OneMoSalah

I think people forget the role she played in confirming what was going on at Madrid though and further undermining her husband/partners position when he was already seemingly well out of favour too under Mourinho though. It was no surprise when Casillas was out of the team under Jose, she confirmed the discord between the Portuguese and various senior players such as Ramos, Ronaldo, Pepe, and Casillas, claiming it was an “open secret” that the players and manager didn’t get on (when only one other outlet had ran a similar story) to a Mexican TV show called La Jugada. Theres no smoke without fire and I would say a girlfriend clearly using a personal connection from inside a professional sports team dressing room to get “breaking news” that would severely damage or expose an already fragile relationship within the club would probably upset any president so the comments as extreme as they might be, probably justify him being upset or the feeling of animosity towards her. Hardly makes Perez vermin. If your going to be a journalist, do it right, or don’t half make it personal on behalf of someone else who is your partner…..

AC Milan and Atletico have already bid for him. Spurs and Juve also rumoured to be looking to make moves soon also so Vlahovic will in all likelihood be off the market well before then. Lots of talk he wants to play for Juventus more than anyone else out of teams linked. Price set at £51 m if you believe sources as well which I think for teams outside of Italy maybe is a bit of a issue because he’s only had the one real good season there, probably similarly to why we maybe didnt stump up/push as hard for Pastore and Dybala in years gone by also due to the fact they’d only had the one really good season at time we were linked and could of flopped outside of Serie A for a big price tag. Donyell Maren is close to going to Dortmund, plays CF but he’s able to play all across the front line on the left or right side also. Andre Silva went to Leipzig earlier too. Not a huge list of CFs out there with exceptional potential or good currently who are attainable so you would imagine Dortmund are 100% preparing for another season with Haaland. Then Maren maybe gets that season to get used to things in Germany before taking over as their main CF next summer, bearing the bigger goal scoring responsibility or they’ll make another move from there. Be bad enough they've lost Sancho who got like 25+ goal contributions last season so to lose Haaland this summer thats another 35-40+ minimum (cant remember how many he got all competitions). Talking about a team losing 65+ goals in one summer.

Hope they cough up at least 30m then. Doubt we will get 40m but 30m minimum is a must. If it goes through then it would certainly indicate we will be buying a CF then. Giroud’s basically almost out the door too. Doubtful we will get Haaland because of the talk of €175m so who is it going to be? Kane? Lukaku? Someone else? Or are we going to go through another season with Havertz, Werner and then include Broja (be better going on loan again I think) our CF/striking options and strengthen elsewhere?

Tbf he probably did better than Foden did at least… next Gazza my arse. Did nothing. Mount was quiet all tournament but again, other than Sterling, not as if Englands attackers were exactly great or consistent. Kane had 2 games where he was good. Saka one game. Grealish one real impact off the bench despite the constant ranting and raving about him. Sancho, the 80m benchwarmer. And its not that England were the most expansive or progressive team or that their 2 holding midfielders didn’t play sideways as opposed to through the lines into the front players as often as Italy, Spain, Belgium etc either so no surprise none of them really did well bar Sterling who’s goals again probably got him more plaudits. But again no surprise the same folk taking digs. Excited to see him kick on again with a proper manager in Tuchel. Think hes going to have a better return this season again.

How many times was he offside last night? I mean I swear, Italy would get into some half decent positions pass to him and he was offside.

Was a lot better second half when Mancini switched Insigne into a more central role though. But all of them were. Unfortunate with his penalty but should have stuck it same side he did v Spain.

Linked with Roma, Everton, Spurs and Wolves. Personally think Serie A and Mourinho would suit him extremely well

Interesting but to be expected I would of thought. Wonder who they add to their squad though but they’ve got plenty of good players also. Rui Patricio meant to be going there from Wolves. Tbf the likes of Pedro is 33, Pastore 32, Fazio 34, Santon 30 and Nzonzi 32 (was on loan last season) so hardly a surprise they’re up for sale. Wouldn’t particularly say they are exceptional footballers either. Kluivert is a weird one though again was out in loan last season but again is he really a great player?

Bakayoko played a lot that one season he was here. 43 games all comps. 29 PL starts then 5 sub appearances. Rest in cup/CL/whatever else. How is that injury prone? Drinkwater, maybe but again, was never ever going to be a regular so if he is injury prone, fair enough. Like who? I mean who out of all our players actually misses huge amounts of games a season and are constantly injured in our squad year in, year out? Pulisic is really the only one and he’s been here 2 seasons and even then its slightly overstated. Cant think of many more who actually miss out on a lot of football each season every season due to injuries. I get we’ve had a few who have had freak injuries like ACLs or knee ligaments or whatever but suffering one of those doesn’t exactly make anyone injury prone (ie Gilmour, Zouma, RLC, CHO, Rudiger) so would be daft to consider them in there or anyone similar coming who’s been unfortunate to suffer from that circumstances. Even Kante, he’s had a few knocks here and there last 2-3 seasons or so but still plays 80-90% of games every year and most internationals so hardly injury prone although I do remember you posting that we should consider selling him as he was getting a few knocks however long ago…. which I think you’ll agree was madness now.

