CHOULO19

Yeah, Juve are pretty confident of getting him back on loan, or at least that is what the talk around the club is. Honestly, I don't see what the board could do differently. Our best hope of minimizing the loss on his purchase is loaning him out and hoping he has a better season than last so his market value would go up because, as I've been saying from the start of the summer, it is incredibly unlikely that Juve pay anything more than 12-15 at most for him right now.

Absolutely criminal that Pedro is starting ahead of him.

How would a defender stop a header on goal if he is goal side of an attacker on the near post and the cross is played in front of him? In that scenario, and here we're talking about a totally different case, defenders are usually told to do the opposite and stand between the attacker and the crosser and not goal-side.

You don't give a goal scoring opportunity because someone SHOULD be there to pick up Capoue. He made a run from central midfield with no one picking him up and ran behind the fullback with the winger no where to help cover. You definitely do need 3 players to defend a cross into the center of the box against 2 attackers. Regardless of how good your defenders are in the air. Because the attacker can either attack the ball from in front of the man marking him or from behind so the defender has to take a risk and stand either in front of the attacker and risk the ball being played above him or behind the attacker and risk the ball being played in front of him. Hence a 50-50 chance. But if you have 3 defenders like you should, if the ball looks to be hitting the near post a defender will stand either side of the attacker there and the third will move in front of the attacker on the far post side and if the ball hits the far post a defender will stand either side of the attacker there with the third standing between the second attacker and the far post. That's literally how coaches coach defending against those situations. Most defenders would do exactly as Iva did.

What's going on? Am I high??

When I was writing that I knew that someone would pick out the word outnumbered. I didn't mean that there were more Watford players, I said outnumbered because you need 3 players to mark 2 in the box. I know it's a stupid use of the word but I didn't want to complicate the sentence. Yeah, he needed to to tuck in to help in 2vs2 because you can have man marking in corners and set pieces when the box is packed, but when you only have 2 attackers, having just 2 defend is basically giving your defender a 50% chance of getting the ball. Actually even less as it's harder to defender the cross than to attack it..

Honestly, and I'm not one to defend Ivanovic, but the goal is not his fault, neither is it Cahill's for that matter! He did the right thing in tucking in because Cahill and JT were outnumbered in the middle and would have had trouble dealing with the cross alone. The fault is on Oscar/Matic (can't remember who) who failed to track the run of Capoue from central midfield and from Pedro who was MILES away from his fullback when we did not have the ball.

The criticism for Matic is way too harsh, imo. He just does not have any role in our current formation. It's not his fault that he simply does not have the abilities to offer the team anything in the position he is being played in. He lacks the mobility to press high up the pitch like Oscar does, he doesn't have the technique to pick passes from deep or even to simply move the along quickly. The place where he would be able to defend well without having to cover great distances and be able to receive the ball and pass it forward with little pressure is already being the superior player in Kante. My opinion of him has not changed since the title winning season: Matic is a good player who can be excellent in a certain role that mask his limitations.

He didn't 'have' time and space. He intercepted the ball so he created the space for himself. Also, I know that 'time and space' are always used together, but in the case of Fabregas the argument that he needs time is just nonsensical when he more often than not plays his passes first time. I mean our other option in midfield usually takes about 5 seconds and 2 or 3 touches to set the ball onto his left foot before he could make a 10 yard pass! JT can give you world class long passes with enough time and space on the ball, but Cesc Fabregas is probably the best in the world at it because he can see and execute the long pass faster than anyone else. And that's not to say that he does not struggle when he is given little space.

Wait, wait, wait. Bristol Rovers are not the same as Bristol City?! How did I just now figure this out?!!

What are you talking about?! This isn't about Matic's performance and certainly not about his last season. We were specifically talking about his ROLE THIS season. He has had no tactical role so far. That's not criticism of him, that is criticism of the manager.

Yes, absolutely. I reckon we had a better preseason than any other team in the league which couldn't be more of a contrast to last season's preseason!

I would like to add that, yes, Conte is making influential changes and subs in games (agree with Barbara that he's mostly correcting his own mistakes) but another factor that is helping us late in games so far is that we're in a better physical condition than most teams. We can't rely on that forever as teams will gradually catch up.

Are you 12? Even if we put aside that that is an obviously stupid point, how is it even relevant to anything about Matic's current role in the team? This is 100% regardless of whether or not we go on to win the match. If anything, the way Fabregas changed the match makes this point even more valid.

Am I the only one who would like to see Willian playing centrally next to Oscar with Pedro or Moses on the right wing?

Am I the only one who would like to see Willian playing centrally next to Oscar with Pedro or Moses on the right wing?

Well that was anti climactic. I hope, at least, they manage to win the bronze.

Who knew Mikel was the king of banter? Best of luck to him tonight. Would be amazing if he manages to help the eagles get the gold!

Would be beyond stupid if we force Cesc out to keep Matic. You can replace Matic, but there's no one with better passing abilities than Cesc Fabregas on the market.

I would not bet against us selling him at the end of this season. We should have brought him back this season.

Watched him last night. Never fails to surprise how good and comfortable he is on the ball.

Undoubted MOTM for me. Andy Carrol was forced to play LB for most of the match!

What role? He had none. He could have been sent off and I don't think it would have made any difference to the game whatsoever. If Mikel had had that same performance as Matic yesterday people would be calling for him to be assassinated on here.

I want to be optimistic about this new season, I really do, but tonight is the first match and it seems we still don't know what formation we are going to play, we've failed so far to use the market address our main issue which is the back where we've weakened if anything, and regardless of what formation we are going to settle on we have glaring weaknesses in the team. The positives are that we had a good preseason and should be physically fitter than most teams and that Eden looks to be back to his best. But I don't know how far that alone can carry us. I think it'll be a tougher season than most expect. Unfortunately, I see us struggling to get top four, let alone mount some title challenge.