Sideshow Luiz

You're such an idiot.

OMG.

Okay....now... Caballero on for Kante.

Sarri's obviously following this thread.

It's all they've got

My faith in him is as shot as most. But, we need him.

Thanks, Sarri.

Would like to see Morata come on with some time on the clock.

Barkley having a great game!!

How does he not even get that on target? Holy shit. I's gone from sad to laughable, then back to sad, and I think it's coming back to laughable again.

Ascacibar is more of a B2B type if IIRC. Weigl isn't going to happen. Even if we did pay the large fee, I don't think he'd come here to play second fiddle. Parades is a possibility, not a bad one. Locatelli would be good as well. The others, I don't know. I'm not convinced that he's the right player. I see him in central defence. If he does end up in midfield, I'm not convinced that a deep lying playmaker is his long term role.

Funny how people react. Personally, I would have asked for a raise if I were one of the other guys. In my particular situation, I didn't think the place was all that and it was always a stepping stone, it just sped everything up for me. But, I never begrudged the other guy for making more, if that's what he could get from the company, good for him.

Yeah, I think that's a problem. Our wage structure is out of whack. Personally, I think it can cause issues in the dressing room. I was at a job once where I found out that the guy sitting next to me was doing 60% of the work I was doing and making 1.5x as much. It didn't take me long to leave that job for something else. You have to pay everyone what they are worth. You think there aren't guys in the Utd dressing room who look over a Sanchez when he's strolling around and thinking "WTF!?!?"

I guess that I just don't see it as "player power". It's a free market and he's taking a gamble. If he suffers a career threatening injury, what does he get then? We also don't have to sell him next summer if we don't want to and he will have to "settle" for making half of his market wage for 2 years. The other side of this the NFL where player's contracts aren't guaranteed, and you have situations like what happened this past weekend: https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/9/30/17921482/earl-thomas-seattle-seahawks-leg-injury-contract-dispute Basically, a player wanted a contract extension, he's nearing the end of his career, but he's a future hall of fame player. It's a violent sport and injuries can happen at any time. The club wouldn't do it, and they wouldn't trade him to a team that would. He got injured on the weekend, now he'll get substantially less this coming off season. You get players who want to leave the club, but the club is under no obligation to sell them. I don't subscribe to this "can't keep an unhappy player" thing. If they want to move to Barcelona, sulking and not playing isn't going to get you there, IMO. I'm sure Pogba does want to go to Barcelona, but Man Utd don't have to do anything. But, when there is 1.5 years left on a players contract, the dynamic changes and it becomes sell me next summer or lose me for free the year after. I'm actually kind of surprised that transfer fees are what they are after the Bosman ruling since you are really only paying for the right to pay a player for 5 years (or so). I find it unsavoury when a player keeps saying that they are going to sign a new deal, then doesn't and stages a sit-out right before the season starts and let everyone know that you will only sign for 1 of 2 clubs (sound familiar?) In that case you are effectively fucking the club. I guess that there's a right way to do it an a wrong way to do it. Hazard is holding all the cards because he's good enough to hold them. Moses can go ahead an do the same thing if he wants.

Players careers are short. Get paid while you can. And yes, at this point in time, every week that goes past, gives him more leverage. 350 is a ton of money, but 400 is better. He holds all the cards right now.

I like that, but I'd have RLC (if fit) for Ampadu. Sorry Ethan. For me it's Ampadu or Cahill to partner AC.

I don't think Kovacic is going to explode. But, he doesn't really need to to be a crucial part of this team. In fact, just the level he's playing at now, makes me want to buy him (depending on if there's an agreement or whatever that murky situation is) instead of Ramsey on the cheap. Now, if we were to sell Barkley and get Ramsey (and come out net + in the deal, okay, maybe). I'm optimistic about Eden as well. But, I get his end, the longer this goes on, the more power he has. It's not just about a move to Real. If he decides to stay, he can still get himself a better deal in the summer. Another question mark out there is what to do about a back-up to Jorginho. Cesc has only played the one match there, so the jury is still out. Even if he's pretty good in the role (all we need from a back-up), he's not getting younger and Jorginho can't play every match. Considering how crucial the position is for us, a back up DLP is pretty high on the priority list too. Or, at least will be in the coming year.

I was going to post the same thing that coolhead23 has said, but he beat me to it. Just use the ignore function if your eyes are so offended. "Scooter girl" seems like she has pretty thick skin, I'm sure she'll still sleep just fine. If everyone used this forum to tell other people how to post, it would at that point become unreadable.

Plus, he'd just dick us around all window. He's a pain in the ass to deal with at the best of times. Now that he has a bit of a grudge? Forget it.

No, no more dealing with Napoli.

Another article on the match: https://betweentheposts.net/chelsea-liverpool-1-1-sturridges-wonder-strike-fitting-end-to-very-enjoyable-premier-league xG map for the guys who like to see that:

This is what I mean when I talk about the lack of strikers. Dybala and Icardi are the only sure things, everyone else is a gamble. Dybala won't happen. No way. What can we offer him? He's got it all at Juve. It has to be Icardi. You can pay 100M for him, or 70 for Werner, or 50 for a younger gamble. Either way, I can't see us doing anything in January for that position. I doubt we'd recall Bats to sit on the bench. Since it will be near impossible to get a top striker in January, Morata is ours for the rest of the season.

I really thought he was going to come good this season. 20-odd goals type of good. Sarri has turned Dries Mertens in to an accomplished striker, and Higuain in to a 100M striker. I wish we could have seen Bats play, but he's currently getting more match time than he would get here, so.... Right now, every match looks worse than the previous. What's kind of messed up is that (according to Transfermarkt) we have 2 of the 20 most valuable CF right now (okay, 11 and 19), and we have a bit of a dilemma: https://footballia.net/matches/ssc-napoli-fc-internazionale-serie-a There really aren't a lot of good strikers out there. Now, I know that this isn't a ranking, it's based on transfer value, so age and contract length play a huge role. Where does Timo Werner sit with you? I've only seen him play for Germany. I'd kind of like to see us test out a Willian - Hazard - Pedro front line. Willian gets to play in his best spot out on the left. Hazard can free roam and drop deep as he likes to do. Long term, we need a striker, and as it sits now, I'd be shocked if we didn't have a new one next summer. Don't know what kind of quality will be available in January.

I actually think that our CBs are crucial to relieving pressure on Jorginho. when he gets marked he will move the marker around and one of the other 2 CMs has to drop deep to be an outlet. Kovacic was doing this from day 1. Barkley is starting to get the hang of it now (at least did on Wednesday). Or, this will give them (CBs) licence to carry the ball forwards, or pass the ball to a target man that doesn't fall over. Man-marking Jorginho is a thing, and teams in Serie A were absolutely doing it, but it didn't always work out for them. https://spielverlagerung.com/2016/12/03/sarris-napoli-in-rampant-home-victory/ https://footballia.net/matches/ssc-napoli-fc-internazionale-serie-a

Yes and no. We're going to be different, but the book on Sarri and how he wants to build up is already written. When playing for Italy, Jorginho was man-marked and didn't have a great match. People started say that he's been "found out" as if no one in Serie A had ever tried that before.