Pizy

Fellaini, Matic, Pogba, Carrick, Herrera, and Blind who can fill in adequately in midfield. I'd love to have 6 midfield options here. I'd be pretty disappointed if he's available and we don't get him whilst an already stacked United side get him. Sergi Roberto is infinitely more talented and a much safer buy than Drinkwater.

The fuck would United be after another midfielder?

Wonder which position he'd play here. Arsenal fans I'm seeing on Twitter saying his best position is probably going to be as a RWB in the future. I think I'd prefer him on the left here so he can cut in and shoot on his stronger foot.

Speaking of Arsenal players, though, what's the deal with Jack Wilshere? Is he currently injured yet again? He could probably be had on the cheap. When he's fit he's still super talented an may be worth a punt.

We've been "closing in on" and "confident of landing" Ox and about 15 other players all summer.

Well now. Now that you lay it all out like this I'm questioning everything as well. Still, if it was Conte's decision I'm glad the club backed him. If he thought he was too big of a risk then we were right to move on. Anyway, I hope this all gets resolved quickly so both sides can move on. Last thing we need is more distractions and for the manager to be undermined.

Conte and Costa seemed to get along perfectly fine and were often seen smiling and joking with each other before that China stuff happened in January. Why would Conte suddenly decide out of nowhere to not want Costa? Something serious had to trigger that. The most obvious scenario is what we were led to believ all this time. That Costa had his head turned at a critical time in our season, wanted to go, and Conte didn't take kindly to him trying to derail our title March. Essentially sacking him via text was ill advised, sure, but Diego trying to make Conte and the club out as the bad guys is something else.

I hope now that Costa has come out to slander Conte in public that Conte himself speaks about the situation. He's got to defend himself here. This interview makes it sound like a lot of our players are on Diego's side and we can't have a rot forming through our squad again. Nip it in the bud.

What an absolute dick. It's all the clubs fault and not him trying to force his way out multiple times. And now he's trying to turn everyone against Conte.

We're praised sometimes for being such a well run club and then the times where we have something positive to build upon and squander it. Our club has been run by a bunch of incompetent fools this summer.

Players now joining in with the manager and the fans in wondering what the fuck our club are doing.

Why do I get the feeling that this "explosive" interview we're about the hear about will not only be him throwing Conte under the bus but also talking loads of shit about us as a club and revealing that a bunch of our other players are at odds with Conte...

Barcaforum posters seem to rate him extremely highly and say there's no way they should even consider selling him.

Eh, that was his job during our previous title win with Cesc beside him. He had a different role last season where he got forward much more and did more running. When he's able to just keep things simple and play a supporting role he's top class still.

Why won't he? His sole responsibility is to sit deep just in front of the defense, shield them, and mop up any loose balls. To free up Pogba/Mata/Mkhitaryan to create just like they did today. Mou knows not to put him in situations where he'll get exposed badly like he has the past couple of seasons. When he needs someone more mobile and with more to his game he'll have Herrera. I predict Matic will be together with Kante and Pogba the best 3 CM's in the league come seasons end.

No, he probably felt disrespected by the club for immedietly going out and signing his eventual replacement. Meanwhile, Mou was in his ear bigging him up and telling him "you're just what we need" and that he'd be a key player there. He doesn't seem the type that would kick up a huge fuss if we had told him he had to stay. We could've kept him for 2 more years at which time he'd be 32 and Bakayoko will be completely established.

Or most likely, Mourinho was in Matic's ear the second we signed Bakayoko and convinced him to push for the move.

Someone (not gonna blame Emanalo specifically like so many others do) at our club probably thought to themselves "can you believe they're offering us £40m for this average player?!" and then bit their hand off. Like so many of our supporters were saying.

If we lose next week there may be 15/16 levels of toxicity. Win and look good doing so and there will be the belief that all will be well. If only Eden were fit! 😩

They have another quality midfielder in Herrera if that happens.

Conte said the idea was to ease Bakayoko in with Matic still playing regularly. No chance would he have agreed to sell a player who was an ever present in our team last season to a rival. This was all the board thinking they're pulling one over on United and "milking" them for what they consider a huge fee. In reality, we've sold them a very good player, in the exact area of their team they had a hole, and for an amount of money that's completely insignificant to them. At the same time, his supposed replacement won't be fit and up to speed for a while and that money we banked from Matic's sale is gathering dust in the vault. Brilliant business for from the club. 👍🏼 Would've been a different story if he was sold early in the window and another midfielder of his quality was lined up and signed immedietly afterwards or even before we agreed to sell him.

Our tough early fixtures + the threadbare squad means that we may be well behind some of the other top sides by then. I mean, think about the XI we may be forced to deploy next weekend. Then think of the bench full of players who have never played a senior match for us. I also heard the commentator in that United game just a bit ago read off their first few fixtures. They should easily go on a nice winning streak to build momentum.

There were posters here who were delighted we sold him there. 😂😂😂 Mourinho and United fans laughing themselves to sleep and cannot believe their luck.

This is actually kind of sad to watch. It's like us and United have gone in opposite directions. That's probably kneejerk, but until we get our players back from injury or make a few signings I can't see us playing nearly this well. They look like the well oiled machine we did last season.

They look in midseason form. The benefits of early business and new signings getting plenty of preseason work. Complete opposite of us.