OneMoSalah

Yeah true but again, some games that sort of more physical powerful player would be useful (obviously if he had the technical side too), Pogba overrated maybe but he has that good blend of physical and technical qualities. Liverpool have Fabinho as well who has that sort of mix. It would be helpful in some games. Even your European games your Atletico Madrids, Bayern Munichs, all those teams have got a bit of that. The newly promoted teams are all changing too but there will be some games where its a bit of a scrap and having somebody who is a bit bigger and bit stronger as well as good enough with the ball etc would help.

Opening there for RLC, if he has anything about him Not a chance RLC will get a massive chance here, Barkley had a good opportunity because Kovacic wasn't match fit but once hes fit he will be directly competing with him and I'd imagine Kovacic will play more often with Barkley his back up/sub or whatever. Ruben still has a great deal to learn and to work on, he doesn't impose himself on games, doesn't seem to have any major attributes where you think yeah he'd offer something different or unique and his end product is well, its not anything really great, he got something daft like 3 goals and 4 assists in a full season at Palace in a counter attacking team where the onus was on him and Zaha, who when he came back had 11 goals and 9 assists or something. Maybe a bit harsh to look at his output in that but even chances created? How many did he get? Doubt it was a great deal. Hes a powerful player too, big frame but you don't see him physically go and dominate games, Yaya Toure was a big player, okay not a attacking midfielder but he used to bully teams and players with his sheer size and quality, Ruben maybe hasn't got that amazing quality yet but he has the size to go and dominate or bully a midfield. I seen somebody compare him to a Rolls Royce, I think it was Tim Sherwood, but honestly he still has a lot of work to do even before being considered to be ahead of Barkley in the pecking order, yet alone Kovacic who for me can be the real deal for us.

Wouldn't say they play the most boring football on the planet. In the big games they show up and they make it very tough but they've got certain strengths and had so much success/remained competitive with it so why change? They are probably one of the top 3 teams I wouldn't want us to play in the CL along with Barcelona and Bayern because they are always up for big matches and when we've played them in the past they've always managed to negate our threat easily and exploit our weaknesses. Also I wouldn't say they are necessarily better than us or worse but they have an identity, a coach who's philosophy is so clear to see on the pitch and also a very good structure so its a big lure for players, plus he'll have seen its not always greener on the other side just ask Filipe Luis and Diego Costa. Also there are plenty of good teams in Spain outside of Madrid and Barca. teams like Sevilla, Valencia, Villarreal, Atletico, heck even Real Betis... all competitive just not as competitive as Barca, Madrid and Atletico.

Yeah I think hes a great young player. We were linked with him years ago when he broke out at Porto. He went to Wolves for peanuts in all reality because he is easy a 30-50m midfielder in the next 1,2 or 3 years. Also coming from Porto and going to the Championship is an interesting step but probably makes his adaption to the PL much better because hes done the championship, which is a gruelling league physically speaking.

Regardless if we could have got him or not, we got somebody who has huge potential. I think we should stop looking at what ifs and give the guy we got every chance because he is extremely highly thought of in Spain. Even comparing him to Alisson or the price tags so to speak, Alisson had one season at Roma where he played regularly, I have no doubts hes a good goalkeeper (currently yeah hes maybe better than Kepa although theres plenty of room for growth still) but all this talk of Alisson being one of the top 5 in the world shite is insane. Neuer, Oblak, De Gea, Courtois, Navas all these guys are much better. Even the boy Ederson for City I think as a goalkeeper hes probably on par with him although hes his understudy with Brazil.

Would say good work by the board but it was their mistake (maybe a harsh word but generally think they extremely overestimated him) in the first place that led to us ending up with this guy, who unfortunately just didn't ever look good enough last season and is so uncharacteristically suited to how Sarri wants to play. Its a shame because I think that he may go on and rescue his career so to speak and the sort of physical profile he has (despite the fact hes on the deck more often than not going shoulder to shoulder with 5 ft 10 players) would compliment our MF a bit too, we lack height in it (unless Barkley is a regular gives us a bit but think Kovacic is nailed on for LCM) but ultimately no point in him sitting here not playing when we can get some cash for him and no point in him being here if hes not of any use to the manager. Even scarier, Chalobah isn't exactly a brilliant footballer but he would have put much better performances in with the amount of game time Baka got. Thats the harsh truth of it all.

