OneMoSalah

His poorest performance for us so far. Just looked lost, he is slow but even against fast opponents he has done a lot better. His performance against Tottenham where he was definitely our best player, extremely solid defensively as well as offering something offensively, seems like a while ago now. Hopefully he gets a kick up the arse!! He’s also played like every game and most of the minutes in the league since arriving last season, won’t be long before fatigue possibly comes in, maybe not but it will at some point eventually if he’s flogged again this season.

The analysis they did on MOTD of Batshuayi’s movement v Palace was horrible in comparison to the few clips they showed of Tammy v Huddersfield. Scary how he times his runs almost perfectly and 9 times out of 10 he tests the keeper. I can see him getting 10+ this season (he has 5 already, 10-15 is definitely achievable) for Swansea and that will be an extraordinary achievement considering how poor a side they are devoid of creativity.

Hopefully he’s not rushing him back. He was patient with Hazard but he had a worse injury fair enough but even then I have a feeling Conte might risk Morata even if he’s not ready because the alternative options aren’t great. It could be a bad move or maybe Spain just shat the bed regarding the injury and it’s nowhere near as bad as they thought. Anyway all I know is we need Morata back fully fit and in the team.

Fekir really has caught my eye the last wee whiley since his injury recovery. Somebody who as well as being an extremely talented player always makes a difference be it goals or assists. I think if he keeps going at the rate he is so far this season (9 games, 7 goals, 4 assists already) then he will be lined up for a big move somewhere. He’d make a good alternative here, plus he has the profile to play as a second striker if we were to continue experimenting with 352. Heard things about Malcolm but not seen much of him, apparently he’s started the season very well, maybe try keep an eye out for him.

I don’t get the first bit. He has one dreadful game, you’ve said nothing about his performance... hinting he should look to leave? Or as you put it “he would be a fool to sign a new contract”, what!?!? What a load of shite. The team is built around him, has been for years, he has a shocker and your talking about him having bigger ambitions? A lot of people mention Eden and Ballon d’Or but I’m sure we would rather see the club win titles than him win an individual award, he’s probably the same. Also he’s at the stage where if he is going to ever win the Ballon d’Or ahead of a Ronaldo, Messi, Neymar he’s going to have score 30+ a season and I honestly cannot see him doing that because he isn’t selfish enough as a player so to speak. Ronaldo and Messi won’t go on forever but they will still be huge players in 2 or 3 years when Edens heading towards his late 20s. They are untouchables for me. Every player should be held to the same standards of criticism or praise regardless of if there Eden Hazard or not: if people are willing to criticize Willian, Pedro, Batshuayi, Cahill, Moses then it’s only right that they understand when people criticize Hazard, Azpilicueta, David Luiz etc in the same manner if it’s appropriate. Or praise them when they do well. Not aimed towards you Leif, just a general post but there are a lot of double standards when it comes to some players at the club. Eden has avoided a lot of criticism because he’s played well or been the sort of go to guy when the teams looked poor but his performance against Palace was as bad as anything I’ve ever seen from Willian or Pedro in the last few years, purely for a lack of effort more than anything else. For somebody who’s reportedly going to be getting offered a deal worth 300k a week, more than anybody in else in the PL, you don’t expect to see a lack of effort, let alone a lack of effort and extremely poor performance combined.

Yeah he struggles with real pace in 1 v 1s. He’s really strong in the air and can provide a threat from free kicks and corners and deal with high balls well, which is a reason why I think he gets picked against teams like Arsenal, who struggle to deal with set plays and your West Hams, Stokes, Palaces because they rely on a lot of set plays (normally). I am happy enough to see Cahill defending higher up the pitch because normally he will make a successful challenge but like you said in the box he can panic and stands off at times. He also made a couple of blocks/deflections, one that prevented a sure goal for me, but he has to get dropped for Rudiger, he just oozes calmness in comparison to Cahill and is much more mobile (Cahill getting older and I think he’s lost a yard or two of pace, fair enough he’s not quite JT slow but he was quicker over the ground a number of years back). In all honesty everybody struggled yesterday against Zaha and Townsend upfront, it was a bold tactical ploy by Hodgson and I have to say it worked they gave he wide CBs the run around especially. Obviously it was something they looked at and I reckon other teams will follow suit.

