OneMoSalah

Conte and Mourinho wouldn’t work with these clown owners and sporting directors. They would have disagreed on the signing of the huge number of u21 players to start with, even more so after losing so many experienced players in the past 2 seasons probably precisely because of what we are seeing. And yes I get the feeling Poch is a yes man. Even at Spurs with Levy you got that feeling. He is a good coach but I feel he needs to get some proven quality in there to stabilise the team which seems to lack the knowhow of what to do when things aren’t going well. Also the midfield is a huge issue, Enzo and Caicedo as a pairing aren’t solid enough and things get by them too easily. I do think Poch won’t last much longer if performances continue as they are but ultimately he doesn’t shoulder all the blame, although the owners and sporting directors will throw him to the wolves when they are really accountable for the poor squad planning and new direction with recruitment. On defenders out of position, particularly Levi, when Ben and Marc are back fit, Levi needs to come out the team all together for a few weeks. I don’t care how good he will/can be, he has been particularly poor this last while and needs taken out the firing line. Unfortunately due to the injuries and the fact Maatsen isn’t up to much (shock horror), he has had to be used there. Disasi for me has started to show some half decent qualities playing as a centre back but I do feel he needs to be used there and not at RB to keep going to see where he maxes out. It seems like he is maybe starting to find his feet a wee bit. I don’t think he will ever be a top top quality CB but certainly looking like if he can just keep plodding on as he has done the last few weeks and keep steadily improving, he could be a good 3rd choice. Bailed Silva out I don’t know how times yesterday - who is certainly starting to look a bit aged although he still has moments of class due to his experience and knowhow. If the midfield could also solidify up a bit too this would give us a better platform.

Should have guessed. Oh well

They’ll probably beat us in the second leg as well wouldn’t be surprised. If they do Poch has to go.

I see the hype for this kid has died down a bit. Hasn’t started since the end of November. Still by all accounts he had a reasonable start but fizzled out. Think he got an assist last game he played though but only got the 2 for the season and no goals. Again just let him go at his own pace - don’t think he will be coming back in the summer needs another 18 months of playing regularly and add end product as apparently he is a good dribbler but not great for end product.

Surely cannot be any fucking worse than Caicedo at the moment. And if he is, then not good enough and should be loaned or sold.

What was the point of 1) signing this guy & 2) not loaning him out? If he can’t get any minutes when we are needing a goal in a cup game against a championship team then that says it all. Loan him out this month FFS.

Europe? Don’t make me laugh.

Embarrassing. Not the first time he has let someone run off him, his awareness is shocking. Liverpool, United and Brighton probably all pissing themselves that we paid £115m for him. Yes he isn’t playing well but fucking hell, do the basics at least. Not difficult to follow someone.

Not many top managers who would be daft enough to take this project on in the current circumstances. The new owners were shouting about stability, feasibility and moving away from the previous regime yet we are on our 4th manager/head coach technically in their ownership period which is barely even 2 years and basically have to sell before we can buy because they blew their load too quickly. They’ve completely turned over long serving members of staff from various departments and not to mention upstairs the likes of Vivell being put on gardening leave after barely being in the door and now Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb - the footballing directors - really should be given their matching orders come the summer as 80% of what they’ve signed haven’t done anything. Or they would at any top club who had an ounce of sense. The whole thing is a mess and it doesn’t look like we have any clear plan at all - I am genuinely worried that it is only going to get worse too. At least before with Roman, potential managers knew that when a manager was sacked we would always be looking to bounce back immediately and usually would due to his ambitious and demanding nature as an owner. Chelsea sacking a manager always meant one thing: they will be back and competitive the following season. That isn’t the case now, look at the lengths of contracts they’ve given out to absolute shite with the thinking that they’ll maybe become top players in 3 or 4 years. Why would any top top manager want to come here and have to wait 3 or 4 years for some of these near untouchable misfiring assets to maybe become good? Its clear the clubs invested in these players and will not be binning certain ones anytime soon. Hopefully these clowns sell up after 10 years and stick to baseball.

But we didn’t sell him and going from most reports a month ago he will be returning in the summer as the buyout clause only becomes an obligation based on his playing time? Where he hasn’t played anywhere near enough? And even then, everyone was so dazzled by Maatsen after one year at Burnley (in the championship FFS) and now think Hall returning may be the answer. Don’t get me wrong he’s talented but he isn’t anywhere near better than Ben or Marc and who is to say he will be? He is another young lad who we have probably all severely overrated as we always do with young kids. Even Santos and Casadei they were some sort of amazing players after a loan spell in Brazil and Reading….

