Pizy

Might be part of it. Secure our assets on super long contracts so that if any kind of punishment ever happens a bunch of other clubs can’t swoop in like vultures and take away our best players for peanuts. But I think this is mostly just a very American way of doing things as I well know as an American.

We’re paying only about £10m more for Felix than Leicester just payed for Oliver Skipp. A player who any time I’ve watched doesn’t even look like a PL caliber footballer.

Just get Lukaku fucking gone, ffs. Stop messing about so we can try to push Osimhen through already. Both ourselves and Napoli lost over the weekend so it would greatly benefit both clubs if we hurry up and do this business ASAP. Conte has already shit talked his club for not doing what he asked. Are they going to drag this saga out for another week and risk losing again?

In an ideal world, yes. But that ridiculously outrageous salary is why I’m extremely doubtful that we’ll be able to shift him.

I agree about needing a new striker but Guiu coming on isn’t the reason we fell off yesterday. There’s not really anything he can do if we can’t get a sniff of the ball. City just controlled the game towards the end.

Oh, the move is surely still going to happen. But it doesn’t appear like it could happen at any minute like some have made it seem. Otherwise they’d keep him out/away from the team like they’re doing Omorodion or like we’re doing with Gallagher.

Felix given a new squad number and traveling/available for Atleti’s match tonight. So clearly this move isn’t nearly as close as all the reporters have said for like a week.

See, to me the biggest issue last season was the complete lack of any semblance whatsoever of a set way of playing. We just kind of ran around chaotically. Which is why so many (mostly English supporters) love Gallagher so much because he thrived in that environment. So I actually don’t see the same old issues. I can actually see a style taking shape and think we’re already easier on the eye in possession. What we need now is just time and games. I think we’ll gradually look more and more comfortable. Unless you mean glaring issues in terms of individual players/positions. Then I’d agree in specific cases like the GK, Nico Jackson, and Enzo’s strange position.

Crazy how 1 “bad” result (were people actually expecting us to beat the champions?) can send some of you into a depression. I’m still very encouraged and looking forward to watching us again. I think the ideas and tactics are evident and some of the buildup play was fantastic yesterday. I’ve watched back a bunch of it and the way we carved through the best team in the world quite a few times from the base of midfield all the way to the final third was lovely. I think that with a top class #9 and a little bit of time we’ll be just fine and well in play for a top 4 finish.

Yeah, exactly. This is easily the most puzzling bit of business by Clearlake yet. If the FA hadn’t changed the number of loan spots I guess you could rationalize this buy by saying he could go out for a PL loan and perhaps earn himself a future place in the team. But our loan spots will probably be long gone by the time we get around to deciding what to do with him.

I know I brought his name up a few days ago but I just think it’s really weird how Omari Kellyman signed for us and then fell off the face of the earth never to be mentioned again. I know he is/was injured but still. There’s zero talk of him whatsoever in connection with playing in our first team. We already now appear ready to sell/loan Carney after Maresca’s comments today because we have no space for him in that #10 spot. And Felix may be coming in who plays in that area. There’s zero talk about loaning Kellyman either. He’s probably too advanced in his development to go into our dev team and at £19m it would be crazy to have him down there. So wtf is going to happen with him? It truly does seem like we bought him ONLY as a PSR favor with no plan for what we’re actually gonna do with him.

Looked to me like it was probably a pre-planned sub with input from the sports scientists or something. The way Maresca almost apologized to him as he was coming off looked as if he did it to be overly cautious. I know I’ve read before that the physio’s/sport scientists will recommend how many minutes a player should play when coming back from a long injury so maybe that’s what happened.

Don’t think our CB’s were close to the main problem today. Those numerous panicky moments we saw from them in preseason never really happened today. Thought both showed decent composure on the ball, too.