As long as he’s back at 100% for the game against United. No need to rush it, I’d rather have him fit against them because it will be a huge game, that if we get him and Morata back, we could win based on how United approached the Liverpool game (cant see us playing like we did against Palace today against United).

Okay fair enough, he was still by a mile the best player for us that year and I doubt we’d of even gone as far in the CL or been were we were in the league without him but still you expect a 19/20 year old to be a main player here ahead of Willian, who when he is in form is a good option, or Pedro, who same again showed last season he is more than capable of being a match winner. I would of been happy to have seen us taken an upgrade in the summer if we could of gotten someone like a Bernardo Silva or Alexis Sanchez as most of us would of been but we didn’t. It’s the old everybody wants young players to play thing ahead of the older experienced players who are “shite” and or out of form, but then if they do and don’t provide people will have expected too much too early and they will fizzle out. I don’t think Charly is ready to be a regular here because if he was he would be, Christensen hasnt started every game but he’s in the squad and played regularlyish but he’s had 2 full seasons of playing every week at a high level in Germany and CL to prepare him, where as Charly hasn’t and has shown not much bar a goal against a championship team, where other than that he looked meh. This season has been odd, it started poorly and picked up and a few injuries havent helped but summer recruitment was poor regardless (options at CF, LWB, RW or 10), I still think Conte was desperate for another wide player/10 who’s further on in their development to have as an option as opposed to Charly and would expect the same again come January or next summer.

I wouldn’t say Conte is getting found out or that he is not a tactical mastermind as you put it. The players were embarrassing today in all reality, Palace are 20th, they obviously thought it would be easy and it was anything but and even then the application from guys like Hazard, Willian, Batshuayi, Alonso, Moses in attacking situations was poor. Conte managed to take a team who looked disorganised and flat under Mourinho and Hiddink in a 4231 and also looked out of shape in a 433/4141 he used against Arsenal and Liverpool to Premier League champions in his first season using a 343 formation, which worked very well. Also if last season didn’t go as well as it did there would be no problems, like with players form, managers go through periods where they get lots of wins and runs where they get loses and draws. It is to be expected. I think he showed with the way he set the team up against Atletico as well he is a very good tactician who can be adaptable and also against West Brom last season where they played with what looked like a back 6, Antonio changed it up and it worked but I don’t think Pep Guardiola or Jose Mourinho would be happy about the options as well as the profile of the players he has as back ups to the likes Ngolo Kante (Danny Drinkwater if he ever gets fit), Alvaro Morata (Michy Batshuayi) and Marcus Alonso (Kenedy). Like somebody said up there or maybe it was in another thread, we are two or three injuries away from looking an average team/squad and right now Morata and Kante, two of our most important players are out and if we lose Alonso then god knows what will happen as he is the only natural left sided defender/wing back in the squad because Kenedy is more of a forward (Azpi is better as a wide CB than as a wing back for me despite his performance today). We are on a bit of a shit run, 2 defeats, 2 poor performances and another tough PL game is coming up against Watford after the CL game but if we come out of this next week with two wins everybody will be happy.

I honesty think this is a pointless topic to discuss, every time he plays good people say oh we shouldn’t of sold him but Mourinho would of killed his development, for me that is a guarantee, KdB would of been playing as a right winger (like Mata) or like Oscar, as a 10 who essentially sacrificed his more creative, flair side to chase players in a proactive, low block, counter attacking team. He wasn’t even anywhere near as good as he is now when he was here and I doubt many of us thought he’d ever be as good as he is, which I’d say he is in the top 5 attacking MF players in Europe, (some of the Belgian guys who knew him from Genk maybe expected him to be that good fair enough), the season and a half at Wolfsburg really made him grow and even the previous two years at City working with Pellegrini and Pep have really helped him.

I don’t know, they went through our midfield easily at times too. Similar to the issues we had with Cesc and Matic in a 2 a few years ago, one of the two being exposed (when your chasing a game it can happen sure). Think the 3 we played against Atletico worked so well because Fabregas’ lack of mobility and positional sense was well covered by Bakayoko and Kante’s athleticism and positional sense and vice versa because of Cescs ability to play penetrating passes and controlling the game from deep.

