OneMoSalah

Aye, Conte leaving situation was weird and has backfired on him now significantly but he also signed a lot of them guys and left Inzaghi a championship winning team/group. Like the team/group he left Allegri at Juventus. Always helps. I’m impressed with their recruitment of Dzeko, Dumfries, Correa and Calhanoglu too to replace Lukaku and Hakimi and boost their squad depth. I sometimes wonder if Conte felt that Hakimi and Lukaku wouldn’t just be the only big players to be sold so the club could balance their books. Could be wrong but I think if he knew that they’d sell Lukaku and Hakimi and replace with them Dzeko and Dumfries he might of actually been a bit more likely to stay as he wanted Dzeko here and the other summer at Inter IIRC prior to Dzeko renewing his Roma deal.

True, valid points and I have seen some other posts from you and other guys about him not fitting and the system being affected etc which I agree with points from (too big a can of worms to type out probably could post something that would take all day to type) but lets not beat around the bush here, we needed a striker. This striker, regardless of if it were Kane, Lukaku, Aguero or whoever else, was the one thing we needed to go and push City and Liverpool. We got Lukaku, many pundits, journalists, fans etc thought Lukaku to Chelsea, thats the move they need, they will be right up there come the end of the season because he will score them goals. Don’t want to take anything away from the way we won the CL without that sort of numbers from a CF but the CL is different (because we had some excellent games and fully deserved to win it outright in my opinion based on the majority of the knockout games), its knockout football, not nearly 40 games over the slog of the best part of 10 or 11 months or so and promising system or tactic or not, those guys wont do it enough so thats why we better hope Lukaku or another attacker can get a lot of goals to compensate for that. And lets not pretend that running the gap close/trying to win the title wasn’t going to be the objective this year after what Tuchel did with this group in a short space, so to do that, we needed a CF and well when looking at a CF, one thing tends to stand out more than anything else - how many goals did/do they score? Stats do overshadow things in football but even then, I find it hard to believe a manager as good as Tuchel cannot find a way to get goals and more out of Lukaku as well as keep the other good things we’ve seen from others than what we’ve seen so far. Even if he has got limitations.

I think its all good saying that in hindsight but we would of been laughed out of the title running before a ball was kicked if we didn’t sign a recognised CF and used Broja instead - regardless of how well he would do or wouldn’t do. There was a clear problem with conversion and you’d of thought a proven 25 goals a season man would solve it.

You really don’t like Conte do you 🤣 Inzaghi is definitely surprising a lot of people outside of Italy though and that will continue again if they progress past Liverpool in the CL. Most probably thought Inter would struggle to maintain their position without Conte, Lukaku and Hakimi but their signings have worked and they’ve found a really good run of form recently, think they are unbeaten in their last 9 league matches.

Well there is that also 😂 seems to be a reoccurring theme with offensive players here

All that complaining and people saying ‘Sarr cost us our CL campaign’ ‘Tuchel cost us the game v Zenit’ and the other worrying/stupid nonsense only for us to get a reasonable draw in Lille 🤣 Wont be a pushover but a good draw to get. Plus theres some good ties, 3 good level teams from the United/PSG, Inter/Ajax and Atletico/Bayern ties will go out when the last 8 comes so it certainly is a very good draw for us.

I think Tomo or perhaps it was someone else had mentioned that the attack and results have gone pretty badly since CHO was taken out of the team in another thread and its hard to disagree based on what we’ve seen.

He is ahead of both in terms of ability though. Last season he struggled for fitness and has had wee niggles here and there this season but he still has 8 goals in 15 games so far for a poor Juventus side. For a free, if he’s fit and firing, he will get between 10-15 goals minimum over the course of a season. He’s proven this every year at Juventus barring last season. It hasn’t helped his development as a player that he was also seen as the main man in that side prior to Ronaldo’s arrival and then shunted in and around to try accommodate Ronaldo, who they built around. Obviously he isn’t Ronaldo but the Juventus team prior to Ronaldo’s arrival was much better and he was a huge part of it. Although right now I think we could take next to anyone and they’d be more consistent than Werner and Ziyech. Again, different situation completely, would you not think? Wijnaldum’s proven himself as a very good MF player in one of the best PL sides in the last 10 years, where as Saul has clearly not acclimatised to the PL and struggled to show anything of what he has shown for Atletico in the past (unfortunately). Would go as far as saying Wijnaldum for 6 months would be a great January signing, never mind mentioning the fact its a loan signing and these sort of loans are also difficult to find.

Yeah he’s a good player; great physical qualities as well as having good technical ability too. Is he? Well that’s disappointing as I think he would be a huge potential improvement on Ziyech and Werner in those attacking positions. Although I am a bit skeptical of if he could play in the PL though as well as he does in Italy but think his profile is the sort that could function well in our system. As well as perhaps being someone who could play in a front 2 off Lukaku as an actual second striker similarly to how Martinez did at Inter although I think that would split a lot of opinions. Sule not renewing at Bayern seems odd but if we can get him on a free for next summer we should take it and run. He has been brilliant under Nagelsmann.