Look at some of the other big teams this weekend. United looked awful for much of their match and won with a jammy goal. Liverpool looked woeful for the entire first half of their match and were outplayed by fucking Ipswich for 45 minutes. They were playing much worse opponents than we were today but you’d think reading the meltdowns from our fans that we lost to Everton or something and looked woeful. It’s not like our direct competitors look awesome and the task of getting 3rd or 4th looks out of reach with our squad. They looked poor at times as well. We know City and Arse are in a world of their own currently. We shouldn’t even concern ourselves with them. If we struggle and lose against a bunch of the others then we can be concerned.

A lot of our fans just need to stop crying and get some perspective. That’s the best team in the world. They’ve had years and years of continuity and their players know one another so well their understanding is almost telepathic. If we went out today and lost (and looked lost) against some midtable side or relegation fodder I’d be melting down too. They’re the Champions, ffs! We’re nowhere near their level. We won’t be playing against Haaland, Kova, or Doku every week. We were ALWAYS going to struggle against world class opponents early on. And tbh, we performed better today than most would’ve expected. Many thought we’d get battered and concede 4 or 5.

Literally every comment I’m seeing on his video is “get Enzo out of Chelsea, Enzo doesn’t do anything well, Enzo is a disgrace” etc. Much of the same about “useless” Caicedo. I’m literally reading it right now. Kova was a 9 out of 10 today for me just like Lavia was for us in my opinion.

I feel like I’m taking crazy pills watching Younes’s match recap video and reading his comments section where everyone is shitting on Caicedo. Enzo I understand was really poor for much of that match some deserves the criticism. But I thought Caicedo was a very solid 7.5 or 8 out of 10 today. I feel like people were watching a different game than I was.

If he could finish reliably he’d be amongst the best strikers in Europe. He does almost everything you ask of a striker well except he isn’t clinical. So what he should be is our backup striker behind an Osimhen. He’ll still get lots of games and plenty of minutes but we won’t have to depend solely on him for goals. He can be exactly for us what Julian Alvarez was for City behind Haaland.

As much as people want to hate on him, I thought Enzo instantly looked more comfortable when he moved back deeper. When he’s got space and isn’t being constantly pressured he’s good. I’ll say again, PLAY HIM DEEP! Not against top teams of course, but against 80% of the PL opponents we should be playing him deep and letting him run the game like we did Jorginho.

You thought Caicedo was poor? I thought he was very solid up until the second goal. Quite a few important tackles/interceptions and looked comfortable moving the ball forward. Nothing like what he looked like when he first joined during that very poor spell he had. Gusto I agree with, though. That was pretty damned concerning from a defensive POV. Doku blasted past him repeatedly as if he wasn’t there. And Gusto has plenty of pace himself.

Elite #9 in this team and I am hugely confident we finish top 4 barring key injuries.

We just have to understand as a fanbase that we are still nowhere near City or Arse’s level yet. And I hope nobody thought we would be. But also, I’m encouraged by a lot of what I saw. Caicedo was excellent until that error on the goal, Lavia was the best midfielder on the pitch, the CB pairing today was relatively comfortable for the most part and not a shitshow like most expected. Neto I think will cook against most opponents with his directness. Cole was quiet but has barely trained with the team so he’ll get better and better. I think we’ll be just fine once the games start coming and we build confidence. Something that is also clear is that Jackson is still ultra frustrating. He gets into such good positions but always fluffs his lines. I was just saying the other day that we shouldn’t panic and sign someone but perhaps we should just for insurance in case Nico misses loads of chances again like last season.

The holes were there for us to exploit in City today if we were sharper and had an elite striker up top. We created some great opportunities and grew into the game. But silly individual errors and naïveté cost us yet again. City were basically in first gear cruise control the whole match and were pretty lax but we couldn’t capitalize because we weren’t sharp ourselves. They looked like they were playing another preseason match where they didn’t want to over do it physically so they just stroked it around.

Just allow him to waltz through our who,e midfield and defense and then a soft ass wrist from Sanchez. Losing this 0-1 would’ve been a positive we could’ve taken and built upon. Now it looks like the same old shit from last season in the end.

Why take off our best midfielder? Strange. Enzo has gotten better but I would’ve taken him off.