Palmer unlucky with his first chance. Second one was poor but again without him we wouldn’t of had half the chances we had tonight. He is already our main man and our best attacking player this season by a mile. Too much responsibility on his shoulders when you consider the lack of goals from the other players barring Raheem who has 7 in all comps from these areas. Sterling also being asked to be a more creative player than the role he was utilised at City is also poor management by Poch. Yes he can take people on 1 v 1 but get him the box for cutbacks/low centers. Absolutely scandalous he keeps asking him to go out wide and try beat folk 1 v 1 to create crossing opportunities. It is clearly a tactical instruction. He didn’t score over 100 goals for City and a huge % of them under Pep by staying out wide and taking on his fullback and crossing it in. Palmer was hardly bullied though? He isn’t a number 9 but he had the best chances and they all came from either his intuition or individual skill. Should of scored at least one, maybe 2 including his first chance which was desperately unlucky after he did the hard bit anticipating and intercepting the pass. He cannot do it all by himself though - already we are heavily far too reliant on him.

Yep. Noni doesn’t do anything unless the ball is played to feet and Sterling doesn’t seem overly involved. Few times hes got it 1 v 1 he looks to take his man on but we need to get it out to him more

And 2 of his big chances came from great anticipation too. If it was Jackson he wouldn't of intercepted or followed in.

Yep. Him and Enzo are both bad for it. Horrendously bad for letting runners go. Just laziness, cant blame anyone else for that. Not the first time and wont be the last.

Caicedo again letting a runner go for the goal. Shocking awareness. £115m but cannot track a runner.

We need to get Ben & Marc fit so we can take Levi out that left back position. Got lucky there and good covering by Disasi

An attacking midfielder/second striker? Again like Nkunku, not a proper CF.

Have to agree. I think after the goal you could see Broja’s confidence. It remains to be seen maybe he starts him at the weekend.

But also we have to look at why Santos and Casadei aren’t starting there. There is obviously a reason beyond clubs using us to get “cheap depth”, its never as black and white as that, performance and level obviously has to be a factor at some point. And also a reason as to why theh were loaned in the first place. He is a good prospect but was the same with Santos last year - we have to temper expectations. Even look at Colwill for Brighton strolling it last season as a left sided CB in a back 3 and 4 as well as at LB some weeks compared to here, he has looked suspect. Also we have too many young MFers in the squad as it is so inevitably some won’t make it here.

Palmer false 9 interesting but also remains to be seen how effective he can be there. Personally think in the long run he is better as a 10 or off the right. We will need a CF irrespective of if he does well there.

Probably has more chance of winning a Golden Globe than us winning a trophy under his ownership.

These are all top professional athletes who have been conditioned by elite trainers and coaches throughout various ages since whenever most of these join professional clubs at youth level. They’re obviously in reasonable enough condition for this level or they wouldn’t be professional footballers and definitely wouldn’t have survived a Mauricio Pochettino pre-season. Yes they still have to develop and grow but it is reaching at straws to pin it on that. The medical team is a shambles, not to mention how unfit we were last season and the intensity of Pochettino’s training regime throughout season (notoriously tough). Then throw in how many games these guys play every season, how much travelling, the frequency of games. I mean I expected a few injuries - most seasons every team gets a few - even given how tough Poch’s fitness regime is, as many as we’ve had, to repeat suffers, some of these guys maybe also need to take a deeper look at what their doing off the pitch and outside of the training also. Are they eating right? Are they overtraining? Are they under training? Are they drinking? The medical staff is also a shambles. A team of younger players you’d assume would be more energetic, dynamic, fitter, willing to push themselves harder due to the players being hungrier to prove themselves, no? Or do they not have enough muscles for that either