Aye his levels of performance and consistency are dropping unfortunately but I reckon as a squad player and being the club captain he may still have a part to play in some capacity. Particularly in and around the dressing room and on the training ground, setting an example for some of the younger/newer players. Maybe similarly to Terry under Antonio Conte although I think Azpi has definitely got more high level football left in him than Terry did at that point.

Some of these frees are interesting. Dybala and Sule would be worth a punt, they’d actually be two very shrewd moves. Kessie and Brozovic are interesting players too but I think we wouldn’t be overly interested in either of them due to Connor’s development, unless we actually sold both Ross and Ruben, but again don’t see it happening.

Good news if true. Hopefully word on Azpi next. Rudiger resigning would be a bonus but looks hugely unlikely.

I think your overlooking the point of the comparison and purely focusing on stats. I’d agree with @DDA, he is maybe more offensive minded than Hargreaves but he has similar sort of traits. He’s got that same energy, drive, thrust in terms of being able to just open up and get away from people as well as the ability he had to get around the park and get the ball back be it pressing high or in deeper positions. He’s very rounded. So was Hargreaves.

People will specifically focus on Alonso and the penalty he conceded but again, after 15 minutes, we as a team stopped playing bar the last few minutes. And Thank fuck for that. Mason.

For a squad option aye he’d be good but I dont think hes really kicked on at Everton bar his first 2 seasons really. Would he be cheap?

If Werner, Havertz and Mount cannot produce in games like today as well as the boys who can come off the bench for us, then I would be worried. Leeds are a rival but their not a big team as such, these are the sort of teams we should be able to roll over. Their back 4 is makeshift and you’d hope that the boys identify that and play off of that. Luckily, I think they can all contribute one way or another today and we will get the points.

That Leeds backline is there for the taking. Ayling at CB, Shackleton at RB and Junior Firpo at LB has also been a shambles for them.

Surely something you can only enter by winning club footballs most elite trophy is something worth winning though? Same with Super Cup. Plus as something we’ve never won, again even more incentive. Don't see why people look down on these two trophies, not as if its the community shield or something dead rubber like that.

Yep, suppose the only thing is there is a shortage of top quality left footed CBs around. Or that are available anyway. Im pretty confident saying I think Tuchel and the back 3 are here to remain for the remainder of this season and next so if we can get a top level left footed CB that would be great.

I think De Ligt would be the best choice but would also be the most unrealistic and difficult to get unless Juve goes to shit with these allegations against them but thats all very much up in the air. Kounde is probably most likely but I have to admit, still unconvinced by him, more so this season than last but did think he was a bit overrated.

I think depending on whether or not Lewandowski wants to stay at Bayern or not, he could end up there as an outside bet but would be unlikely as the rumours are Lewa is happy to renew now after the rumours he wanted to move/considered moving the other summer. If that changed, I think Bayern could pull a deal off though. They've given Kimmich and Goretzka huge wages for new contracts and offered Alaba huge wages as well as reportedly going to be on verge of giving Gnabry a big salary also to get him to renew. Would say Madrid probably be the most obvious one though if things remain as they likely will at Bayern. I get the feeling he’s not that worried about playing in the PL or if a club can give him 500k a week or whatever they think it’ll cost.

Think he could be a risk. At least the club are monitoring and waiting to see and not just spunking their load on him. I think to replace Rudiger we need to go for someone who’s maybe played a lot more games at the same sort of level although thats not necessarily easy to find.

This has to be the game where the rot stops. I know we are looking a bit light in MF but still think some will play through the pain barrier if needed. A clean sheet is also a must to get things back to normal.

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11899/12491726/erling-haaland-mino-raiola-says-there-is-a-big-chance-striker-will-leave-borussia-dortmund-this-summer Haaland more than likely on move this summer, Raiola quoted mentioning Man City, Bayern, Barcelona and Real Madrid in that article. Someone gonna get an absolute steal for £64m. Particularly if they can get the wages into some sort of reasonable figure, which I’d imagine they will do because I reckon Haaland will want a certain move to a certain club meaning Raiola wont be able to try and out manoeuvre him/action him off. Martial also looking likely to leave Man United in January.

Whatever the thinking on Azpi if he starts or is a rotation/squad player, losing him, Rudiger and potentially Christensen without even mentioning the fact as well we don’t know what will happen to Thiago Silva as well in the summer would be as close to a disaster as there is. Azpi, Rudiger and Silva have huge masses of experience and are big characters in and around the place. You cannot simply buy to replace all of those guys at once, obviously they will be phased out individually and the coach would bleed/rotate the replacements in (possibly like Chalobah - but again if Kounde came in the chances are he’d have the same minutes Sarr has this season) but their experience and leadership is something that is difficult to replace. We have to be careful because its not as easy as just buying 2 or 3 CBs and it automatically clicking. Plus its going to be difficult to get 2 high quality level CBs in if we decide to keep using 3 at the back and clubs will know we will be desperate to get CBs in also if thats the case. Also I’d be curious to see what Tuchel would do if we lost those all in one go because we’ve seen events with him when his teams have sold/released key players/experienced players and it hasn’t gone down well. For example, Dembele, Gundogan and Hummels at Dortmund and Cavani and Thiago Silva at PSG. And he’s been pretty dependent on those guys too since coming in, playing them a lot.