Jase

On the other hand, Pulisic was being a journalist's nightmare. Was asked some tough/tricky questions and gave the most basic/simplest of replies. No juicy quotes for the journalists. lol

That's a common problem with most players in the team really. A lot of them tend to take too long to play the final pass or allergic to passing forward to speed up the buildup play/provide penetration.

There was this the other day...

Deary me, Atletico...

But it's the return of investment here - short term vs long term. You spend 100 million+ on Kane now and in 2-3 years' time, you will be going out to spend big money on a striker again. I don't think Kane's nationality is an attraction at all. It's just a bonus, if anything. It's not like United or City need a big English player to tap into the English market or anything. Will there really be a bidding war for Haaland this summer if Dortmund insist on their 150 million demand? Moreover, I'd imagine it's easier to negotiate with Dortmund compared to Levy.

Worth remembering that Ed Woodward will be leaving Man United this summer. So, god knows if United's decision making process will change etc. The problem Kane has, aside from his long term contract, is that he will basically be "competing" with the likes of Haaland and Mbappe. If a club is willing to pay more than 100 million, wouldn't they be better off signing Haaland or Mbappe rather than Kane given the difference in age? The former two can give a club 10 years of service while Kane may have only 3 years or so left at the highest level.

Who is gonna buy Son? Who can afford Kane? Son turns 29 later this year and big clubs are unlikely to go after him since he will cross that 30 y/o mark soon. Kane damaged his career when he signed that 6-year contract and handed his future to Daniel Levy. I get that he's a Spurs man but it was such a stupid decision.

Only watched the last 20 minutes or so but it sure looked that way. It looked as though their plan was to just give Kane/Son the ball and hope they score a worldie or something.

So...Spurs sacked Mourinho only for them to put that kind of performance in? Is Ryan Mason gonna get criticized for basically doing what Mourinho would have tried to do? I get that they tried to play on the counter but it didn't even look like they had any ambition to go win it. It looked as though they were just hoping to take it all the way to penalties and try to sneak it from there. And Spurs' xG was 0.04!

My point is Werner could have easily gone to hiding, like Torres and Morata did when they were in their bad moments, with all those missed chances but he hasn't. Werner missing chances is nothing new. It happened in the Bundesliga as well. The only difference then is he tended to get a lot more chances and score to more than make up for the misses. Last season, for example, he scored 28 league goals but also missed 21 big chances. For context, Lewandowski has scored 36 league goals but has also missed 21 big chances this season and Haaland has scored 25 goals but also missed 19 big chances this campaign. I don't know if he'll ever become a clinical striker in the Premier League (one can hope) but this would be less of an issue if we have a clinical striker taking the main goalscoring role and Werner being second on that list. It's like Salah-Mane at Liverpool and Kane-Son at Spurs; Salah and Kane are the main scorer while Mane and Son are the secondary goal source at those clubs.

Unless you mean the Premier League, Mount does have 2 assists from open play this season - against Rennes (a) and Barnsley (h).

Hard to have a compilation of misses if the player doesn't (want to) get at the end of chances, which you alluded to about Torres' poor movement and him getting caught offside etc. Not making excuses for Werner missing chances but he could have easily just spared himself of missing chances by not getting at the end of them and he hasn't.

Already contributed 10 goals this season, after his 7th assist of the season yesterday. One of 7 players to have contributed at least 10 goals this season. That tally of 10 is also his personal best in a season so far in his career. For (random) comparison, Reguilon has managed 6 assists and yet to score this season.

22 clean sheets already this season. 15 in the Premier League, which is 2nd only to Ederson (17) and 1 ahead of Emi Martinez (Villa play tonight). That 22 is just 1 less than Kepa, 6 more than Courtois and 6 less than Cech managed in their debut seasons at the club.

But the difference between Bayern and us is that we don't play with a crazy high line though. I feel like this tie will be decided on who can shithouse the other better.

That would certainly cause a headache in regards to how we manage the resources. And who are the choices for RWB? I can only think of one in Hakimi but I doubt Inter would sell him, especially if Conte sticks around.

May I also add the fact that Werner can at least play in different positions across the frontline? Meaning the club and/or manager is less likely to force the issue like with Torres previously if Werner isn't going to score consistently.

Don't think everyone shares that same sentiment about Werner but in any case, that argument has been used in the context of Werner being in his first season in English football. That's different from Torres, who already played a few seasons in England by then and did great things for Liverpool. So, there was arguably more expectation on him than on Werner, especially when we tried make him work as the focal point for 3 seasons. Does this mean that there shouldn't be expectations on Werner? No and I expect him to improve, do much better next season. Getting a new striker this summer would also help with the burden because I don't think Werner will be a consistent 20+ goal striker every season (and this coming from a "Werner apologist"). He can be a secondary source of goals as a wide forward, contributing at least 15 goals per season aka be someone like Son or Mane.

Maybe the perception/expectation will change somewhat if/when we bring in a new striker this summer.

lol I have no problem with people wanting to criticize Werner. It's people's right to do so and it's fair at the same time. This West Ham game was basically Werner's season in a nutshell. What I don't get is the constant revision of Torres' and Morata's time at the club just because of Werner's struggles. I don't know if it's because of human's nature where it's easier to remember past things in a positive manner because they are already, long in the past. Torres is easily the worst. When we bought Torres, he was done physically and mentally because of those injuries at Liverpool. His goalscoring problem is well documented but beyond that, he was genuinely awful. He contributed next to nothing, always looked miserable and tried to shy away from the penalty area or getting at the end of chances. What's more nonsense back then was we tried to make a past-it player work that it held us back for like 3 seasons! In Morata's case, his main issue was to different Torres'. He had no injury issues, he was (still is) is a good age for a player, had (has) the right attributes for a striker but while, again, his goalscoring problem is well documented, his biggest problem was his mentality. The minute things went wrong for him, he would often just sulk on the pitch. He also often went down easily on challenges, moaned to officials about not getting decisions and I even remember that he complained a few times about not getting the support within the club. It probably also didn't help that he supposedly subsequently suffered depression during his time here. As for Werner, we know about his goalscoring problems but at the very least, he still works hard for the team and shows the right mentality to try and turn things around, which were things that Morata and Torres did not do. I know that may not sound like much to some people and it remains to be seen whether Werner can turn his goalscoring form around for the better in the long term, but at the very least, that attitude and mindset will act as a good platform to help him turn things around. It would be far concerning if he started to just ghost around on the pitch, doing absolutely nothing (e.g. not even doing the dirty work) while having problems scoring.

Yup, Tuchel did say pre-game that he went for 3 CBs at the back because of West Ham's aerial threat and am pretty sure that he chose to play Azpi anyway was because he was the captain. Otherwise, I agree that playing him as a RWB was just odd.

In other news...

Yeah but like I said, we were able to tear the smaller teams apart with the quality football but struggled once we came up against better teams. I do remember that we were poor in that game against United.

Can we not play Azpi at RWB ever again? So painful to see him get burned for pace - even from the simplest of moves - defensively. But on the other hand, while his end product isn't great, he does seem offer a lot more with his movement off the ball. Just watch Azpi's run that dragged the West Ham's defence deep and opened up the space for the goal.