communicate

Yea, they are a completely different team. I was shocked when I watched el clasico. I am not that confident against barca because we are not really in great form right now. Yes winning against wba is great but wba is at the very bottom of epl and hull is simply not at our level. We can definitely lose the game but I will be surprised if we got destroyed. They are simply just not that kind of team anymore.

I think some people here haven't watched barca play for a while and I watched them against Eibar last week and against Madrid in el classico. They are no longer the old Barcelona team who will boss the game the way City does to team. They don't press up high, they even tend to sit deep. I am talking about against eibar here. They are not a possession based team at all, they looks very weird almost dysfunctional a times. With the ball they can still look pretty good because when you have Messi and Suarez as your front 2 you will always has a chance. Without the ball, suarez and especially Messi barely run at all. They defend with 8 player sitting deep and then launch counter attack.

They are no longer a possession based team. I am currenty watching them playing against Eibar, Eibar is dominating the possesion.

Nah they are not the best team in the world. They are a very weird side. They play with 442 without winger but they still have Messi who is arguably the most dangerous player on the planet and Suarez who may not be as clinical as before but his movement and his tenacity is still fantastic. 343 is supposed to be the perfect counter for 442, but they certainly have option to change to 433 with dembele or coutinho

3 defender is the perfect counter for Barca 442 ish. I think kante will be put on the left mid and make sure messi does not create danger. I have no expectation for this game so It should be a fun game to watch

Maybe it is simply the fact that they are pretty much set financially by 18. Even the successful college graduates make 100.000 a year by the time they graduate, these footballer make that in a week.

Glad for michy but did anybody watch the game? Did his link up play improve? I haven't watched dortmund game for a while but I watched abumeyang play for Arsenal and he is not involve in the build up at all. If dortmund tactics is similar to that, he will thrive.

Poch spend one - two years shedding dead weight, and he hasn't won any thropies with spurs. I have never seen any manager under Roman that last after winning nothing for 3 years.

He is what Conte want from his cf, hold up the ball and link up with the AMs. He is like the opposite of Michy. A fantastic link up player but horrible finisher.

He also need to learn to convince players to join us. We lost ox to pool

Talking like a real banker

Both play under very attacking manager though, I will be surprised if they can looks as good under either Conte/Mou

I'll be surprised if we do much training at all. Our players has played game every 3 day for a while now

125 m and asensio ?? Are you kidding me ? 200 m pound + isco and we'll talk.

The one question I have for Conte when we play without a proper no 9, why do we keep playing as hazard as no 9. I dont likee seeing hazard playing with back to the goal, why not try Pedro over there. Ask him to just keep running the channel to open up space for hazard

Nah there is no use of keeping a player that want to leave. As long as you get what he is worth, it is better to let the player go.

Costa wanted to leave, not once but twice. If a player wanted to leave twice you have to sell him.

Costa and Matic wanted to leave so they have to be sold and we got good fee for them. I don't think that was bad decision. Replacing Costa with Morata is also not a bad decision, who should have we target ? I think we all know that Lukaku was Conte first choice but we could not afford him. Bakayoko was signed to backup kante and matic, Conte said so in one of the interview. Matic wanted to go. Now it become a major problem because we need a starter level midfielder, and we can only find Drinkwater which turned out to be a mistake. Zappacosta signing by itself was so bizzare. Finding a backup for Moses make zero sense but at that point we lost Ox to Pool which at that point surprised everybody. For me our two deadline day signing were our biggest mistakes, we don't need backup for baka or moses. We need starter quality player over them but we failed to get them.

He is the biggest disappointment this season. I expect him to be good because I thought a more mobile cm next to kante is all we need. But he has been awful. Having said that, I remembered Conte said that he wanted to keep Matic and integrate baka slowly behind him. It looked like he knew that he is not ready.

I have no problem with our manager heavy turnaround, but we cannot turn crap every time after we won the league. I don't care anymore who is going to be in charge but please improve our squad quality. I said last year when we won the league that our squad is behind everybody in top 6 except maybe Liverpool (bad gk, bad defence). I expect us to improve this season but there is not much improvement. Yes we are definitely deeper but definitely not better. We replaced two important players with two younger but not as good of players and sprinkle them with average player I rather keep ake and chalobah and spent the money to sign quality player.

We have played games every 3 days for a while now. Good rest is what our players need

As much as I think he deserve to stay, I think he is very close of getting sack. I'll be surprised if Conte is our manager next season. Two bad losses in a row against mediocre opposition is usually the start of sacking for our team

This, quite surprised that many people in this forum want him gone. He delivered a title with a mediocre team, now people expect us to be great yet we lost two key starter from last season in Costa and Matic. We replaced them with much younger not sure better players in Morata and Bakayoko. and we are still in top 4

Watching how many chances this city team creates in one half against Burnley make me think how crazy hazard numbers is going to be if he is in this team

Maybe he is injured I don't know. But I agree completely with you, everything looks so wrong with our team playing with false 9.