Tomo

But they ain't anywhere near as tough to play as the likes of Big Sam's Bolton or Pulis' Stoke (or even his West Brom), which was my initial point.

Many were unique type of circumstances. 14/15 we lost our shit due to the injustice of Matic's red, 17/18 we dominated with 9 men and they fluked it and 18/19 we should have finished the game off before letting them back in. The only time they've truly made it difficult for us in terms of imposing their tactics was the 1-1 in 16/17, the rest of them was basically us shooting ourselves in the foot and/or god being on Burnley's side.

Not sure why people were wetting the bed over Bale going back to Spurs. He's completely finished as a top flight footballer let alone a world class one!

Burnley aren't actually that tough a game in general, 3 of our easiest games of the last two season's came against them, compared to previous era's of "those" type of teams like Stoke and Big Sam's Bolton they're a long way off in terms of making it tough for the big boys. if we drop points it will be a lot more likely to be down to tiredness than anything particularly special Burnley have done.

I love him but leave that era be. He looks like he's badly declining and we've replaced him with a player who could end up almost as good as he was. If we think Lampard shoehorning Kante in whenever fit is infuriating, imagine shafting Pulisic to the right permanently to accomodate Hazard in his 30's.

I'm no fan of Kante as a sitting DM but i'll suck it up in the short term if that's what it takes to make 433 two 8's our main formation. I wonder if we have an Ake esque recall clause on Gallagher...

You may be right about Hazard but I disagree in Costa's case. The signs (of decline) were already there in his last six months with us and it was not like he was joining a new team with a style and culture that was alien to him, he was rejoining the side who made his name who's style suits him down to the ground.

I don't think it can be solely explained as a by-product of Sarri (although no doubt there was a sweet spot where his positional play and Frank's expressive freedom hit a sweet spot) as we had performances in the two months leading to lock down that were excellent (Burnley, Arsenal despite the draw, Spurs, Liverpool and Everton, could argue patches of the Leicester and United games too). I'm not sure what has happened since then, I can't work out if Frank is overcomplicating things or the new signings (Werner, Chilwell and Kai were as good as done when we restarted the season in June) have made him feel more pressure and become more results at all costs based. The performances vs WBA and today after we reverted to 433 two 8's should be enough evidence to mean we persist with this formation now, it's no coincidence we've played well every time we've used that formation.

Is our drastic improvement with 4-3-3 (two 8's) going to be a defining moment where we find our formation? Cue a 3-5-2 against Burnley.

I think against lesser teams we can get away with Jorgi/Gilmour, Mount and Kai. Actually that trio with Barkley instead of Kai worked well whenever used last season.

It is but wasn't your response to a praise for performances during draws/defeats last season (paraphrasing) "means nothing it's results that count".

Best move of the match comes when we have two 8's.

Ziyech's been class, fullbacks good, Mendy's done everything he's needed to do. The rest, meh!

Is Callum younger than RJ when he scored Vs Ajax? If so he's our younger ever CL scorer.

Can't for the life of me see why we can't have them back at The Bridge in a reduced capacity.

For whatever reason Lampard seems to get reactions when he freezes players out, hopefully Rudi is another case. AVB must be cussing his existence!

Also,if even their depleted team were THAT bad they wouldn't have drew at Rennes.

Donetsk were in the exact same situation going to Madrid and look what happened.....

Exactly, when we outplayed City at The Ethiad last season and were stupidly unlucky to lose it was "only results count" but when boots on the other shoe all of a sudden performance takes precedence.

If that happens would be interesting just to see the backtraking from the people who wouldn't accept any praise for promising performances we didn't win last season cause "results business innit".

Because we're a bigger club, it comes with the territory.

I was saying it in jest due to the ridiculous Arteta wankfest. People make out he's already a top manager when in reality he's a lot further away at present than Frank and even Solskjaer.

Arteta should take notes from Frank on how to park a bus properly.