OneMoSalah

Wtf did you watch!?!? out of the three he was probably the best, or was it just me no?

Where the defenders actually poor though or did Brentford keep winning a lot of second balls in midfield/keep overloading the far post in the second half? Lets not deny that Kante, Kovacic and Ruben struggled in the second half with the intensity and once we got the ball, we lacked the composure to keep it and play through them (ironically think Tuchel missed a chance to bring Jorginho on for RLC last 15-20 mins or so to try get control in there again). I don’t think you can say those 3 in the backline did poorly or didn’t play as a unit. For their first game together, I felt every one of them did well and whilst we struggled with Brentford overloading the far post a lot (as did Liverpool and Arsenal), you cannot say it was really the 3 CBs who were really at fault. The wingbacks when they dropped in to help out, aren’t particularly great in the air and were always likely going to be second best up against their men. Obviously you defend as a team, all 11 players and today the midfield and the wingbacks weren’t particularly good by any stretch of the imagination. Even more so second half, where the midfield was very exposed and very reactive instead of proactive to second balls. We seen this v Spurs for us. Brentford upped the intensity and worked their arses off in there.

Very true. Seen a moment where Chilwell could have then he eventually does and Lukaku’s offside - was chance he tried to cross for Werner low and hard across the box - which happens 4/5 times a game. Ball doesn’t come soon enough, he is offside - same with Werner sometimes also. This will hold us back a lot.

Massive result despite the performance. As mentioned by myself and many others, Liverpool and Arsenal dropped points vs them. The performance wasn’t great first half or even close to good second half - they absolutely battered us last 30-35 minutes - but we would of lost this game last season. 100% so for me, albeit with a lot of questions still, its another sign of progress - winning when playing poorly. Like we did at times with Jose, Carlo and Conte as well as in 2012. Hard earned win clearly but again, sometimes the best results are the hard earned ones. Brentford are no mugs. They look up to the standard Wolves were when they got promoted and will remain in the PL for the foreseeable if they maintain their approach and manager. Also after an international break, make shift back 3 (all who played extremely well), still an attack that isn’t exactly anywhere near as potent as it should be or on the same wavelength, don’t let the bad performance necessarily cloud that this is a good result.

How did Mendy not get nominated for the Ballon D’Or? I mean he made some big saves all of last season and today is an example of how he is genuinely world class. Ridiculous.

Another game where our attackers have done zilch though. Really. Werner and Lukaku’s runs maybe a positive at times although final passes haven’t helped but your not judged on runs, your judged on goals and unfortunately none today. Back 3 and GK only people who’ve performed all game though. Cannot believe Tuchel has given Ruben and Azpi 90 minutest both are absolutely fucked and getting done at every opportunity. Nvm Azpi off. 1-0 here is a great result though lets not kid on, Liverpool drew 3-3, Arsenal lost 2-0.

This is why I am worried about RLC playing in a 3 man MF as the deepest player. Whilst he has done well first half, he has been shocking second half along with Kovacic (poor all game). Look at the lack of control as well as the spaces between MF and backline without the ball. Also look at how easy the centre backs are being got at. We cannot afford to have passengers against a team who’s looking to go direct and play off second balls in and around those areas. Also as poor as Kovacic was, he has an engine and gets around the park that bit faster than Ruben does unfortunately. Kante hasnt been great either but you keep him on because he is Kante. Sarr has been fantastic though. Rock solid debut.

He has impressed me a lot tbf. Physically he’s done well, looks like he has a good blend of physicality and athleticism on top of showing he's comfortable in possession in that LCB position, which is nice to see an actual naturally left footed player there too. Not a big deal but in terms him positioning himself to receive the ball, letting it come across him with real ease and being able to find his wing back quicker, its only maybe a millisecond or two quicker (and whilst Rudi is also good at it despite being right footed), it gives us a bit more speed in our build up. Kovacic playing rugby there by looks of it

Chilwell in a Marcos Alonso-esque position!!!! Fuck me Werner-Lukaku have been pretty much tragic together, need a third attacker on.

Hes looking good in most things except for his distribution, still concerned because he hasn’t broke the lines once and hes had a lot of opportunities/touches of the ball. Even playing sideways, sometimes just needs to be one touch quicker. Particularly in that deeper position. His recoveries and duels have been very good though. Which has surprised me. Just there he got caught out a bit but felt that was a foul too.

I get playing Ruben in a 3 man MF… but as the deepest of them? Lets hope we aren’t too sloppy because don’t trust him positionally in that position.