He had 1 or 2 big injuries but it doesn’t make him injury prone. Some people think one or two big injuries finishes a player though which again is a different story. I doubt we would he signing him if he was injury prone though, I mean who was the last injury prone player we signed?

Apparently its basically done. €2m. Rumours is he will wear number 9. Trying to find photo I seen of him with the shirt but unsure if real or not. Surely be doing rounds on twitter as well will try find link.

Kane? Hes been shit for most of the tournament bar the last 2 games. Sterling deservedly up there been Englands best player probably.

Villa signing anyone for bigger price tags is a bad example because they’ve spent the best part of between 250-275m in the last 4 or 5 transfer windows, including the 35m on Buendia this summer whilst they have only sold 10m worth of players. They can clearly afford to do those where as the likes of West Ham, Newcastle, Crystal Palace, Brighton etc they will probably not be spending 35-40m on one player unless they sell someone first for big money.

Aye it doesn’t look great for Tammy but at the same time, will we get the apparent 35/40m price we want for him? Who’s going to replace him if we aren’t able to get deals for Haaland or Lukaku? Theres no other real links to CFs which is a huge concern and we hopefully won’t just buy an average player for the sake of it. It would probably be stupid to sell either of Tammy or Giroud without making a purchase first in that area. Giroud is the only one with any sort of concretely links away as well. Tuchel might have to give him another chance though if we don’t get anyone in.

But again, will those guys be allowed to leave if we can’t get in a top CF? I doubt it.

Neither please. Belotti isn’t a top class side starting CF and neither is Ings. They are enough for a certain level but I’m not sure they would improve our options upfront.

Aye thats right. First however many games before he switched to 3421/343. Forgot about those.

Even then, the Jorginho bashing from our fans now is probably still the same individuals who bashed Sarri for playing him because it meant “playing Kante out of position” and whatever other nonsense 😂 The irony is all that shit came from idiot pundits on TV who questioned Sarri using Ngolo as a RCM in a 3 man MF despite the fact 1) they’d probably rarely seen Ngolo play in a 3 man MF in the PL and 2) have probably never seen him play as an actual number 6 who holds his position in any team. The likes of Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer, Jermaine Jenas, Rio Ferdinand and whatever/whoever else were great players (except Jenas he was shite) but clear examples of being a great player (or a shite one for Jermaine Jenas) doesn’t mean they know a great deal about football to same depth that coaches do. Him and Mason have definitely proved a lot of people wrong and perhaps unfairly they’ve had to.

What is this fixation with he has only proven himself in a 3 at the back and not 4 at the back? He has played in a back 4 with Denmark and Mochengladbach at times in the past and also at times with us under Sarri and Frank. He has also played as a holding midfielder for Denmark. And its not like he didn’t impress in place of Rudiger when he got injured under Sarri either. Which Sarri also did mention several times in the press/pre match games. Maybe not so much under Frank but even Thiago Silva had a few bad games as did Rudiger as did Zouma as did whoever else played CB because tactically we were all over the place at times.

Struggled to influence the game as much as he would usually want to but he was up against Busquets, who again, is still one of the very best in that position and was excellent throughout. As posted above though, still made a lot of interceptions v Spain, which tbf the defensive side of his game has been excellent all tournament and its always one he’s criticised for. I mean if Italy go all the way and win the Euros and he plays excellently in another match, there will still be people saying we should get rid of him despite him showing he is clearly Italy’s most important midfielder in that group and showing exactly how good he is in most of the games. I can’t wait to see whoever they play in the final, which it’ll probably be England, so we can see how much of a superior player he is to Declan Rice and Kalvin Phillips tbf. The Ballon d’Or thing is gaining traction will be interesting to see where he ranks 😂 I just hope he continues his form here when he comes back as he’s playing at such a high level because he will be the first name on the team sheet if so if he maintains that level of performance, really can’t think of many MFers who have played as well as he has at the Euros.

The false 9 did give them a good hold in the game and superiority in midfield but I always fancied Italy to nick it, even when it was 0-0, as they always had a natural striker in and around the box. Even their goal, it may have came from Chiesa but the whole situation where he gets the ball and shoots arise from a striker breaking his neck to run in behind as opposed to another midfielder coming off the CBs in and around the number 6 when your dominating possession. Even more so if your going to play a false 9, Ferran Torres has got 8 goals at international level whilst Mikel Oyarzabal has 5, can you really rely on these guys in big tournaments and big games enough to drop your top scorer and competition top scorer in a semi final?

