Pizy

Completely rotated side, nice. Glad he didn't risk Jorginho in particular after playing so many minutes already in preseason. Guess we can watch Willian closely and hope he gets some match sharpness here since he looks set to stay. And I really hope Emerson performs well here to put some thought in Sarri's head about who will start Saturday.

Yeah, this is the only thing that would put a bit of a damper on the deal. If we can buy him next summer it'll be a massive coup. If not then we end up chasing a midfielder all next summer until deadline day.

I personally rate Butland, but imagine the letdown amongst our fans if we sign him instead of Kepa after all these reports.

These stats really just show me that Kepa played in by far the weakest team t of all these keepers.

Man, could we actually be about to panic buy some actual good players?! Could it be? Kepa + Kovacic and I'll feel great about our top 4 chances. Seeing transfer muppets on Twitter thinking we'd go after both Kovacic and Fekir. That ain't happening.

Watching his highlights on YouTube and my word is he a fantastic footballer. Monster dribbler, superb close control and first touch, and carries the ball very well. You can also see that almost all of the footage is him playing with Real Madrid's second team which is why he wants out reportedly. He wants to play and be an important player rather than a squaddie. This would be a super signing that would allow us to dominate the middle third of the pitch against the vast majority of opponents.

If this happens I hope it's similar to the Higuain to Milan deal. Small initial loan fee with a bigger obligation to buy fee next summer. What a super midfield 3 we'd have.

Let's be real here. CHO ain't gonna start over Willian.

He reminds me of Hugo Lloris. Small for a keeper but very quick and agile. If we go after him I'm sure the many Spanish players in our ranks would help him settle easily.

Does look like he'll be a top keeper. Thing is, if he does Barca will come after him eventually.

Rotten, arrogant, entitled attitude. Perfect for a club like Real Madrid. Just sort this shit out, FFS. Now, please!

Man, if I were Roman I'd be super tempted to just sign a replacement and let this cunt rot on the bench for a year.

Perfect for the advanced midfield spot. Decent goal return, assists a lot, fantastic on the ball. I'd like to think that even Morata would have enough chances to score created for him with this lad behind him and Hazard + Willian either side of him. Would be a massive last minute deal. Lyon have fought like crazy to keep him from what I've read so I'm not exactly sure this is a goer.

😩🙏🏼

There's surely zero chance we sell our best player after the English window closes. If we were going to sell him the time has long since passed.

That's one massive hurdle cleared. Now the harder part which is getting him to sign a new contract.

My last comment/question about this match. I wonder if today was enough for Sarri to realize that Alonso simply cannot excell in his setup. He has started every preseason game so far and has looked poor in each. Even clubs lower in the table will be able to get at him. Every opposing manager will have their side under instructions to target him, it'll be all over their film study. It's bad enough that Cesc will have to play for a bit longer until Kante is ready. We can't have another passenger in Alonso. We need to get Emerson up to speed ASAP.

I definitely think this'll be the sort of season where we do well against teams we should beat but we'll struggle a lot against all of the big teams. City, Liverpool, and Spuds in particular who all have years of coaching in how to press. In games where we can be the ones dictating the tempo I believe we'll be fine.

I fully expected City to be the better side today. I just expected us to put up a fight.

To expect a club of our stature to compete with City was asking too much? We aren't a small club hoping to frustrate the big boys. Even missing players I thought we'd at least give them some problems. Looked like men against boys instead.

I'm asking myself if we had Kante, Hazard, and Courtois in there today would we have looked better. Yes, we would've looked better in midfield and we would've been harder to play through. Kante in place of Cesc would've made a real difference. Caballero kept the score from being humiliating so Tibo wouldn't have changed anything. Hazard would've pinned Walker back more. But even with those 3 back Alonso is still a fish out of water in a back 4, Luiz would've still been spanked by Aguero, Morata is still soft as toilet paper, and we have no set 3rd midfielder. These are things that could've been rectified had we dealt with the managerial situation quickly and were active in the market.

Is indeed a pretty bad look to see KDB there supporting his teammates and Kompany actually play in the game while Eden is still absent.

Anyone else notice how Alonso looked dead on his feet as though this was the end of a grueling season? He had the whole summer off, ffs, and the season hasn't even started. He looked shattered already.

This really drained all optimism I had. We are nowhere near their level. I certainly wasn't expecting a title challenge this season but I think even scraping 4th is pretty far beyond us. Especially if the likes of Alonso, Cesc, Morata, and Barkley play huge roles. And it's now too late to bring in serious quality.