OneMoSalah

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).

Hope he gets his new deal very soon. Having an exceptional Euros, interesting to see how Denmark do v England. I think there’s a surprise in it yet.

I still think the scouting system in place has to take some credit/more credit perhaps. The fact Frank didnt know how to use Havertz in 4231 and 433 then also struggled with where to play Werner for ages alternating him between off the side and through the middle makes me think the club maybe had been behind those moves for those players more than Frank. Mendy was also recommended by Cech to Frank/the club.

Yeah definitely. Wenger and Pep got involved and started using it at times after Conte switched. Even Koeman tried matching us up with it and we tore Everton apart. Van Gaal was another who used it before also and United were almost ridiculed playing it with him.. just shows

Rodgers did have a good run with it at Liverpool the year they nearly won the league tbf but didn’t use it again after. Then got sacked the next season IIRC. But Conte did reinvigorate it really although he had been using it in Italy a lot with Juve and Italy NT.

I don’t think we can really compare what Tuchel’s done tactically in 6 months against what Mourinho did tactically in his first 2 seasons though and say Tuchel is ahead of him. Or even Contes team. I think maybe only Conte and his title winning team really rivals Mourinho 1.0 really in terms of tactics right now for me. People don’t remember how good Mourinho was at pinpointing a weakness and implementing a game plan around that or finding a way to expose that tactically. And not to discredit Tuchel but a lot of what he’s had to work with and done tactically are roughly based around something we have done before in terms of the shape from under Conte with his own touch on it obviously, more emphasis on counter pressing and maybe a lot more flexibility in terms of the front 3s movements but there are a lot of similarities in how we defend. When he adds his own players, we will see an evolution I am sure, then if he is as successful as I and we all hope he will be, we can start saying that. If we hadn’t played 343 before with Conte I don’t think the transition/pick up of results would of been as smooth/sudden.

4.5m is better than the potential nothing which we would of gotten if we kept him around and had to wait for someone to loan him 😂 good job his loan was successful and got him a move.

Why would you think? Same for any player, all players with longer contracts have more resale value for the club. They go out on loan do well and their contracts expiring we miss out on a transfer fee. They do well, have time left, we can get money. This surely isn’t a shock as the club have been doing it for years….

Wait wait wait wait…. “should buy him another season” Should? What you’ve said there, if he did that, 2 trophies and close to 90 points (which is potentially championship winning points so for second place if we get that Jesus Christ), it would be an absolute guarantee that he gets the next season. And thats without mentioning domestic cups which again I think we are usually always strongish in and make the last 8 teams most seasons at least. I have no doubts that if Tuchel gets top 4, at least 10-15 more points than our 66 last season and wins at least one of the 5 trophies we are in this season (2 of them very doable), he will be safe either way. Because that would be a good bit of progress. Obviously I think with the right players he will want to go for the title as he seems that sort of guy but I don’t think people should go ok we won the CL now we will need to win everything. Winning the CL is as big an achievement as there is at club level, its going to be hard to top that even if we have another successful season.

But are they really going to be that much better though? I mean I don’t see how buying every young talent available when you have little or next to none very good experienced players in and around is going to improve them. Plus you have a team/squad thats got a lot of youngsters there will be bumps in the road. Arsenal have done this before, always buying younger players who will maybe make them very very competitive in 2-3 seasons. If they all stick around. Maybe they get top 6 but with Leicester and Spurs, who will have to get top 6 on top of ourselves, City, Liverpool and United, I am still unsure if they will really be that much better.

They are linked with promising talents when they need senior/more experienced players though who can contribute now and help bridge the gap as they lack top top players to contribute more. Locatelli or Renato Sanchez is more of that mould aye but the others not so much. The likes of Tavares, White, Ramsdale, Lokonga are good talents but hardly going to close the gap immediately. Plus theyve lost the experience of David Luiz, will lose Granit Xhaka (basically going to Roma by looks of it) and Bellerin (heavily linked with Inter to replace Hakimi).

Oft what a move for Arsenal if they got him in. Still they’ll finish outside top 6.

Duncan Castles talks nonsense, he would tell you the sky is orange if you were looking at it and it was blue on a clear summers day. Even that source guide tier thing, take it with a pinch of salt, if something is happening or going to happen, all sources will click on eventually. The tier system doesn’t mean much when you consider they’ve all got shit horrifically wrong and continue to do so. why does my content need to be approved by a moderator 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Simon Phillips deleted it maybe 👀👀 wouldn’t worry about it anyway, if its the same Simon Phillips guy who articles get posted on here, the likelihood of it being accurate is probably close to 0. Or something obvious everyone knows but he will act like he discovered it.

“Attacking football” and “Nuno” Daniel Levy what a fanny. Benitez at Everton will be interesting but still, there is no doubt they will now start playing that dog shit type of football like his Newcastle team did.