9 points behind City going to be hard to get back. Can’t see them dropping many points they’ve got the perfect squad in terms of options/depth. We need to try sign 2 or 3 guys in January although I doubt we’ll get anything like what we were linked to in the summer (Alex Sandro, Alexis Sanchez, Bonucci - those sort of level players).

Yeah let’s recall somebody who’s played almost every game at Swansea to sit on the bench and only play 10-20 mins a game or if Morata, a player with a pretty good record with injuries, gets injured. I agree we need someone else but wouldn’t want to see Tammys development ruined for the sake of 10 games a season instead of 35-40.

Scary people think he’s best goalkeeper in the world. It’s funny because Neuer is streets ahead of everybody and even then at Buffons age he is still brilliant. De Gea argubaly not even best in PL, Cech, Lloris, Courtois are all just as good.

Dreadful. Thought he was one of the worst players on the park. Although most of our team could have been up for that award. What worried me more was in the last 20 minutes he was up against tired defenders who had thrown a lot into the match he should be smelling blood and going for them, he has all the ability in the world but for someone who continues to say he wants to be a Ronaldo/Messi sort of player deciding games every week, this is maybe why he won’t(hard level to reach anyway but even then look at Neymar?), they would be up against those guys and taking them out to create something or trying to even make stuff happen. He just didn’t want to do anything and it’s not like we’ve never seen this before, fair enough one match but he’s a senior player now and a leader for me, he can do so much better even playing half arsed. Everyone could.

Whole defence was pretty awful today. Not a good clip but he loses his feet somewhere in it, quite funny, hopefully Rudiger comes in next week

Yes I said that. Willian is out of form but when he’s playing good Charly doesn’t get close to him for me. When Willian was our outstanding player, carrying us in that disasterous season a few years back there was nobody running about posting saying he needs to be dropped or what not and our squad in that department has hardly changed much since then. He is one the guys getting a hard time along with Cahill (sometimes deservedly), Batshuayi (I’ve been critical of him, don’t see him as a good option) but NOBODY played good today not even Eden, David Luiz and the rest of the “untouchables” that fans won’t criticize but I guess it won’t be long before the sign Riyhad Mahrez to replace Willian people come out of hiding again.

He’s never hit the heights he did at Real for Arsenal or Germany since his move there, he’s still a good player but think he’s regressed. Not sure he’d even start to be fair if we persevere with 352 with Morata and Hazard, although he’d make a good alternative and if we got him playing like he did at Real we’d have a top class player on our hands. Think playing at Real as a creative player must of been a dream for him though, his stats alone from there for chances and assists were so impressive but he was playing with a 40+ goal a season winger in Ronaldo, 15-20+ goal strikers in Higuan and Benzema too in a team than spanked everybody bar Barcelona most weeks.

