OneMoSalah

And no injuries in Saudi - yet we have heaps of them. And Kante was the problem. Absolute horseshit. Definitely could of done with him in and around the squad given the problems his so called upgrades Moises & Romeo are having. Still a ludicrous decision from the club.

Chalobah’s trainer makes a comment. Big whoop. He pointed out what anybody with 2 eyes can see by looking at a injury list. Chalobah was well within his right not to leave here for Forest too. Despite the small per saying he should of etc - a solid squad player to have.

I hope your joking. Painful enough watching him as it is never mind for a prolonged period. He’s had ample chances but cannot seem to do the basics or have a fundamental understanding of the game - if he can’t do them/doesn’t know that now, he never will. @Reddish-Blue Maatsen? City? Eh? I somehow severely doubt that. When have City ever bought Chelsea 3/4th choice players? Considering the success they've had with hybrid fullbacks such as Zinchenk, Ake & now even Gvardiol, I would be incredibly incredibly shocked if there were any truth to those links 😂 I mean one season in the championship and City want him…. sure but lets freak out if he does go because he is that good. Good enough for City but not good enough to displace Chilly?

Couldn’t think of anything worse than Mudryk starting regularly.

We’ve already let him rip out a lot of what made the club successful and work beforehand though. The footballing structure wasn’t perfect but it was better and worked better than this. The medical staff was better and we didn’t have as many big injuries like we do now. All good saying we won’t allow Boehly to do X Y or Z but he already has done a lot.

I still don’t get Poch’s comments saying about the full backs being high and confusing the attacking players. At Southampton and Spurs these were huge parts of his team.

He’s been poor for Bayern for nearly 2 seasons now though. His first proper breakthrough season he was very good but just looked so off it since then.

Onana and Alphonso Davies must be two of the most overrated players on the planet. Not seen Davies have a good game since that one v Barca 2/3 years ago. Onana wow, worse than De Gea.

In this day and age I severely doubt the pitches have anything to do with it. Most clubs have got incredibly high standards of pitches and training pitches. Its 99% either coaching or medical related - I mean it is virtually unheard of for teams to have this many or reoccurring injuries happening each season. I know players play a lot of games but it is like 6 weeks in to the season too.

I severely doubt Sporting have gone into their season with 1 CM in their squad. Hjulmand and Morita been their go to duo in the middle of the park this season. But even then, they weren’t even linked at all (even when we went for Ugarte) so plucking them out of thin air as the “perfect loan” for a player they didn’t show any real interest in, is just, well dreaming. But we usually tend to do this with our young players and have done for years. All the way back as long as I can remember “Oh he’d be perfect for team X” but they never get linked, they go on loan and ultimately don’t break into the other team as they aren’t that level. If Santos is that good and can’t get in to the Forrest team regularly by January, I guess that he’s not that good…. Simple as that. I don’t think they’ve got any outstanding midfielders so if he cannot break in there then maybe another move would of been better. But would hardly say going to the likes of a Sporting Lisbon, if he doesn’t get in the Forrest team, would of been realistic. Still think the signing of Lavia has effectively ended his long term career here - Lavia and him very similar age group and position. Also not defending Steve Cooper but at Liverpools academy, Swansea and England u16 & 17s he was pretty well renowned for working with, developing and moulding young players. Worked with the likes of Alexander-Arnold, Sterling, Sancho, Hudson-Odoi, Smith-Rowe, Foden, Guehi, Gallagher, Gibbs-White off the top of my head across those spells be it academy, club or England.

Im sorry but there is a pretty good chance that if he’s not good enough to be playing most weeks at Forrest ahead of their midfielders for whatever reason, likelihood is he is not good enough to be playing for Sporting Lisbon as well. Not as if Forrest are a better side than Sporting. We will see how it goes to January I suppose but I doubt if he can’t get regular minutes at NFFC it would of been a good move putting him to Sporting. He was linked with Porto & Salernitana IIRC but apparently we seen him as a “first team player”. Then signed Lavia and he was shipped out. So again, the strategy and footballing vision, his place in it, seems to be very conflicting views from first team player to out the door at the end of the window. Him, Caicedo, Ugo, Lavia…. all similar profiles and all a similar age group. Don’t see them all being here in the long term. I mean people are saying it’s shocking management from Poch loaning him (& Angelo) but is it shocking management from Steve Cooper not playing Santos regularly? Or are we just arrogantly expecting he was going to go in and blow their guys away and start every week as we usually do with loan players - despite the fact he has no experience in European football 😂 Thought at the time and still think people need to ease expectations on this kid. That senior cap for Brazil seemed to hugely inflated his reputation. I think Strasbourg would of been a good platform for him & chance to work with Patrick Viera. Same with Angelo, let the guy develop at his own pace, if he were here and was playing same as the others it would be why didn’t we loan him. I don’t think his talent is anywhere near the same as the likes of a Vini or Rodrygo where they can adapt much better to European football going to a top team.

Lets hope they’ve not rushed him back too soon. Like everyone else in the last year. Reece, Chilly, Kante etc etc

I think some of the patterns may take time but I know a lack of proven quality in attack outside of Sterling and Nkunku is going to be an issue throughout the whole season. Don’t know what to expect from half of the other guys week in week out. You can be the best drilled team in the world but without genuine quality, you will struggle to make the difference.

I suppose if Vlahovic or Felix missed them you’d be blaming the quality of the service….

