OneMoSalah

And they’ve won 8 trophies in the most demanding league in the world. Whilst potentially being one of the top 3 teams in the continent for prolonged periods. As well as having the chance to win a quadruple this year, which if done, will probably be the greatest achievement in the modern day history of English football. Can say its going amok or whatever, but its quite simply being ruthless and thats why City probably have the strongest squad in Europe without a shadow of a doubt. Pep couldn’t get success with the fullbacks they had so changed them. Couldn’t find success with Claudio Bravo, so changed him. Has signed the likes of Laporte, Stones, Dias, Ake to completely overhaul his defence. Id like to see what your opinion would be if we had done this. Plus if you aren’t proactive or aren’t signing the top level players as we have seen with Jose and Conte, you very easily fall behind the next season because everyone else is buying. The PL as a whole has developed the culture and the economics where teams can afford to spend so much money and still be stable and in modern day football it is much easier to buy a top player than develop one through the academies.

I think those comments were very much tongue in cheek though because lets be honest what manager hasn’t been successful without spending large sums of money? Sir Alex Ferguson did it depsite claims United would never spend what we did or what City did. Mourinho did it here first time around then again at Real Madrid and at United. Mancini did it at City. Pellegrini done it at City. Pep has done it at City. Klopp has done it at Liverpool. Conte did it here also. Not many managers now are successful without spending any money.

I think he wanted him. Although he was declining, Ancelotti talked about us needing a freshness to try revive our title defence which is why I think he pushed for him and David Luiz because they were younger and different to what we had. Plus you look at the squad then, it was needing more players with different attributes to offer and younger more importantly. We had also made bids for them both in the summer that were rejected also. Which Ancelotti also thinks didnt help Torres.

I agree with the point to a degree, he was a good player here but lets be honest he was so irrelevant in that second PL title win with Conte, as soon as we swapped to a back 3 he was out in the cold and played 4 times since September before he left, after originally playing the first 5 games with Conte in a 433. And when Conte challenged him to stay and fight for his place instead of going to China, he left. The deal was excellent for the club and player yes but we got the much better end of it. Undoubtedly. Getting rid of a player who looked like he may have truely struggled to fulfil his potential, who didnt play in the starting 11 every week, for 60m... only one winner there.

Having a reasonably good season for Juventus despite their struggles under Pirlo. Scored 7 goals and has 8 assists in 17 starts and 5 sub appearances in the league. Plus has scored another 9 goals and 1 assist across 12 appearances in the CL and other 2 domestic cups. Wasnt great v Georgia though by all accounts for Spain.

Gareth Southgate hit the nail on the head. “I was saying in the autumn that he is a very good player. I suppose now Thomas Tuchel picks him, everybody will agree,’ Southgate told a press conference. ‘When it was Frank Lampard, it didn’t count for some reason. ‘He’s an exceptional player. He finds space intelligently, he manipulates the ball very well, creates chances, scores goals. ‘I thought his performance was excellent tonight.’

Most fouls yes he got that quite a lot. But doesnt mean every foul was a horrendous tackle. Or explain the muscle injuries. For me its an excuse to cover the fact hes always been a poor trainer (look who has all said it about him, Mourinho, Mikel, JT) and what has happened to him at Real would of happened here so in hindsight getting rid of him was the right move. Plus he lacks the mentality to play for a Real or a Barcelona, have always felt that, just isnt ruthless enough. They want to be the very best (maybe just now isnt best time to make this comparison but still) which is why guys like Ronaldo, Messi, Bale, Suarez, Neymar have all been hugely successful there. Because mentally they wanted to be the best players in the world or better than player X, Y or Z. I think it would of happened here in all honesty. So that deal we sold him for looks better and better every time I see hes out injured or that Zidane can’t explain what is wrong with him. The thing is, average players or not, he played his best football of his career here and when he retires he will probably acknowledge that himself. Everyone always said he needed better players etc but his performances for Belgium (look at their squad) also havent trumped some of the performances he put in here with less talented players. But nobody mentions that either. Realistically hes 30, he probably has 3 or 4 more years in him at a higher level before he will fade off but even then I think hes pretty much done in terms of the level of player he was here. He will never be mentioned as a top 10 player in the world unless he does something huge.

I agree to a degree, if he can keep us playing well and rotating every now and then whilst he does so then it adds some unpredictability to the team from an opposition point of view ie: who will play/shape etc. but again, I dont think hes hugely rotated the 11 that badly since coming in but its better to have a settled 11. I would say having a system and structure in place where you can change 3 or 4 players most weeks and still deliver good performances and results is also impressive and not to be seen as a bad thing. I think he will make some moves in the summer though and put his own stamp on the squad. I would think he will want a CF, CB and maybe look for another midfielder? But again Kovacic-Jorginho have been picked pretty consistently. So have Azpi and Rudiger. Then Werner and Mount too. Plus throw in the GK and Alonso. He has only really changed the RWB between James and CHO and then who else makes up the front three.

