Pizy

No Arnautovic! Nice! Antonio is still a dangerous player but isn't likely to pull a worldy out of his hat from nowhere like Arnautovic can. They have Declan Rice who is naturally a CB and Mark Noble who is about 40 years old and woeful in their CM. If we can't control and dominate this midfield it'll be a joke.

So Wet Spam get a nice leisurely week to rest up and prepare while we went to fucking Greece and had our flight delayed. Basically 1 day to properly prepare. Really glad that Hazard and Kova didn't play yesterday and that Jorginho and Alonso came off early. At least most of our biggest weapons will be well rested.

Can't believe I'm saying this after how shockingly terrible West Ham were their opening few games.....but I'm actually a little worried about this one. Each of their front 3 are very dangerous and are usually the exact sort of attackers our defense struggles against. With only a couple of days between PAOK and this one that's also a concern. Thankfully, West Ham are absolutely nowhere near as good as we are in midfield. If we play like we have done in that area of the pitch we should win this one. Won't be the walk in the park it looked as though it might be a couple of weeks ago.

You can see that there's a talent in Morata because he is constantly getting into good scoring positions. But he repeatedly shits himself when that final touch of quality is needed. Very, very Torres-like. And this is against arguably the weakest opposition we'll face this season.

Jorginho and Alonso are the two players I'm worried about getting burnt out. The two players who Sarri appears to think are irreplaceable. Less worried about Kante, Rüdiger, and Azpi starting this one because they're machines. Still thought we would heavily rotate here.

I'm glad that Hazard hasn't travelled. I really, really hope that Sarri doesn't waste Jorginho here either. He's so important to the team and in a new league with so many matches we can't afford to burn him out. No way should he be necessary against PAOK.

Pretty much been the ideal start to the season for Kepa. Other than maybe one of the Arse goals he got a hand to, he hasn't really been forced into much action. He's been able to quietly settle in.

Like the commentator said earlier, PSG look so unprepared for this sort of match because their domestic league is so weak. They stroll through all of their league matches with teams sitting off them and letting them dominate. They aren't used to sides punching them in the mouth like this.

We were totally comfortable in the second half and utterly dominated possession. Every time Cardiff would get the ball we'd win it back almost immedietly. But despite all our possession we were sort of playing at walking pace. Guess we can put that down to the international break. We didn't really press high or rip them apart like we could have had we upped the tempo, but I suppose we didn't need to. My only real concern is David Luiz going forward against better teams. He's been iffy in almost all of our games.

Giroud and Hazard are a phenomenal partnership.

FOUR players in our box and they have 1 but still score.

Their gameplan clear already. Make this as slow and stop-start as possible and play for corners and setpieces.

Great XI. Hopefully we aren't too rusty and slow after the long break. Cardiff will surely be fresher and well prepared.

In regard to Alonso and Rüdiger incidents, they may have been a little dumb to do what they did but the Bournemouth players diving to the ground on both occasions like they had been shot was pathetic. Just a bit of gamesmanship from our lads and the Bournemouth players were trying to get them sent off or win a pen. Thankfully the ref today wasn't buying it.

Four standouts for me were Kovacic, Hazard, Alonso, and Jorginho. Giroud instantly looked better and more dangerous than Morata when he came on. Pedro looked more dangerous than Willian did because he'll actually take shots and test defenses. Seeing people around Twitter and other forums calling us dull or average. Idiots that don't know what they're talking about. We dominated the ball once again, good one touch passing, great link up and interplay between our midfielders and attackers. All against packed defenses. I guess if we don't score 5 we're boring.

Just like against Newcastle, Morata hasn't been poor here, he's just surrounded by so many players at all times so he can't use his best attributes. Against deep blocks like this Giroud needs to start.

Need to get Hazard and Kova on the ball more. Need to move it around quicker when we have it around their box.

We look good in possession and going forward but so sketchy when Bournemouth do manage to get it forward.

I can recall players smiling and enjoying themselves during Conte's first season as well. Difference this time (hopefully) is that we actually play a fun, exciting, expressive brand of football that players enjoy. Any team would eventually get sick of being run into the ground in training while simultaneously playing defensive oriented, counter attacking football and losing. As for this game, I'm feeling very confident. Theyll certainly give us more of a game than Newcastle did, but at home I hope we press them high and blitz them early like we did against Arsenal. They can't hurt us with their pace up front if they don't have the ball.

A Mourinho team that cannot defend to save their lives. Strange sight so early in the season. Must say, though, that for once I actually want to see Spuds win. Just for the United/Mou meltdown.

Of those sides that can look shocking one week and fantastic the next. At least we know that Bournemouth will be much more open and ambitious than the shite we saw today were. That's both a positive and a negative. That spell against Arsenal where they tore us apart shows that we can be very vulnerable. But then we saw us dominate that second half. Hopefully we return to the high pressing effectively for this one which we didn't even need against Newcastle. Also hope Luiz stays switched on for 90 minutes because they've got good pace in their attack.

Seeing several people moan a little about Kante in an advanced position. Thought he was great today. He surprises me more and more with his ability on the ball. Good interplay with his teammates, good first touch, makes nice surging runs into space, and he keeps the ball moving quickly. He's not just a pure destroyer like most people think.

He had no chance there. No sane person will blame him.

That one moment that Luiz switched off has left a bit of worry for a lot of people. He was otherwise excellent the whole game. Rüdiger was as well. Luiz is certainly going to be a worry against top class sides but he's perfect in games like this where we have almost all of the ball.

I swear Yedlin and Diame each had about 10 fouls and I don't think either was booked. Ridiculous. As for us, I don't think anyone had a poor game. Morata I guess if we're being very critical, but he was surrounded by 4 players at all times. The midfield was superb and totally dominated. Jorginho, Kovacic, and Kante were all class I thought. CB's didn't give an inch. Fullbacks were constantly in dangerous areas. Really, the main thing we have to improve is the speed of play which Sarri has mentioned. Teams like this will play deep against us. If we play quickly they don't have time to set up. This will come when Hazard, Kovacic, and Jorginho get more familiar with each other.