To be fair De Bruyne was included in the squad after a successful loan, started well first few games and then looked off the pace against Man United before playing extremely poorly in a league against a league one side then decided to leave after being demoted to train with reserves/u21s or 23s, then the rest is history, if he stayed here he’d of been half the player he is today. I don’t think the Chelsea first team under Jose could have developed him in that same way, being given the structure he had around him at Wolfsburg and even now at City where he is, in my eyes, their key player, the guy who the play goes through. Regardless time to get back to Charly and I want to compare his career before Chelsea to Kevins, Kevin had lots of experience from his time at Genk and Werder, he’d done something at club level for lesser sides, playing regularly amassing almost 100 appearances in Belgian top flight, 30 plus in the Bundesliga and some international appearances I’m guessing before being included in the squad when Jose came back. Charly hadnt even made an appearance in the first team due to the age he signed yes but now at his age, he’s got maybe 25 first team appearances, with maybe 10 plus starts (if he’s lucky) for Betis and Chelsea combined. He had a loan spell at Real Betis where people claimed he was good enough for the 25 man squad then, despite scoring one goal in the space of a year split over two seasons which when I seen him bar a game against Valencia (I’m sure it was his debut actually) which made me wonder what he would actually bring at PL level as he showed inconsistency in games and also struggled to make an impact (fair enough he’s young it happens youth players performances yoyo). If he had actually done anything worthy of note or had a standout season or seasons at a club of that ilk at a young age then I could understand his inclusion in the squad and then his frustration at not getting chances but he’s done nothing but excellent performances in youth football which can be easily misunderstood or seen as having achieved something at a high level but it’s not, youth football has been rebranded for the reason it’s not high enough in quality as opposed to a B team league or championship etc, it’s now under 23s to try and improve younger players having them playing against older opposition and what not to prepare them more for first team. Charly doesn’t need u21/u23 football (although playing for Belgian u21s would do him no harm, really stupid he refuses the call ups) he needs a regular run in the Bundesliga or La Liga or Ligue 1 at a bottom half club to play every week. He won’t get that here or he won’t get that putting up childish posts on Instagram. He may have all the talent in the world but he’d of been better gaining 50+ games at smaller clubs on loan like Betis or Werder Bremen or somebody of that ilk, where he can have a bit more responsibility or have more influence. I don’t think we can do anymore than what we are doing with him here and despite the form of Willian or Pedro, Charly isn’t better than anything we’ve got in wide areas because he too can be very inconsistent like those two. I hope he gets a loan in January, because he needs one, like an 18 month loan. I can’t see him coming into our team and doing what a Marcus Rashford or Harry Kane did because he doesn’t seem like the type, guys who were never regarded as huge talents, hard workers who have had to train to get to where they are, plus I just don’t think the focus on competing to be winning titles every year or CLs or whatever here helps young players break into the team either because the manager trusts more experienced players because they are tried and tested. Sure exceptions have been made, Christensen, Musonda, Kenedy are in the squad yes but out of the three Christensen has the most first team experience at a high level and will probably be the only guy out of them to get more regular minutes despite in my eyes having the most difficult competition in Azpi, Luiz, Rudiger and Cahill.

We are in October and he is posting shite like that. What the fuck. Needs a reality check if it’s a dig at the club.

Scary how much he has developed in maybe the last two or three years. He was always talented and didn’t have a great start at Real but under Zizou he is a different level. World class. Was shocked Real got rid of James but can see why they were happy to get rid of him, hes slowly become an integral cog for Spain and Real.

Swear that guy is deluded. He’s obviously a Belgian journalist. I think if he was the best player Belgium have produced he’d be playing every week, wouldn’t you? Obviously he means best talent but talent isn’t necessarily enough and the wa modern day footballs going, players now have to work even harder than they’ve ever had to, to understand what to do tactically (tactics, formations, philosophies/playing styles whatever have come a long way), how to be more effective, how to be and keep in the best physical shape. He should use Hazard as an example, Benitez and Mourinho drilled tactical instructions into him that made him a more balanced player, he has matured as well and became more effective in front of goal/decision making/use of the ball and is all and all a good athlete. Charly still has a long way to go, his decision making especially along with the physical side which sure it will come, just like Christensen (but to be fair he plays like someone with 250 appearances to their name), there are too many wide players now a days that can dribble into space (which is a useful outlet for certain teams) but get an absolute brain freeze once they get into the final third and have to make a crucial decision or lack a final ball/pass, Pedro and Willian for instance do at times or guys like Oxlade Chamberlain, Theo Walcott, Jesse Lingard, Wilf Zaha, Andros Townsend etc, I’d hate to see someone with Charlys potential go into that bracket of players, sure some of them aren’t necessary bad players but it would be a waste. But still, he needs work, I don’t think keeping him in the squad was the best move but perhaps the lack of investment in wide areas in the summer forced Conte’s hand.

Honestly I’d say he’s just about as good. He makes the difference every week for Juventus be it goals or assists on a consistent level. Sure Italy isn’t as strong as the PL but even in European games he’s the real deal for them, he has started this season on fire as well. He also put Barcelona to the sword last season in the CL, while being 22.

Good player, not Alex Sandro but a good alternative. Another guy I think could be an excellent wing back if he could keep fit would be Luke Shaw. Doubt we'd get him but yeah

I'd like to see him at Juventus in all fairness. Allegri has had a good stint and got to the CL final and what not but reckon someone like Carlo could help them win it. Or maybe I could be wrong but think he'd be a good fit there. Can't see Allegri staying in Italy forever something gives me the feeling he wants a crack at the Prem.