manpe

What a player! He is already so much better than he was last season. Can't wait to see what's in store for him in the years to come.

Playing a back 3 is not something an elite team should aspire to. It's a coping mechanism to protect our frail defence. It helps keep a lot of possession, but as we've seen time and time again, it just isn't very good for creating chances. It is and always has been a defence first approach, possession being a big part of that. Tuchel probably looked at the squad and took into account that our defenders already are comfortable playing in a back 5 from Conte's time and took a pragmatic decision. If we get a good CB and DMF, I believe he more than likely will put one extra body upfield to really attack teams.

Of course it doesn't tell the whole story, I generally don't care about stats much except ones that matter. I'm not a fan of his, would rather have someone more mobile and more adventurous in forward passing. But it does tell that he's not as bad as he's portrayed by many fans, you would think he's Bakayoko level hopeless reading some of the stuff on the internet... well if he was, we would have lost much more.

His agent is Raiola, thought we didn't deal with him? Doubt we were "close".

Why? I think it was the Liverpool game back in September that we last lost with him starting? If so, that's impressive. If he was as bad as he's made out to be, then surely he would have cost us at least on game in 18?

Someone like Haaland would make us title contenders. By next season our new signings will have got accustomed to the EPL and Tuchel's ideas, we'll be stronger and more competitive. I also have a feeling Haaland won't need much adaptation time, he is a true generational talent and they don't need much introduction to start wrecking a league. Werner and Haaland up top is the stuff of dreams, hope it happens.

Mendy James - Zouma - Rüdiger - Chilwell Kante - Kovacic CHO - Mount - Pulisic Werner I would like 4-2-3-1 to be tested out for once, we struggle with scoring with 5 ATB. Adding Kante instead of Jorginho might make us defensively solid enough in midfield to drop the 3 CBs.

Great job! I was confused when I couldn't get in with my new logins, but then noticed that all the old posts are back so figured my old password works. 😀 Great to have all the content back.

Get over it

Spot on. I was excited to see Werner come on not for a winger... "maybe we'll finally attack through the middle" I thought... nope! High crosses still, the only high cross that almost got us something was that Chilwell volley. Reminiscent of when Hazard played striker and the team kept lumping high passes to him. Lampard doesn't understand we don't have Drogba in our team. If we're gonna persist with this high crossing shit then just switch to 4-4-2 and play Tammy and Giroud together, sell Werner as he has no use in such an archaic team. No need to work on attacking patterns or anything, just lump it high and keep tight blocks in defence.

It's not one or the other - both are made of glass. Pulisic will be out soon enough again unfortunately.

Lmao, as soon as he said that you can actually see him thinking "what the fuck did I just say" Then tried to fix it by lying that they had fought to make every American richer.

Hitting the bar is a shot off target, so no, he didn't to *everything* right. Should have kept the shot lower.

Lololol, that last sentence is dead giveaway that it's a democrat sponsored article. They're both bad, it's just that the republicans are far FAR worse.

Mason is the real deal. With his work ethic he is bound to succeed. Similar to Lampard in that sense - not the most gifted player out there, but smart and pushes himself. There were question marks over him as he was being played out of position, but in 4-3-3 he is on his way to becoming a top box-to-box midfielder.

There is probably a lot of drilling going on at the training ground, but if it were that easy, then the veteran managers I mentioned wouldn't have struggled with similar issues. Let them learn and gain experience.

There you go, when Azpi leaves just promote that Livramento fella. If/when Livramento should decide to leave, then think about the next replacement. Until then I don't see why an academy player would reject playing for the first team for at least a few seasons. Lamptey was different, he had both Reece and Dave blocking his path. Azpi has become very slow, sad to say but in a year or two he'll be done at the top level. Anyway, by the time Azpi goes there might be someone else, it doesn't necessarily have to be guy you mentioned. Just saying that with the talent coming through our academy there is no point in signing a bunch of Zappacostas to play second fiddle, many youngsters would be happy with that role (for a while at least).

When was the last time we had consistent, systematic attack throughout the season? Probably Conte's title season after the formation change, but that's it. Under Mourinho, Conte and Sarri our attacking play was just as chaotic as you're describing, and they were considered world class coaches. Hard to expect that from a rookie coach with a young and naive team.

Do we have any serious RBs coming up in the academy?

He squandered two great close range chances yesterday - one straight at the keeper and one hit the bar. He'd easily have 15+ goals already and comfortably be our top scorer across all comps playing as a winger, but he's decided to turn into a Morata when it matters the most. Yes he's playing out of position all the time due to our wingers being made out of glass, but that is no excuse when he fluffs his chances a few meters away from goal. He needs to become much better at what he was bought to do. However I'm confident he'll bounce back, he has that strikery arrogance about him that I like and that all great strikers have.

I know this doesn't belong here, but fuck it, it's so good that it can be posted anywhere

Why are we discussing RWB? We don't play wing-backs...

If that is true then someone needs sacking. We have Azpi ffs.

Good that he died, good riddance that fucker. At least he can't put more people at risk anymore. If there is anything good about COVID, is that it kills thick cunts like him who don't care about themselves or others.

Werner - Giroud Ziyech Chilwell - Mount - Kante - James Rüdiger - Silva - Zouma Wouldn't mind seeing something like this at some point. Just because we have better players now than last season doesn't mean we can't play 3 CB formations anymore to solidify defence and accomodate Werner better (especially when our wingers are injured, Werner and Havertz as wingers is horrid). Also Giroud is pretty good at link-up play, Hazard often got joy playing with him for that same reason, no reason to think Werner wouldn't.