Pizy

Damn. I don’t feel like watching any of these Boxing Day fixtures other than ours because I think every team around us will win. Think City, WH, and Arse all win comfortably here.

Arsenal level management. Unless we find out afterwards that Rüdiger gets the biggest ever contract for a CB. If he wanted £250k or more a week I think it’s understandable that we walked away. Going to be a big blow in the dressing room losing him, though.

Aren’t they literally hundreds of millions in debt and desperately in need of salary relief still? When did that suddenly change?

Is there any wonder Barca are totally in the dumps financially? Buying a player who can’t even get a look in at City for triple the price they paid for him just a year ago. The hierarchy must be laughing their heads off at this deal. That fee will probably pay for Haaland in the summer.

They’ve been very solid under Slippy G. And they have quite a few players that can be annoyingly good on any given day just like West Ham a couple of weeks ago. So I think we can expect and extremely tough one here. Be very interesting to see who Tuchel goes with in midfield since everyone is fit now. Hell, even Saul has looked good these last 2 appearances.

We’re just painfully mediocre at buying attacking players. Other than Hazard we haven’t struck gold on an attacking player in like a decade. And he would’ve turned out world class no matter where he went. Every super expensive, highly rated attacking player we’ve bought has either turned out merely “good” or a straight up bust. We are excellent at getting defenders and midfielders at decent prices (Cesc, Kante, Azpi, Rüdiger, Kova, etc) but for whatever reason we find it extremely difficult to get attackers who elevate their level to a world class level.

This is now multiple times you’ve said something like this. You sound like the typical right wing idiot who thinks athletes should shut their mouths about social issues. Like the MAGA hat wearing Trumpers here in America. Just stop.

Hard to imagine we’d sanction any outgoing moves for one of our attacking players with the COVID situation. We’re already down to the bare bones. Think it’ll be a silent January for us. No club will be selling top players next month.

I’d be really sad to see Azpi go for sentimental reasons. Genuine club legend and arguably the best bargain buy we’ve ever made. But his on pitch decline shows me that it’s probably time to let him go. He has always been mediocre going forward but rock solid defensively. Now he’s useless going forward and really shaky defensively, even when he’s playing as a CB in a back 3. Watching players just simply run past him without even using a clever dribble or technical brilliance is sad. We need a Reece James rotation option that is highly mobile and dangerous going forward. Same thing at LWB. When Azpi & Alonso come into the side we have to totally change the way we play to cover for them. It shouldn’t be like that at a huge club like this.

Yeah, the only type of midfielder we need is a defensive minded one. Neves doesn’t make sense. Rice would be a transformative signing for our team as I think you can put literally any of our other midfielders next to him and it would work beautifully. Problem is, he’s basically Mr. West Ham now and they as a club are highly ambitious. It may take £150m to sign him next summer. They lose him and it not only sends a terrible message but they would also take a huge step back and likely fade into midtable obscurity again. But we do for sure need someone with his profile. Someone who is highly mobile and solid defensively but is also extremely comfortable on the ball.

Arse are winning or at least not losing nonstop these days. They also have no COVID issues and have no European football to tire their players. All they really need to do is smack the shit teams below them like they’ve been doing whilst we drop points to all of those same teams.

Our title chances evaporated once Chilly went down against Juve. He was in red hot form and the high pressing wing back pairing gave the team a relentless attacking threat. Every injury or COVID issue just compounds the misery. But Chilwell going down totally changes our team both defensively and going forward. Struggling to see how we score any goals from open play until we get some firepower back. Even then it’s not like those players were doing much. Whereas City and Liverpool are unstoppable scoring machines.

Every attacker just completely ineffectual today. Couldn’t muster more than a few chances. I think we rolled or crossed the ball comfortably into their keeper’s hands about 15 times. We’re sinking FAST. Desperately need players fit just to hang on and shore up top 4 now. Every opponent we play now fancies themselves to get at least a point. The fear factor from earlier in the season is 100% gone.

Ah, shit. Here comes Adama to run against Alonso or Azpi… 😬😬😬

Saul has transformed the midfield. I can’t believe those words have left my mouth after what we’ve seen of him.

Saul looks much better when he’s keeping it simple and calm like this. Go figure.

Seeing City run away with yet another PL title is going to be annoying, btw. Guardiola has made a joke of the rest of the clubs in England. Don’t think Liverpool will be able to stay with them the whole way.

This is totally unwatchable. Mount and James giving the ball away nearly every time they get it. Chalobah out of his depth in midfield. Azpi and Alonso totally stranded with Reece playing as some sort of winger. This is a legitimate crisis situation.

Forget goals, we can’t even get the ball to our front 3, FFS! We don’t even look like testing their defense.

This is horrendous, man. We literally look like fucking Burnley out here. Nevermind City and Liverpool now. They will both finish a minimum of 15 points ahead of us. We are in a knife fight with those behind us for top 4.

This commentary team is basically slating us constantly without even a mention that we’re missing like 4 attacking players and a couple of midfielders. Very annoying.

Azpi just continuously lumping it forward aimlessly to players who are 6 inches shorter than the defenders.

I just don’t see how we score with this front 3. And I don’t see how we keep a clean sheet with this midfield.

Why are we playing it long to 3 lightweight, shorter players? Sigh….

Yeah, this is going to be ugly in terms of rhythm and ball possession. Don’t see how that midfield pair works. And then there’s Alonso and Azpi as defensive liabilities. Then you add Ziyech and Pulisic who were invisible in the 2nd half against Everton. All 3 points would be a miracle here.