It is just folk clutching at straws for more stupid excuses. If not for injuries, its for results, if not for results, its about recruitment etc, instead of accepting reality: Poor squad planning willingly letting so many experienced guys go so quickly, completely changing the leadership dynamics within the dressing room. Poor recruitment buying so many young, unproven, inexperienced players at hyper inflated prices. Or more annoyingly, buying so many similarly aged and similarly positioned players too in a short space of time, the likes of Santos, Caicedo, Lavia, Ugo…. could have signed one of them and tried to get a more experienced midfielder for example Joao Palhinha from Fulham who was available. Declan Rice from West Ham again who was available. Even signed 2 of them and then used the extra cash to sign someone for a position we desperately need ie. CF. Poor decisions to sack a lot of staff from the previous regime, medical staff, groundsmen, even Pat Nevin for questioning the new ownerships recruitment in a BBC column ffs. The medical department right now I am assuming is Dr Nick from the Simpsons because honestly, wtaf is going on with these constant medium to long term injuries, it is the worst I have ever seen here in a long time. Poor managerial choices, particularly disposing of a world class coach to end up with Potter & Lampard. Irrespective of what happened with Tuchel, the owner, the players - it was a fucking joke. Absolute laughing stock to end up with Potter and then Lampard. And to be honest as soon as we hired Potter a lot of us seen it coming. He wasn’t ready for that. Even smaller decisions like giving Connor the captaincy (although I for one am impressed with how he has handled it, how it seems to have further elevated his performances) ahead of Thiago Silva after Reece’s injuries - which apparently ruffled some feathers in the dressing room (however true I have no idea). I mean taking it back a bit, I still think giving Reece the armband ahead of Thiago was absolutely insane. The guy who has captained Brazil, PSG, AC Milan as well I think. RJ needs to get himself right and just back playing football at his best level. When he has been fit this season, performance wise and even body language wise, he looks deflated, as if he’s got the weight of world on his shoulders. Is that the extra pressure of wearing armband at your local team? Maybe? Maybe not? But still thought it was too soon for someone who has had a hugely turbulent up and down past 2 seasons fitness wise. Maybe they hoped it would push him on. Genuinely just piss poor decision making since Todd and co properly started flexing their muscles last summer. And now these two footballing director muppets have sunk their claws in also, signing young guys almost every player without fail when it is clear we needed some more experience and proven quality. First the narrative was these younger players will refresh the squad and bring a lot of new energy, replace these so called past it or not good enough players, now its folk blabbering on about lack of muscle mass as opposed to just saying a lot of what we have signed/didn’t sell of probably aren’t good enough compared to what we had before. Absolutely clueless. I mean there was far fetched “thinking too hard” posts talking about Reece and his bone structure last week related to muscle injuries. Now its young players getting injured due to having a lack of muscle mass this week. So what will it be next week? We are getting so many injuries because of a rare toenail fungus? Did one of the lads get bitten by a radioactive spider? Is it because people think the earth is flat? And yes this post probably is a bit long and slightly off topic. Perhaps should even be in the Boehly topic. But fuck it.

Yeah World Cup winning midfield player has a great second 45 minutes after looking very very average for the first 45. Against a side in the lower end of the championship. Sure lets make a post and call him a midfield maestro…. bit embarrassing. If you can’t do it against teams at that level when you’ve been a starting member of a World Cup winning squad, then I don’t know. Needs to play how he did second half against good teams and regularly. Thats the challenge for him. Scoreline definitely flattered us, took us nearly the best part of an hour to get going fully. Cole or Enzo scoring earlier first half maybe would of changed the dynamics but still, that 11 minute spell deflated them as well as the fact they tired and we stepped up after another pretty poor first half. Far too many moments where you still think, how the fuck are we going to break down much better teams. Felt that Gusto was very good the whole game. The young lad from the academy looked pretty comfortable too, didn’t look out of place. Mudryk pretty much missing again throughout although he assisted Broja. This is the sort of game you thought if he had any real quality he would have shown it. The stage was set. Not just him I expected more from many of them in the first half but particularly Mudryk, I am looking for him to show us something of real quality. I don’t see it. Nearing 40 games for the club now and he looks like he will never arrive at anything more than a middle of the road player. Not having this he has improved his overall game because he can do a one two or track his opposition player when they have the ball like somebody suggested. If he hasn’t shown any large improvement by the summer, cut out losses, he simply has to go.

I see him having the same sort of role Daizen Maeda had at Celtic under Ange. Making a lot of penetrative runs in behind from the wider areas whilst also carrying that huge counter attacking threat with his pace. Even the pressing side of things. If anything, it seems to be a reasonably sensible move as he will fit their more direct attacking style, particularly that role off the left. It just remains to be seen how he does in terms of his goal output. May be an interesting move. Wouldn’t say he won’t make them much stronger because depth wise, he is definitely an upgrade on the likes of Perisic, Solomon & Gil. But his goal, assist and chance creation output will always be his downfall if he doesn’t get going.