They’ll still keep plenty of clean sheets though if they keep the likes of van Dijk, Matip, Gomez and Konate fit plus the likes of Jota and Firmino will still score goals also so they’ve still got a very very good chance of being in the title run. The ability to keep clean sheets always gives you a chance of winning. In January it also will depend who they play though and how far Senegal and Egypt go in the AFCON. If they get a run of easy games, keep their backline fit as well as Jota and Firmino they’ll be there or theres about by the time they return after AFCON. They look very good and unfortunately right now the only team I would say who are going to properly challenge City because you can say as a title challenging team, they are more mature and ready than we are. Still think we will give it a good shot but potentially will fall away.

Do us all a favour and read up on it instead of acting like a massive twat thinking you know everything when you haven’t got the faintest clue between your arse and your elbow. Please just read the link, its painful for the rest of us reading this “barca fanboy pup” and “scam football club” nonsense 😂 The La Liga £100m cap was for this season (based on their financial situation), they trimmed the equivalent of €250-300 million off their wage bill this season compared to last. As reported by the Athletic (heres link if you don’t believe it) https://www.google.com/amp/s/theathletic.com/news/real-madrid-in-270m-boost-barcelona-given-280m-cut-2021-22-la-liga-wage-caps/1BPLPzfhRtee/%3Famp%3D1

Because La Liga have put salary caps on all Spanish teams meaning that due to their financial status now Barca are only allowed to be paying around €100m in wages per year but never mind, I suppose you knew that too…. ”snarky comments” no just proving a point, which again you’ve made a royal cunt of yourself 😂

Well anyone who isn't living under a rock would know 1) Messi left who was on the best part of €1m per week and 2) majority of their big players took a pay cut meaning they've cut their wage bill down significantly and could register their new players and propose renewals to the likes of Fati and Pedri. So less of the “do some reading before you fly in like rambo” when I am more than aware and you obviously weren’t….. or you wouldn’t be hitting out with “they literally couldn’t even pay wages pal” which couldn’t of been further from the truth 👍

What new wallet? What are you on about? 😂 I repeat, they have renewed someones contract…. Not bought him. Obviously it costs money to renew with fees and increased wages but I doubt it’s significant enough to hugely affect them.

Eh? You on about Barca? They renewed Pedri’s contract, who is a player they already have? Who they signed in 2020? What would that have to do with FFP or being in debt?

Well thats not exactly true. Aye in fact thats almost ludicrous. Prior to Roman and even Ranieri being the manager, we were pushing in the right direction. Look at our league finishes from the 96/97 season up to when Jose was appointed under Guillit, Vialli and Ranieri. 6th, 4th, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 6th, 4th and 2nd. Plus throw in the FA cups, UEFA Super Cup, UEFA Cup Winners Cup, League Cups etc won in that period. Obviously Mourinho’s exceptional managerial skills and some of the big players we bought accelerated us to the back to back leagues but again you can’t say “we just threw money at it” like we were a team who were finishing in the bottom 10 of the PL table like Newcastle have done since Benitez took them back up. We were already in and around those teams. Maybe we wouldn’t have been as successful with Ranieri as were with Mourinho but you can’t just say we threw money at it as if it was unthinkable that we could have achieved something more based on the previous seasons. Ironically once we just started throwing money at players like Shevchenko and Torres without really thinking about it, thats when things didn’t necessarily go too well. So you’ve contradicted yourself, you said they would be throwing money around like its confetti? But now you think they wont buy top players? So what are they going to do? Make your mind up.

The fact every media outlet says they will not be making knee jerk decisions and they want to have director of football/sporting directors in place makes it blatantly obvious that it may take them another week or 2 weeks to even approach a manager. I don’t think you see or understand the bigger picture point (which the group and Amanda Staveley have been discussing in the media) so I will just leave it at that. Your thinking it is like FIFA or FM where they will just go n throw £££ at it in fees and wages because they can which is idiotic. Like Anzhi did in Russia with Roberto Carlos, Zhirkov, Eto’o, Willian, Diarra, Samba etc. Without a plan it won’t work and I doubt they’re here to just throw shit at the wall and hope it sticks.

Should be a tight game but also one I would expect to be entertaining at their place. They are very interesting and have shown already good variety this season, capable of playing long and direct or short and out from the back. They also are effective playing a high press or sitting in a bit deeper, being organised when they have to as they did at times v Liverpool and Arsenal. Good to see the referee is in discussion… jesus christ, if we don’t win this, it will be down to us not being good enough or them being too good, not the referee. I mean the fans of the smaller clubs are the ones who usually moan about referees being appointed to their games because traditionally at the bigger teams stadiums, they would maybe not get the same decisions. Now people on here are complaining about it because they appointed Anthony Taylor for one of our away games…. the tin foil hats are back in full force.