Yeah 100%. Having a striker in the team who's not scoring, ok he isn't scoring that is an issue but hes not exactly letting the team down because hes doing everything else you'd expect. I watched the City game today, ok Aguero didn't score but he did everything else you'd want him to do, fair enough its not exactly a perfect comparison because Aguero is an elite striker, one of the best finishers I've seen and will get goals but he contributed without scoring today. If Morata can manage to get goals (I'm honestly thinking he can get 10-15, some might agree I'm sure some will disagree but no doubt there's plenty of ability in him although I think mentally somethings not quite right) but lets say the games he doesn't score and do what he did the other day, fair enough. I think people are under the impression hes not got anything else to offer but goals, where as we've all seen he can play a bit as well. Obviously as well his price will never help him. People probably automatically expected he was close to being the finished article when we got him, which when you spend 50-60 odd million on a player who scored 21 goals for Real Madrid the season beforehand, its a very fair assumption but many also knew he was still a project because he had never actually been the lead guy for any other team in his career (bar maybe half a season at Juventus?), again it shouldn't be an excuse good players can play anywhere but we seen at the start of last season he definitely can play and can score goals.. he missed some big chances, maybe affected his confidence, maybe hes not as good a finisher, maybe not ruthless enough but this sort of thing reminds me of Edison Cavani at Napoli (I think when we played them he could probably have scored 4 in that game in Naples but he missed some big chances) and even now he still misses some big sitters but it doesn't affect him, he just gets on with it and goes and scores another fuck knows how ever many he gets in a season now a days haha. I think its mentality that's the problem for Morata, I think if he had that sort of mindset and confidence these guys have he'd be fine, its all in all being a clinical finisher yes and we've seen it with Costa, Drogba, Anelka, even Lampard guys like these over the years but how often do you think they let a miss get them down?

True but I think when everything clicks in MF and attack we will manage to get a top 4. Maybe not having a 20 goal a season striker will prevent us from going further than where we will this season, some people will say as well that we might not make top 4 just because we don't have a top CF but I generally don't think that will make a difference and wasn't the reason we didn't get it last season (defensively we weren't as good last season and there was a run of 2 or 3 games against smaller teams - over Christmas time I think - that I feel ultimately cost us because we gave up far too many stupid goals and some players seemed to down tools). As well as that, if we don't get trampled over in the bigger games against teams who will be trying to get top 4 as well, we should be fine but I don't want to get this idea of us having to score 5 to win 5-3 or 4 to win 4-2 etc because we've given up stupid goals, which with the style and individuals who could potentially make errors (particularly Luiz and Alonso defensively) will maybe happen sooner rather than later. Regarding Morata and the Torres feeling I'm getting the same one sometimes but still think there is something there that wasn't with the whole Torres situation, hopefully he can get a few goals in the next games and get the monkey off his back so to speak because its an inevitable comparison if he continues to struggle although they are different players.

We were never going to realistically challenge for the title regardless if we had Aguero upfront or Morata. Our defence is still a big big problem still. Left full back will be an issue eventually. I like Alonso and think he can do a job but against the bigger and better teams he might find himself targeted along with David Luiz because when we don't have the ball he tends to do stupid things, always has and always will just the way he is. We will be a good team to watch when everything clicks, its going to be a good change but at the same time we won't be title challengers in Sarri's first season. Top 4 has to be the most realistic target but again if hes thinking we need 2 or 3 months to be a very good team then who knows. Morata's performance yesterday wasn't awful, like many have said missing a goal and a goal can change his fortunes perhaps but no Higuain was a huge mistake, hes guaranteed to score goals.

Sarri expects some issues with the whole team adapting never mind one player so it’s only realistic to expect it but I think in 3-5 weeks we’ll have a lot more of a grasp Of things and will still only improve from there one . Good players can play anywhere, I have no doubts regarding Jorginho or Kovacic adapting.

Think in another 3-5 games we will really start to see the gains of his philosophy. He’s changed a bit in short time but get these boys who were st the WC up to match fitness and integrated in the squad as well as being more fine tuned with his style and we are looking at a good season. People complain still about goals but we scored 3 today, 2 from open play. How many times can we say under Conte last season we scored more than one goal from open play after December?

Good start, plenty to work on, plenty of players to still get match fitness and in the first 11. All in all a pretty decent first game.

Sounds like Madrid are targeting Thiago Alcantara so this tweet makes even more sense. I think it was to sweeten the Courtois deal and also to give us more of an incentive to buy him next summer, at a cheaper price too as his deal will be a year off.

Good god hold the bus, who said they’d rather RLC and Bakayoko played than we signed Kovacic because he isn’t “our player”? Fuck me I’ve had enough internet for the day.

