Pizy

Personally not worried about him at all. Training is one thing, but he's only played a few minutes with his new teammates. It'll probably take him a few matches to get on the same page. Getting Hazard back will help massively as well.

The mood can change quickly if we go out and bring in a few this week leading up to the opener. As of right this moment we've had an awful preseason, awful transfer window, and have a squad that will struggle mightily with just one or two more key injuries. Conte will be furious right now.

At this point, probably. Hopefully Morata can become that.

We don't really have that 2nd special player who can take over a game or produce a moment of magic. City for example have many. The chasm between our best player and next best is enormous.

Not sure any of the other title contenders are looking at us right now and worrying.

Abysmal preseason and pretty shit mood heading into the PL.

And that's apparently Pedro gone for the start of the season. Fucking phenomenal.

Alonso and Moses have been equally shit this whole preseason and for different reasons. Moses is just not an intelligent footballer. Switches off too often, takes up poor positions, and gets caught out. Alonso is slow as hell. We don't even need huge upgrades at this point. Just very good ones and our team will immedietly improve.

Our problem areas are so easy to spot and diagnose. We're very weak in the wide areas defensively and in the center of the pitch. We've known this forever. We got better as the half went on but looked super vulnerable in the middle and around our box. We're still 3-4 players away from having a top squad.

It's actually funny how slow Cesc is. It's like he's not there. Suicidal to play him in a 2 this season.

We have so few ideas without the Hazard option.

Painfully slow in possession and getting passed around easily without the ball. Sigh...

Really is strange to see a big club like us start what is basically the first game of the season without a single new player in the XI. Without Hazard and a first choice #9 I also must say that our XI looks quite average.

Would've liked to see Rüdiger in with Azpi on the right here to possibly prepare for Burnley.

Loads of pace in that Arsenal team. Hopefully our midfield doesn't get bullied with Cesc in there as part of a 2.

Thought Sanchez was being hyped up to return for this? Be surprised if he doesn't start.

Definitely think we'll see Morata wide again unfortunately. And if he struggles there be prepared for the whole football world to call him shite and say we completely wasted our money on an average player.

It almost sounds like desperation from him now to get the board to fucking do something.

How pathetic do you have to be to make a fake football journalist Twitter account? And not even one of the bigger, more well known journalists at that.

😰😰😰 Edit: nevermind

I'll give everyone here a BJ if it happens.

I may as well lock this thread if no other mods object.

Just trying to understand why Conte would apparently like him. He'd have made more sense if we had signed Lukaku, tbh. A striker who plays on the shoulder of the CB's and sprints in behind. So long as we sign 2-3 more quality players this window I won't care if we bring Drinkwater in. Van Dijk, Ox, and Drinkwater and I'd be content.

I may be remembering wrong, but hasn't VVD been playing mostly as the left CB at Soton? I don't think he plays as the "sweeper" in the center like David does. I could be wrong. Even if he had been, he's good enough to walk into our XI in any CB role without moving Luiz around. Think he'd take our defense and team as a whole up a level of he replaced Cahill. I'd be a hell of a lot more comfortable with him in the side against top opponents.

To be fair, watching his highlights from their title winning campaign he does look very good playing the ball over the top to Vardy in full flight. Everyone in that Leicester side really struggled last season so maybe the likes of Drinkwater and Mahrez will return to a high level in better sides.