Pizy

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.

As expected, Matic is exactly the player they needed. Hope the club are happy with that £40m that's sitting in the bank doing nothing while Matic looks perfectly set up and comfortable in a title rivals team.

^ Wow. Looks a completely different player when he's playing with confidence like he did there. Also pretty clear that he's a CM who's best at running with the ball from deep rather than almost a striker like Conte tried him as. Hopefully he develops nicely there and returns a much better (less lazy) player who's ready to slot into the first team.

It's like he was trying to prove to people that he's a modern, ball playing CB by bringing the ball up and joining the attack. He needs to just stick to the things he's good at and keep his game simple. Stop trying to do too much.

Easily controlling the game before he went off, lost control completely when he did go off. Yeah, sorry, he takes the blame. We win that game handily with 11 men on the pitch.

We know Luiz will be able to deal with the physicality of Wanyama/Dier/Dembele, it's the positional discipline I'm worried about. If we can slow the game down I think we have a decent chance. If they just press constantly and target our midfield we're toast.

I love Willian but like a couple of years ago we saw today that if he's our primary, go-to source for creativity and incisiveness in the final third we're in trouble. He's brilliant as a foil for Hazard or someone world class on the opposite side but he can't shoulder the load on his own. He does so well in the build up but is so indecisive around the box. This is why Pedro is often favored. Still, he's a warrior and I'm glad we kept him and refused Mourinho's advances.

Worry not. We'll have Danny D in by then. 👍🏼

Honestly, he's been getting away with several of that sort of tackle. He usually gets away with it because refs know he's not the sort of player to put in a rash tackle. He most certainly would've been bullied and made useless against Spuds anyways so it's not a huge loss.

City's bench today probably cost more than our best XI. Compare that to what we had there today and it's insane. How can Roman and the hierarchy see that and be okay with it? Their squad is light years ahead of ours. How are we expected to compete with a side that can bring the likes of Yaya, Bernardo, Sterling, Gündogan, Mendy, and Sané off the bench on any given day? An injury/suspension or two for us and you see how much trouble we're in. They could lose several top players and replace them with players who would start every week for almost every other club in the league. Ridiculous that we've let it get this way.

Immedietly strikes you after watching Costa for so long and Batshuayi recently how silky Morata is on the ball. Proper footballer rather than a battering ram. Goal scorer but also a creator. We have to make sure not to get carried away, but damn did he look excellent.