Sideshow Luiz

For sure. It was a professional foul by Alonso. He got beat, and fouled to break up the play.

You can see, when you watch CL or EL, the reffing is even worse. I agree, the overall level in England is crap. But, when I watch a European match, it makes the PL look like it's reffed by an army of Collia clones.

With the abuse they get in the lower and Sunday league, I get why no one wants to do it. But it's so inconsistent. Edit: We have a CF! Oh, our CF wants to go to Madrid in the summer

No, it's funny. If you can't laugh about some quality bants aimed in your direction, that would look worse on you.

They're all shit.

If we score another, does this mean that Southampton will go 2-0 up? We should definitely try to do that, then.

So, does this mean we've gone from needing a striker, to finding a striker, to needing a striker because our striker is leaving in the summer? All in a week?

GET IN!!!

FFS, Alonso. Your lack of pace isn't much of an issue today (yet), but that doesn't mean you should give the ball away every time you touch it.

Eden as CF, still no CHO on the bench. I get it, in a way, it means one of Barkley or RLC don't make the bench, and that would be a different story in itself. The plus side is that it should mean CHO starts mid-week.

I don't necessarily think Pep is racist. But, that video did show that he doesn't really understand the right language to use. Which is part of the problem in the long term. It leads to "he's not really like that", or "he didn't mean it that way", etc. Well, in that case, he shouldn't fucking talk like he is "that way", and if he does, someone needs to correct him. @Vesper His quote in the press conference was "My kids go to school with Indian people, black people, normal people, people from everywhere". It's unbelievably stupid. If it was Jose, you would have heard all about it. If it was Sarri, with the heat on the club right now, it would be a huge deal.

I've said it before, I think he should be an option. You'll never have to worry about him losing confidence, that's for sure. He's been converted to CF for both club and country. It's his attitude that concerns me, same with Dembele (the Barca one).

I think Martial is more attainable this window. But, the chances are small, IMO. I'm still dreaming of Willian for Martial.

This is the striker we need to get in January. Next summer, I think Utd will sack Jose and MArtial will sign a new contract. It's got to be now.

Pretty much. He got the trainer at Bayern fired as well. Not a peep. Unlike others....

I didn't know where to post this, but considering the circumstances, should Pep have not got a little bit a slap for this interview? This was before their CL match this week, AFTER the Sterling incident at the Bridge, and AFTER Sterling called the media out. I understand he wasn't trying to be offensive (doesn't mean he shouldn't be corrected), but if that was Jose........

I'm not entirely sure that Hazard is in a mini-slump. This article was posted earlier in the ear, when he was on fire: https://statsbomb.com/2018/10/is-eden-hazard-making-the-leap/ At the time, the metrics suggested he was doing all of the same things he was doing in years past, except for "pressure regains", but that's to be expecting changing from Conte to Sarri. From the article: Thus, it’s not a shock to see Hazard’s purple patch in front of goal as the moment when he is receiving the most praise of his career. Unless he starts taking significantly more high quality shots, his scoring rate will come back to Earth. snip

No, I included Bats in my poo poo platter.

Who's this Unionjack lass all of a sudden? Hijacking all the threads.

I think they would be 2 different midfield roles. By all accounts, Barella would occupy one of the 2 more defensive players. Either Jorginho's back-up, or Kante's.

I'm not suggesting that Barkley or RLC are good enough to be regular starters for us, but neither is bad enough to never see the pitch, either. One will have to go if we want to "upgrade" Of course, we'll see. Both are much better now than they were are the start of the season, so let's see where we are in May.

I'm would fully expect Barella to be Kante's back up since we don't really have one. This could be the issue with Kovacic. I'd expect Barella to be more on board with being a rotation option for us. Kovacic wants away from Madrid because he wants to play more. On the other side of midfield we have 2 english players, one of which is HG. One will have to leave to make room for a better target. Plus, we have Mount coming through.

But Barella's wages are surely lower. making him probably the cheaper option. Our AM needs to work defensively as well (not saying this is where Barella will play). Fekir (and players like him) for me would be best as a CF in our system. IMO. Ziyech has those traits, and I really like him. But, I don't know if he's good enough for us (Starting XI). He also takes left footed free kicks, so that's a bonus. On you list, who's playing in a 433? Those attacking mids have to play defence too.

The question is: Is he better than Kovacic, and what are the fees like for both players?

And there were arguments about who "won". Utd with Lukaku or us with Morata. Now, it's "who lost the least?"