Tbf he got Spain back in the game with his goal but always looked nervous walking up for the pen. They will probably hammer him in the Spanish media again but really, the boy who plays for Sociedad missed two big sitters in the 90 minutes. He really deserves huge blame if anyone in that Spanish team does after the game. Even then, Luis Enrique didn’t bring in a proper CF until the 62nd minute. It may have worked in certain parts of their performance but they had 16 shots and 5 on target compared to Italy’s 7 shots 4 on target. One team played with a number 9 for the full duration another didn’t. He also brought on a defensive midfielder when they were needing a goal… But it will be one player missing a penalty that is the big talking point.

Perhaps but we played a back 3 for 2 seasons in a counter attacking style so to change that radically and be competitive enough it would have to be someone who is slightly inflexible and rigid in their approach to ensure it happens no? If it was just a go and do what you want approach well, we seen what happened with Frank. Maybe not now but Pep and Klopp were definitely inflexible and rigid enough in their ways early days at City and Liverpool to get their styles ingrained. Maybe the system changed here and there but predominantly the style, win lose or draw, it never changed even in season 1. Even when Pep leaves City, they will play a similar style because the next guy will have to meet a certain criteria and odds on it will heavily be based around what theyve already done, including Pellegrini coming in beforehand also and them building a squad for this style/approach when they appointed Tixi whatever his name is. I am just hoping Tuchel and the club come to a not too dissimilar approach though and he gets us to play as he wants us to play but with a longer term idea in place that has its principles and that say the next manager or managers in mind have to be guys that can deliver/incorporate certain similarities if it continues to be successful. Although I do think the Sarri appointment was the beginning of that or at least maybe the way they wanted to go. Tbf the last 4 months under Sarri, the football and also the results were promising I thought. Considering the over the top outrage. I don’t think we lost many. Its not as if Eden carried us for the 4 months either. I really believe we would of won the EL final either way if Eden played as he did or not. Kovacic was also pretty good that night which was a surprise under Sarri as was Emerson. Cant think of many who were poor. I think having already had him as manager for 12 months, it would of been a lot smoother than appointing a new manager overall. Not changing the background staff etc despite many being at the club in a previous capacity one way or another. The methods would be familiar, more than half the senior players were still there from the previous season, it wouldn’t of just been Jorginho on the pitch as Sarri’s right hand man as people alluded to so to speak, there would of probably been 3 or 4 or 5. Plus as has been mentioned his greatest success was building Napoli up and it took time, maybe he didnt win anything but 75% of the guys who have now won trophies in that squad are probably only as good as they are because of his coaching to a degree. I think there was issues though with players here, similarly with Conte and Jose before which maybe would of been the only real issue but this is modern day football and player issues is basically mentioned every time a managers positions under threat so who knows if he would of had the same success as at Napoli in terms of the development of the team. apologies for the long post, some night time reading i suppose 🤣

I think he probably would of done better than expected though. I mean you’d of thought it would have been a travesty if he had stayed. We had a clear identity, just not enough movement or cutting edge in the final third. He has talked about players like Hazard and Ronaldo and having to tailor his tactics to them since leaving Juventus and here and maybe when you play in such a way, it doesn’t help. The interview further up had a great quote along the lines of nobody talking about teams due to focusing on individual players and I get the feeling that sort of sums up his experience at both Chelsea and Juventus. Maybe he is better at smaller clubs building teams up, improving young/up and coming players who haven’t achieved what most of these players at Chelsea or Juventus would have achieved in their careers. Throw on top his lack of medals as a manager maybe doesn’t help either trying to convince some of these guys his way is the best way. Or changing his tactics to better suit 1 player more as opposed to all 11 players. Definitely think he would have done better than Frank in say the last 8 or so months of his spell (first half of the first season was good then it started going back to well one week we were decent next week no idea what to expect and a lot of inconsistencies/mistakes) and even more so his team here this season, with those players, I don’t think many could have a team of that players underachieving and playing as poorly.

Well this is interesting. I think we all kind of expected that the club would of sacked him if he didn’t leave due to the relationship with a large % of the fans. Maybe not but it looked incredibly likely, like few weeks before Frank got sacked the rumours were already in full motion that he would be sacked eventually, they were going round same way for Sarri. And Marina wanting him to stay? That totally contradicts the feeling he was giving out with the whole “back me and & will stay” or “if I am only judged on Europa League final, sack me now” comments. But maybe now having had 2 jobs for 1 season he feels like he fucked up aye. He was taking wee pot shots at us when he was at Juventus. I think he took Reece to that charity game didn’t he? It was after his loan at Wigan finished IIRC and well he wasn’t a big fan of Zappacosta by looks of how many games he played. Plus I feel Mount would of made it under most managers here and he would of been much in that role that Barkley and Ruben was playing I think. There was an interview or a presser when I think Sarri had mentioned a few of the guys out on loan doing well. Plus he did use Callum and Ruben, so the signs were maybe there that he would of used Mason and Reece as well and perhaps Tammy (although much less suited to how his teams played).