All for Zouma plus cash for Martial. Zouma isn’t going to be a feature here. Martial will be a good option for us to have in the squad. Could be a very shrewd move.

He said he thought it would be best for him to leave Madrid to play. I can’t see him only leaving on a season long loan deal, there’s bound to be a purchase option, unless Modric is going to leave for Inter but then why would they even loan Kovacic out to us then?

I don’t know. For sure he isnt as good as some make out at the other aspects of his game but I think Higuain at Napoli is a similar comparison. He would still score a lot of goals here and I’m sure other aspects would improve along with that.

Don’t see the issue. We need a good keeper. Kepa is 100 times more experienced than Bulka, let’s not kid on the guy had a decent pre season but he’s nowhere near ready. If not Kepa then who? Butland? Areola? Trapp? Realistically all are probably inferior keepers with nowhere near as much potential either. Bilbao don’t sell players due to the nature of their recruitment so weve had to pay the release clause. If the board had much more of an idea that’s Tibo didn’t want to stay we should of looked to get him in Jan but he rejected a 20m euros move to Real Madrid to sign a new deal. Sometimes if you really want something you’ve got to pay that bit more. We have issues upfront but just because we spent 71.5m on a GK doesn’t mean we couldn’t have got an attacker beforehand or even looked to after.

A PL club would be daft to take him. It’s so evident he needs a lot of work positionally, tactically and technically. Talk of Villa wanting him, championships a more realistic option. anyway the game I think at CB in a back 4 Christensen could do with a bit of work yet. Ampadu impressed me a lot despite making some mistakes purely because you can see he has the right mentality for a kid his age to make it at a club the size of Chelsea. Emerson’s pace alone makes him more valuable than Alonso in offensive positions. Bakayokos a goner.

It’s a mixed bag. We created chances under Conte but when we get going properly under Sarri it will be different. I think everyone one them can get that extra 5+ goals on top of their usual output in that regard. Easily. Still a work in progress as we can see from the pre season games but it will click eventually.

Not 100% sure where this beaten at his new post far too often myth is coming from in all fairness. I get it people don’t like him he’s going etc but that’s happened about 5 times in however many years he’s been here hardly as if it is every week lol. It’s a good move Madrid get a upgrade, we get Kovacic and money and reinvest on another peetty good keeper. No point getting too wound up.

True but again. Hazard can be greedier, Willian can be, Pedro can be. Our problem is our wingers just don’t have that ruthlessness or selfishness to go and shoot when an opportunity presents itself inside the box or just outside instead they always look for another pass to basically walk it in the net and have done for years. That’s potentially for me, 5 more goals each of them over the course of a season. Seems a bit far fetched but over 30-40 games not really. Plus if Morata had scored a lot of those clear chances say at least another 5 on his total. So take all their numbers last season add 5 more on each we probably would have gotten results and probably gotten top 4. It’s not as black and white as that I know but that would be 20 more goals between the 4 of them. How many matches that were draws or losses would of been wins or draws because of that? A few I’d imagine.

Areola and Trapp are decent but I think Kepa is better. Maybe not but he has a huge ceiling. Madrid didn’t want him for nothing.

Everyone is talking about goalscoring midfielders but honestly look at Madrid or Barca’s MF? Xavi Iniesta Busquets never scored more than 10 plus goals but were an excellent trio. Modric Casemiro and Kroos the same. Even at Napoli under Sarri Jorginho, Allan, Hamsik.. Hamsik was the only guy who scored goals out of the three and even then his numbers have slowly dropped from his days of playing under Matzarri. Goalscoring midfielders (who play as an 8) are a bit of a dying breed in my eyes because everyone wants controllers/playmakers. 10s score goals but they aren’t really CMs (guys like de Bruyne etc are 10s who play as 8s). Guys like Barkley and Fabregas can score goals if they have a bit more freedom. I think Kovacic can too but he’s not going to get 10+ a season. Pogba and Ramsey are about the only top level goalscoring midfielder players I can think of in the PL who are pure number 8s. Maybe Naby Keita will do a job for the bin dippers in that regard too. Even then looking at Barca last season, Paulinho scored the most goals from their central midfield players but was sold off straight away... Personally I think the big problem will be if Hazard, Pedro, Willian, Morata, Giroud and Batshuayi don’t score say 50 or 60+ goals between them or whatever this season, our Mf will create chances now if this deal comes off and it all falls together quickly there is no doubts about it but if the front of the team doesn’t fire yeah we will find it tough.

Last I checked Icardi couldn’t play in goal.