He made a point of pulling Kova, Ngolo and Jorginho about this in his first training session apparently and said they would be key to him but also he would be rotating between them depending on the opposition, game plan and fitness also.

And water is wet. Still think a lot of the big clubs wont want to deal with the financial incentives his agent will get on top of the huge fee and wages this summer and that can only be good for us and other clubs. I think we, Real Madrid, PSG or Man City might be more inclined to just go for him regardless of his agents demands etc. Although 180m is madness, no way anyone will pay that and I dont think Haaland is the shy sort of character either to sit on his hands and wait for a club to meet Dortmund’s valuation. Hes a top top player and you can tell he knows it so if he was to ask to leave, that would force Dortmund’s hand as they would still likely get more than his reported release clause in 2022 which is €75/£64 million it they sold him this summer.

Ing’s isn’t good enough to be a top clubs starting CF. I don’t buy the City links to him either. Not one bit. Seens a lot like the British media putting 1 and 1 together and getting 3 because Aguero is older with question marks about his future and Ing’s is coming up to having 1 year left on his deal after a season where he scored career high goals. City would of tried to sign him in the summer just gone if they wanted him because it would be fair to assume Gabriel Jesus has hardly convinced regularly in Aguero’s absence although for me, he is proper a better all round player than Ings. Plus City arent short of 30-35m or whatever it would take to sign Ings who would of had 2 years left on his deal and cost Southampton around 20m initially. Would buy the links to Spur’s more as a back up to Kane/to play in tandem with Kane because he suits their sort of recruitment model under Levy more as we have seen with the likes of Rodon, Hojbjerg, Doherty, Sissoko, Alderwereild, Ben Davies, Dele Alli, guys who had some experience playing in English leagues. If we don’t get a top CF and buy Ings I would be bitterly disappointed to be very honest. I could see him as a rotation player or a back up. He maybe offers more than Abraham perhaps but he doesnt strike me as the sort of guy to elevate the team any higher than it already is.

More because we only had Caballero as an alternative I would imagine. Cant see the hee haw now for playing Mendy, who is a better goalkeeper, in a semi final.

Yeah that is true. I think as well whilst City are playing well they have a lot of games still like us and have to play 5 times in 2 weeks basically as we do. They also have Leicester, Leeds, Dortmund twice in 4 of those games and also a cup final a week after they play us, so undoubtedly they will utilise their squad at times (we all know its strong but there’s definitely some players I would rather see not start, ie. Aguero, De Bruyne, Joao Cancelo and Phil Foden - although probably end up starting all four v us 🤣). They’ve definitely got a tougher run in than we do in those fixtures prior to the cup but I hope those 4 games throw up a few issues for them.

Slightly concerning but at the same time, I think if we can put in a performance like we did v Liverpool or in the Atletico games, we have every chance. I mean United managed to beat them and comfortably also. Records are there to be broken and I would hope this may give him extra motivation also. Although I dont know if coaches are hugely bothered about their head to head records v certain managers as opposed to their teams standings. Also re Kepa; I would be surprised if he plays in the cup semi or final if we get there. Even though Kepa has to play sometimes to try drum up some potential interest and for Tuchel, to manage the squad well I do think we will see Mendy if hes fit and available. Although, who knows, maybe he will stick with him for the cups? I think it would be a second sink or swim moment though for Kepa, if he got that opportunity he would have to play well. If he cost us in another big game in front of a hugely improved defence, there will be more serious questions. Saying that today he did his job well. Long way to convince people obviously and understandably so but easy to ignore praise where its due.

Probably because he was a big part of that run they went on alongside the more obvious candidates Fernandes and Rashford. Hes not flashy or particularly outstanding in the more creative aspects so its easy to see why people dont value that sort of player but hes the sort of player thats handy to have around and for United, who lacked that more defensively minded midfielder it made sense. McTominay has made him more redundant to them now though as has Fred’s improvement so I think he will be gone in the summer if they can move him. If we didnt have Ngolo Kante or signed Bakayoko he would of remained here as Antonio Conte initially wanted, although even with Bakayoko’s arrival he still wanted to keep him, which I think based on how well he and Kante played the previous season, it was a move that although it turned out well in terms of him not replicating those levels for United that season, wasnt exactly a huge win for us either as Drinkwater and Bakayoko were terrible buys. United dont have a similar approach to renewing older players like as we do. In fact not a lot do. We are one of a few who are extremely strict with regards to this although we renewed David Luiz for 2 seasons and offered Willian 2.

