing this was a near perfect performance for a 'big' away game.

It's a pointless protest. Most of them will still back the likes of Arteta, Xhaka and Bellerin while buying merchandise and tickets. No point protesting against owners if you then go and back their symptoms (players and a manager only there due to their lack of ambition) and line their pockets. United fans are just as bad, they claim they hate the Glazers then gas up top four finishes and claim they're progressing, exactly what they want.

And all those teams bar City are inferior to Atletico and Liverpool who we beat without breaking sweat. Two games are never the same.

Who has the easiest/tough fixtures is largely irrelevant in the top four race. If us or any of the teams around us were taking advantage of the "easy" games we wouldn't be in this battle. Furthermore which of our games left are "extremely tough"? City away yes but we've already shown a blueprint to beat them. Leicester home? I'd fancy us to beat them of it was a crunch game given Rodgers history with them. Villa away? Maybe if we played there in the first half but they've been off the boil for a while now. Arsenal home? Maybe if you pretend it's still 2004. West Ham have also been cracking under the pressure lately, gave up a three goal lead, came close to doing the same again the next two games before losing to Newcastle. Not to say we'll sweep up in those games we probably won't but there's nothing "extremely tough" about them.

If I got £1 for every time I've heard something along those lines the last three season's.......

What has baffled me is I'm on a group on Facebook, only about 30 people but we're all passionate football fans and earlier this week 10 were shouting anti ESL stuff from the rooftops. This morning I posted the tweet about Uefa's new plans which sneaks two teams in based on history ESL style, every single one of those 10 have seen it and only 1 reacted. Which begs the question, were the other 9 (and this will apply to many others around the world) actually outraged about this or were they just doing it for likes and to fit In? Because as far as I'm concerned people outraged about the ESL who are now going quiet are just as bad (if not worse) and may aswell be part of Uefa's free marketing team.

And that makes them just as bad as far as I'm concerned.

This whole thing becomes utterly pointless if this is now allowed to pass through. https://twitter.com/mjshrimper/status/1384631355573776384?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1384631355573776384|twgr^|twcon^s1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2F If Neville, Linekar, Rio etc just stay quiet now and resume their custy jobs on sky/BT they're just as bad and I won't want to hear any "passionate rants" from them ever again.