Pizy

American half time pundit spot on from what I just heard. All the danger is coming from the left side with Hazard and Alonso. Azpi continues to be a problem when we have so much possession because he's simply not very good carrying the ball or running in behind. Combine that with the fact that Kante isn't very comfortable up there either and we have no penetration down that flank. While Azpi is the superior defender, I think our team would be much more dangerous with Zappacosta there on the right flank.

Everton have been embarrassingly poor (in part due to our relentless pressing and hunting of the ball) while we have been excellent. But as long as we are so wasteful all it takes is one moment of quality or calamitous bit of defending and they can steal it. Very, very frustrating.

ALONSO LITERALLY JUST GRAZED RICHALISON WITH HIS FINGER AND HE DIVES LIKE HES BEEN SHOT! And of course the worst ref in the league books him for that!

Just noticed that the ref today is Anthony Taylor. One of the worst there is. Get prepared for some fuckery from him today.

Whatever. Not even worth me getting annoyed over at this point. We win this, great. We lose, EL becomes our try-hard competition.

I really hope United do indeed give it to Ole long term. Once the magic dust wears off they'll come back down to Earth. Unless of course they just go mental in the transfer market and buy him a load of world class players. Pochettino going there would be scary. Not so much with Olé.

Wolves are a legitimately fantastic side. Brilliantly coached. He'll be poached by a big club if he repeats this sort of season again next year. To come up from the Championship and be a serious thorn in the side of nearly every big club they've played this year is crazy.

Much like ourselves, you're never really sure which Everton will turn up. They can look decent on their day and have some dangerous players but at other times they look woeful. Really, Wolves were a much "scarier" team but this is at Goodison so will be tougher. We can basically abandon any hope of making top 4 if we lose this. Arsenal have such an easy run in that I doubt we'd catch them.

Couldn't have hand picked a better route to the final. If we play with the same swagger and focus as we did against Kiev we should be comfortably be better than our opponents in the next two rounds. Hopefully Napoli and Arse take a lot out of each other and hopefully Napoli advances. I really don't want to face Arse in the final and potentially lose to them.

Hope the first leg of Barca/United is at Old Toilet so some outlandish, ludicrously lucky bullshit doesn't happen in the 96th minute of Fergie time to send them through in their stadium. I'll be hoping Barca can score a couple at United's place and then not be massive chokers like PSG when they return to the Camp Nou.

Hope Arse draw Napoli. Then it doesn't matter to me who we draw. Just wanna see the two biggest threats beat each other up.

Ruben will score here.

Nope. I remember saying during the first leg that they were probably the worst side we've faced this season. They were awful but for one short spell in the second half. I expect they'll be better in front of their home crowd and on a supposedly shit pitch that they're used to playing on. Sarri should be sacked on the flight home if we somehow fuck it up. Also, watch CHO and Ruben still not start this even with our huge advantage. 😂

How much you wanna bet United get the easiest possible draw in Ajax (no disrespect to them) and the Solsjkaer love-in continues when they beat them? United will draw Ajax and City will draw Porto who they will easily blow away.

I despise CR7 and don't care much for Barca as a club, but I suppose I'm all in on one of Juve or Barca to win it all. Probably say Juve have the best overall shot because they can turn up and defend like masters in a big game. Definitely think one of City and Liverpool make the final and you need to be able to contain their attacks. I don't trust Barca to be able to do that.

At this point I'm hoping the English clubs draw each other so that a couple of them eliminate one another. City v Liverpool again, please.

I think he's 100% gone, sadly. Reports are that Zidane would only return if he could rebuild and mould the team in his vision. He'll be able to sell his targets on being part of bringing Real Madrid out of their slump and starting a new generation. Imagine your in Eden's boots and your idol comes to you and talks about his ambitious project that he wants you to be a part of. No way he says no. Of course for us it comes at the absolute worst possible time. Transfer ban, very likely scenario of no CL football, uncertainty about the manager. Combine all that with the fact that he'll only have 1 year on his contract. It's either sell him in the summer for half of what's he's actually worth or force him to stay and anger him. Then he walks for free. Just think about how catastrophic it would be if Hazard asks to leave and we can't sign anyone to replace him or strengthen other parts of our team with that money. Yikes...

Said it before and I'll say it again. Will be so annoying for Arse to finish above us when we're both in rebuilding years. They have more average players than we do.

Yeah. Azpi at CB was a liability in certain matches against tall strikers, but if honestly rather see him there than at RB. We need someone highly technical who can reliably provide service there.

Emerson is fine. I agree with what you said earlier about Azpi becoming a problem. Sad to say it, but he looks shaky these days. Very limited going forward and now even lets us down defensively which has never been the case in years past. I would say that a top RB needs to be a priority this summer but now that it's looking grim with the transfer ban we'll be stuck with Azpi and Zappa there.

Don't know why people are slating Higuain after a match like that. Lone striker with 3 CB's standing right next to him and the majority of the rest of their players crowding the area. What could he have done today? Especially when the crosses and service into him were atrocious for the most part. Kovacic's dramatic inconsistency in such an important position is the biggest issue. He looked fantastic in midweek but invisible today. He offers nothing going forward. Ruben's more direct and aggressive style was night and day and he looked far more dangerous.

I don't know what's more embarrassing, the fact that a promoted side can come to the Bridge and look totally comfortable and untroubled defensively or the fact that Wolves can score in literally the only way they could do today which is on a breakaway counter. They barely even tried to win today and barely got a sniff of the ball and they get joy. Europa League remains our best route to CL football.

Agree that this is more of a Willian match than a Pedro one. Pedro isn't really going to get super wide and run at the fullback. Also, Kovacic is pretty ineffective against a parked bus as well. Offers literally zero goal threat. In fact, he can't even get a shot near the target 99% of the time. I'd replace him with Ruben.

This is basically an attack vs defense training session. Wolves happy and willing to sit deep and congest the box. We can't play our way through the middle at all. And as usual, on the rare occasions they do nick the ball they look dangerous. You get the impression that Wolves have another gear to go up where they press high and become aggressive. Conversely, this is the only real way we play. We're pressing high and moving it around nicely but can't pick the final pass.

They also have the enigma that is Adama Traore that can come on and run at us as well as that young kid #17 who we allowed to destroy us last time we played them. We almost have to treat this like it's against a fellow big 6 rival. They play like a big team. No bus parking or getting completely battered from this lot.