And who did Tuchel buy? Nobody. Thats the whole point. Not on about solely appointing managers, its happens midseason more or less 75% of the time all around Europe. maybe this will help…. And by joined - club I mean after the seasons kicked off as we are 7 games in already. Anyway, as I can see here, there are 100% people expecting Bruce to have been sacked on the day they confirmed the take over and for a new manager to come in a day or two after, which is quite frankly ludicrous. As a club just taken over after an initial failed takeover attempt prior, I doubt they’ll have even thought about having anything in place immediately with a manager. They’ll have a list perhaps but I’d be surprised if its not Bruce or his assistant taking the game at the weekend although it is only Tuesday. End of season? I don’t think that would make sense. If they are smart, they will maybe take a bit of time to see who’s out there and get someone who wants to build the club for a couple of seasons at least so they can actually have a reasonable progression and build expectations up as opposed to going from Steve Bruce to a caretaker for 6 months to another manager then the following summer changing between 3 different managers, with 3 different views on football and 3 different goals entirely. Plus if they want a director of football (which is rumoured) and also try and get the likes of Shearer, Keegan and whoever else in place also in some capacity, depending what those roles are particularly if they are going to be footballing roles, they have to be compatible with whoever they want to appoint as manager too. We have seen whilst here, our model of changing managers has worked very well, you also see that Liverpool and City have done the opposite with Klopp and Pep, investing in their project and ideas long term and they’ve built up in a way where they’ve followed a clear plan that gives them the opportunity for sustained success. City in recent times are begrudgingly the perfect example really. Once Txiki Begiristain was appointed and Pellegrini came in, everyone and their dog could see they were building for Pep eventually and to have all the footballing infrastructure in place to give him the best chance of implementing everything he wanted.

They need to get a manager first though. Also, when has a manager ever joined a club which by the time they bin Bruce and get someone picked and things in place probably be closer to midway through the season and goes and buys excessively in the January? Its almost unheard of.

Hazard back would be strange. We don’t usually sign players who have had bad spells at other clubs, we usually don't sign players who are of or over the age of 30 either. I dont think we can afford to simply resign someone who maybe might do it again or maybe wont because of sentiment. We already have enough players who in attack and streaky or not doing it regularly enough so to make another attacking signing who plays on the wing/attacking midfield position and its the same story, it would be frustrating.

The thing is, if they get a good recruitment plan and project in place which Conte is all for based on his Inter signings the likes of Barella, Lukaku, Hakimi, Eriksen, Lazaro, Sensi, Politano were all in various ages below the ages of 29-32 so its not a given he will go and buy shit tonnes of 29-32 year olds. Sanchez, Darmian, Vidal, Kolarov, Young were really the only older guys he signed there majority of the others kids/players between 19-28. If they make a plan in the same way City did with Pellegrini and then Pep, building their squad with a mix of young, middle age and few older senior pros or players in their prime then theres no reason why they cannot achieve or build to something good. This Conte 29-32 year old signing thing really is bizarre, maybe at Juventus he did (Juventus have been good at squeezing every ounce out of players who are in that age bracket and above though - in recent times I can think of Pirlo, Barzaghli, Buffon, Chielleni Tevez, even Matri and Vucinic had reasonable returns for him in their late 20s or whatever ages in their 30s - but he did openly say himself about them being tight which is why he left. Here the likes of Giroud and a few others Dzeko etc who were linked, they were probably all that was available at the time considering it was January too. But you’d think he signed 25 old men at every club hes ever been at reading this place sometimes 😂 And even if he did or didn’t, he’s got the trophies to show it works. Obviously getting success is one thing but its about sustaining it, at Juve he built an excellent squad prior to Allegri going there, here he brought in a few very good players and again the majority of the starting 11 at Inter, the stand out players such as Barella, Martinez, Lukaku (left), Hakimi (left) all improved ten fold under him and he signed them bar Martinez.

A good fit? Honestly, I am a bit baffled but Simon Phillips again… suppose So basically, what I have gathered… another club with huge ambitions, probably if they wanted to (although talk of not doing this and having a project), able to give Frank whatever amount of money to spend each transfer window on high quality players, only for him to probably not be able to fit into a team/coach to play as a cohesive unit with any clear identity… then try throw more money at it again and again (huge talk of him wanting Rice at all costs here last January and again this summer)… hmm…. a good fit? Even the project talk and youth players, Frank tapped into the youth academy here and at Derby, this eye for a young player is given to him although when you consider how famed our academy has been for years - just look at the FA Youth cup wins - its not exactly an unknown secret. For a project that you want to accelerate to this level of ambition eventually that they’ve talked about, at a club who are owned by personnel worth £320bn, that is still a bad job for an inexperienced coach who had huge resources here and couldn’t make it work in 18 months where identity and playing style was severely lacking. If they are ambitious and want a playing style and an identity to bring the fans onside, they will more than likely get someone who has some experience at reasonably big club level or someone who has been part or delivered a project to some sort of reasonable standard. I suppose finding them is difficult but the likes of Lampard and Howe will not be top of the pile, 100%.