No but again, your half missing the point. Good strikers/attackers can take half chances or limited service or next to nothing and do something to affect the game. I am not expecting him to recreate that Costa goal or a goal like Morata’s third in that hattrick v Stoke, I have no doubts that he isn’t particularly capable of those sort of goals but the opportunities he has had that he hasn't really taken advantage of, where he finds himself in scenarios which if he was more decisive or confident or generally better technically at times, he should be doing much better. I agree our chance creation rate isn’t amazing leaving a lot to he desired and that he is perhaps a volume shooter but a lot of teams also create scenarios in which the goalscorers individual quality makes more of the difference than the actual approach play. Liverpool with Mane and Salah at times are key examples of this also, a lot of Salah’s goals involve him fashioning a shooting chance himself. They get the space also but they still have to actually fashion the chance or do something to create the space/opportunity to shoot. I dont see how he can have gone from being so clinical in Germany to being what he is now. He is 25 years old so saying hopefully he can develop his composure with experience is simply something I don’t think should he applied to him, in fact I think if he lacked composure he wouldn’t have reached the goal total he did last season because some of them were tough finishes in which hes found himself in similar situations this season but its just not worked out be it through being inefficient infront of goal, getting his positioning wrong or just suffering from a huge confidence dip. He’s been around for long enough and scored enough goals where we should be able to expect more. If he was 20, 21 I could see the point.

Ziyech top finish. Not the best performance but with us playing poorly and still winning after a big midweek game plus making several changes, its not the end of the world. Results are more important in this stage of the cup. We are in the last 4 now, lets see what the draw holds.

Wow what a miss as well. Even Timo, Torres, Falcao and Pato would of scored that fucking hell, lucky as fuck.

What are those subs about? 2 defenders on? Very strange.

Its not but thats were good players are able to fashion out chances from those positions. Werner is clearly a good player who can do better in this aspect particularly on the right side at times. For example, Costa v West Brom from that near impossible angle few seasons ago where he managed to hit the top corner highlights how good players are capable of creating goals/chances out of very little. Or his goal in the cup final v Spurs, its not exactly a hugely promising position but he managed to set himself to shoot and although it was deflected, he had made the chance to shoot. Harry Kane is another who has managed to score a number of goals from more difficult positions. Jamie Vardy also over the seasons. Werner has got the pedigree and has the ability to be more proficient in these areas, if he can only score goals on one side or relies on balls that get him in only from one side then he’s not going to have much chance of being a top top player is he? Or score as many goals as we would want him to... Other players are spurring chances, is correct but Werner scored 30+ goals last season. You would think he would be more proficient or able to get more goals from the positions he gets in but for various reasons he isnt. Thats the point and the general concern, we are not talking about Mount or Havertz etc, although Havertz could have scored v Leeds easily. No point in deflecting away from this every time its mentioned and saying what about player X or Y when Havertz, Pulisic, Mount are as you said yourself, are different types of players. Werner may be a different type of player but thats not going to save him or give him luxuries of playing every week because he is different to Callum or Christian, particularly under Tuchel who is notoriously demanding and has shown before he isn’t exactly afraid to turn around and change his 11 or change his system. The position Morata arrived from isn’t particularly vital, the point is more how he is able to set himself and buys himself an extra second to set himself with that touch because if he lets it run to his left the ball is a bit wider out and it also might have given the defender more of a chance to get back. Its the same with players receiving the ball on the half turn or how they position their bodies so they dont need to take extra touches and can play quicker, it seems a basic skill but its also hugely effective and thats why people are so focused on how players position themselves to get onto passes/create shooting positions etc. City’s forwards are a massive example of this.

