Jase

Marc Wilmots. Roberto Martinez. Both have somehow not won anything - not even the Nations League - or even reached the final of a major tournament with Belgium's best pool of players ever.

Somebody will be pleased...

I know people will say Lukaku is our talisman now etc but maybe Tuchel shouldn't try to shoehorn him into every game or play him in every minute of a game. I mean, wasn't there also an injury concern with Lukaku last month? Plus, there's another international break next month and still a long way to go in the season.

Always Pini Zahavi...

Aren't we implying the same thing here? And you said "hopefully", does that mean you're not 100% convinced it will happen soon? 👀

Yes, we have won those games but the issue is the nature of our attacking performances. Notice how the narrative has seemingly shifted from "we keep missing chances" to "we don't create enough chances"? Against Villa, we won because of Lukaku's finishing and Kovacic pouncing on an error. Against Spurs, it took a corner and a shot from distance to break Spurs down. Lukaku or not, such dodgy attacking performances are gonna catch up with us - as seen against City and Juventus - if they don't improve.

Azpi, surprisingly, is on the 30-man shortlist for the Ballon d'Or. Some well deserved global recognition at last...

In the 30-man list for the Ballon d'Or. cc @NikkiCFC

There is more than one way to skin a cat. And do you think only Lukaku's goals will be enough to have us challenge for the league title? Because even when we have won the league with a #9, that #9 isn't the only goalscorer in the team. And what if Lukaku's goals only come against the smaller teams and not the big ones, thus maybe causing us to lose the head-to-head games and points?

Kinda amusing to see the narrative has changed from "we keep missing chances" to "we don't create enough chances".

Why is having a #9 seen as the be-all-and-end-all? City didn't have a #9 last season and they still coasted to the league title. Liverpool, albeit they have Salah and Mane, don't play with a #9 and yet they have been consistent in the league in recent seasons barring the last one.

It's always schadenfreude with you and some players on here, isn't it?

One thing I would say with City is at least the manager and board work in tandem on transfers. The players bought may not always be right but at least they're bought to fit the manager's system and style of play, not one side just buying whatever shiny toy out there.

We needed a goalscorer but it's debatable whether Lukaku is actually the right fit for this team. Last season we had a system that worked for the team and it was never just about one player. This season with Lukaku, if you listen to Tuchel, he is trying to make everything revolve around Lukaku in the system and hence, despite sitting top of the table right now, we have seen unconvincing attacking performances this past month. We'll see what happens in the coming weeks but based on what we have seen overall, the concerns people had about signing Lukaku are proving true. Also, the United fans over on Redcafe doesn't seem too surprised by what they have seen from Lukaku. They are like "yeah, he will score goals and probably bully small teams along the way but he'll get found out against better teams". We should know better than most about having a system that relies on an individual is not the most ideal of situations.

And his first game is against Liverpool after the INT break...

You have changed your tune, huh?

How long have the English media waited to say this? 🙄

We were top just 2 weekends ago.

2020/21 disagrees with this.

Did the fact that Chilwell started his first game in months against Villa the other day fly over people's head? Anyway, dumb ass penalty to give away yesterday. But that aside, he was decent and great technique to score from the shot with the lowest xG in that sequence of play. The quicker he gets up to speed again, the better it will be for the team.

Or one could say that Tuchel is just making use of the tools he has at his disposal. But I can see where you're coming from and he really needs to figure out the attack problem, especially since he's not going to drop certain players at all. Don't think it's anything worrying yet but given Tuchel's history, it might be worth keeping an eye on certain things because lately/this season, he has started calling out players a tad more in public - though not in the same manner like say Mourinho - and making some strange/stubborn decisions that hasn't really been seen with us (no manager is perfect of course but it's been un-Tuchel-like). It doesn't seem a lot but these little things could become something big down the line.

There were 18-19 seconds between the foul and goal. Fucking joke they went back that far!

Aren't those fixtures more up to Solskjaer's alley?