£1 bn spent, 4 managers in 1 season & a huge lack of senior players. Would say if we don’t get wins in our next 4 or 5 league games - we will 90% be in full blown crisis and potentially looking for manager number 5. I know its maybe OTT but I don’t get the impression of Todd & co and the sporting directors ideas/vision shouldering a large chunk of the blame anytime soon if results don’t improve so inevitably Poch will be. I mean United have had their worst start to a PL season after 5 games EVER and the media says they “are in crisis”. Yet they’ve spent nowhere near as much as we have, have scored similar amount of goals and sit 1 point above us. 2nd bottom ahead of Everton for points in 2023 is absolutely shambolic. Wouldn’t have happened under Tuchel but we are long beyond that.

Lukaku & Vlahovic can bang them in in Italy all season but Lukaku alone coming back here is proof that footballers can score a lot of goals over there and struggle here. £40m and Lukaku for Vlahovic was an interesting deal maybe but fuck knows. Could easily have been a dud. Known our luck. On Dybala, for the €12m he would of cost - his age, experience, trophy haul, leadership qualities (captaining Juventus on multiple occasions)… I think it was a big mistake to have not tried to sign him. Creative and a goalscorer. Good set play taker. Left footed. Injury record maybe his only downfall. But €12mn - hardly a catastrophe. Although there were the usual “why isn’t he pushing for a move” naysayers when he in fact had a release clause…. that we didn’t even trigger…. Felix never convinced at Atletico or here in a lot of minutes. 1 goal for Barca in a game where they won 5-0 against an utterly shambolic Real Betis doesn’t change that. Talent there but not enough substance. Not what we need considering we have about 4 players who can be described the same way. CHO could/should have been given a chance here ahead of signing Mudryk (probably) but meh he wouldn’t have gotten us much further. Angelo again, 1 goal, hardly as if he was going to contribute heavily to this team was he? And again the big one. Its all what ifs.

Conte and Poch different in terms of coaching style and demeanour though. Plus Conte had already coached 343 in pre-season (why he didn’t roll with it from day 1 I don’t know) and it took everyone by shock - so it’s not really the same because Poch has played 343/352 and 4231 already and still nothing looks quite comfortable. Plus that squad was much much better, so many more competent top top players so that was always going to help, regardless. We don’t have that quality or even the knowhow on how to win games playing poorly due to lacking these sort of players (the likes of Costa, Hazard, Pedro, Kante, Cesc etc). It’s going to be a long season again.

After spending £1bn in 3 windows to be relying solely on guys like Thiago, Chilly, Sterling, Reece and Nkunku to carry the squad due to a lack of proven quality and top club level experience is an incredibly shit footballing vision/strategy. I don’t get what these sporting directors thought was going to happen by recruiting all these kids, particularly when things get tough, it’s absolutely mind blowing. Their jobs should be on the line come the summer if we are still in the same place in my opinion. Could you imagine the directors at City or Liverpool coming up with this strategy? Fuck no. Or at any other relatively big, well run club? Not a chance.

Comparing anyone to Haaland is, well, just ridiculous. Like there is no striker in world football at that age that comes close. But people want to make the comparison anyway, baffling.

I am expecting them to pump us here. Which means we will probably shithouse a result or draw. But really not expecting much, hopefully Fernandez and Jackson pull the finger out as they were pretty poor yesterday and that affected a lot of our play.

Absolutely piss poor yesterday if I’m honest. Has the potential to be a great player but him playing as a 10 has to stop. Far too removed from the game, better slightly deeper, where he can touch the ball a lot more. Or even as a box to box midfielder in a 3. Not sure if Poch playing him further up is tactical or just due to injuries. But even play Gallagher as a 10 and let Enzo play a bit deeper. You’d rather he got more touches of the ball than Connor so playing him much much more advanced seems a bit daft as he was barely involved.

Fully agree. With a + £1bn squad to blame injuries for finishing 8th or wherever would be ridiculous and wouldn’t hold anybody accountable. The strategy and footballing vision at the club has to be blamed if we have another poor season, simple as that. So that starts at the top with the sporting directors.

Antonio Silva isn’t young/inexperienced although he has less than 60 club games to his career to date? Then Xavi Simons again who has 1 full season of first team football? In Holland? Even Wirtz is debatable, and after the Havertz signing, would avoid him. Muisala is the real deal but will never ever happen anytime soon. Our next few key signings needs to be guys with 150-200 games in the tank. Easy. You’d hope so but bringing in these pair who are predominantly used to working for development clubs such as Brighton & Monaco, I don’t think that will fit their remit. The manager needs to have an input though - was Poch strong enough to say no to the likes of Lavia or Palmer, who were 100% more club driven signings and request we pursued more proven players just passed and at CF? No he wasn’t. So I am hoping he will be a bit kore insistent come the next windows as Palmer and Lavia whilst may be good long term, weren’t urgent needs, more so when you consider we sold/let go of better players in their positions.

Ffs what is with the constant links again to kids. The window just shut and we are linked to some Brazilian kid. We will be the most expensive version of Shakhtar/Ajax/Leipzig in footballing history at this rate. Absolutely pathetic strategy. Even Nusa. Fuck me. 3 transfer windows, £1bn & gone so far backwards it’s laughable. If the plan is going to be more u21s as opposed to some more ready made dependable players, we should sack those 2 co sporting directors before its far too late.

But again Kovacic was hardly seen as an outstanding buy and many didn’t want him to sign permanently. But yeah.