Personally, for me, having watched a few highlight reels of games with Tuchel, Timo has found himself in good positions sometimes in the channel but he doesn’t always seem to know how to position his body or take the right touch in which it takes the ball across defenders/be in a position where he can set himself to shoot better. A good example of what I am talking about is Morata’s first goal v Stoke in our 4-0 win with Conte. He takes what would be seen as a more difficult touch from Azpi’s ball in behind as opposed to controlling it with his left foot which means he has bought himself extra time to set himself and shoot on his best side. If he lets it slide across to his left and he controls it he doesn’t have as much time to set himself and gives the defender a better opportunity to get back. Jason, what is the point here? Lets be real, he is not going to get them put on a plate to the point where he doesn’t have to do anything bar tap them in every week, is he? No striker is going to consistently get every through ball played only from central areas over the course of a season. Thats why attackers have the hardest positions in football, because some days you get good service some days you don’t but at the end of the day their job is for them to score/assist/affect the game in a positive manner. He's had a collection of moments where he’s ended up in some okay positions but just hasn’t been making the most of them for various reasons and as mentioned above, its probably something that isn’t necessarily a huge issue in terms of him not being a good player but its also something that is frustrating because we know he is a good player and has good pedigree. Even the times the ball gets trapped under his feet etc, which happens a lot, these aren’t necessarily complex things in the grand scale of it, its more the basics. This may also stem from his confidence in this period though which I wouldn’t be surprised with but some of it undoubtedly also comes from his attributes as a footballer. Sometimes he might only end up getting one or two half chances in a game. Sometimes he will get five or six. Either way, he has to become more efficient in every aspect, from taking the ball/controlling it to setting himself to shoot. Its getting to the point where the rest of the team are playing at a high level and making half chances so sooner or later he has to put them away or we will look for other solutions. Which is why I think Havertz as a false 9 is going to be more of a reoccurring theme towards the end of the season. The luxury he has right now is that perhaps Pulisic hasn’t really arrived this season due to a reoccurrence of injuries which has hampered him playing 4 or 5 weeks from the beginning in a row to get some match rhythm but he has to be wary because Hudson Odoi is more than capable of being a prominent feature in that front 3. Mount will also continue to be prominent.

Bit contradictory considering midfield is arguably our strongest area for the NT. But again I suppose TT isn’t to know that. I really dont see why Steve Clarke should pick someone not playing ahead of the guys he picks. Plus Steve Clarke has just spoken about moving McTominay back into MF on a podcast - who has made a huge improvement under OGS and plays virtually every week - due to other centre backs doing well. I hope Billy makes the euros squad but its highly unlikely right now considering his lack of minutes and the likes of John McGinn, Scott McTominay, Callum McGregor, Stuart Armstrong and John Fleck all playing regularly. Theres still a slim chance if there are injuries or if he plays virtually every week but he wont at this rate.

Knew someone would suggest it at some point. He’s always been a decent all round player but lets see what like his return is next season, could be a one season wonder in terms of his goals, might not be. He has impressed me but at the same time I always think it is easy to get carried away with these sort of players, look at Teemu Pukki, Amir Zaki, Michu, Roque Santa-Cruz... all one season wonders in terms of their goal returns in their first PL season, yet people probably thought they could play for a higher team yet they never did or were never at the level. Plus why would he come here when he is effectively one of the first names on the Leeds team sheet and was really close to getting in the England team? Would be the stupidest move out there. Everyone always think players want to be back ups and maybe there is a percentage who do but guys who are inching towards their NT squad don’t want to be backups realistically. Which is why Abraham is also probably unhappy with his situation this season since Tuchel’s came in.

Tbf though this is the first season in his 10 seasons in England where it looks like he may struggle to reach 25 appearances in the PL, which even then I think theres still 10 games or so left so he will break 20 appearances surely unless Pep continues with his false 9 system a lot. It appears he has missed 51 games in all competitions in the last 3 seasons according to this (https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/sergio-aguero/verletzungen/spieler/26399) but considering he had a knee injury last season which he was out for 115 days - which equals to 17 of those games and then missed 10 due to contracting covid (which is a one off and hopefully be an avoidable issue for next season with these vaccines and procedures clubs set), only missing 24 games across the last 3 seasons (averaging 7 per season across all competitions in seasons which there are easily 50+ games) due to smaller injuries, its not that bad. It’s actually probably pretty routine to miss a handful of games each season. That knee injury last season is the only big sort of injury that has kept him out for a significant period of time. Would say for someone who is 32 (I think 32 anyway, maybe 33 at a push?) and has been playing most weeks for the best part of 15 years, as well as regularly with his national team at friends, qualifiers and then repeating tournaments like the World Cups and Copa Americas, that is hardly that bad at injury record at club level. It was effectively the same argument when we were linked with Cavani last season. Aguero usually gets around 10-15 PL goals every season as a minimum if he plays in 20-25 games either as a starter/sub. Even then, managed correctly, he would still do the business. 100%. I do think City would be fools to let him go as well in all honesty. Its like PSG with Thiago in the summer also, which was our gain. For me, Aguero is still an elite player, I think it would be mad to not consider him if he is available for a season or two at least on a free. Obviously as well if Haaland goes elsewhere as most imagine, again, top CFs will be hard to come by and if City don’t get Haaland they will in all likelihood try and retain Aguero you would think. But we will see.

No praise tonight? He really really, didnt put a foot wrong, looked more than competent with the ball also despite not having the composure of Silva or Christensen. The competition for our defence is looking very strong if Kurt can play at this level consistently, plus throw in Andreas, Azpi and Rudiger all experiencing huge upturns in performance under Tuchel and throw in Thiago Silva’s class and experience also. Might be harder to pick the defenders than the attackers when everyone’s available.