BlueLyon

Apart from Bayern, buli is awful these days. Schalke, Bayer, Wolfsburg are far cry of what they were. BMG are somewhat decent here and there but not top either. Then you have Werder almost relegated and Stuttgart in second tier. And these are clubs with good achievments not long ago. Talk about how great structure german clubs have... Dortmund would have to fall realy low to not catch at least europa every year. They have created good reputation for young players so it wont be hard to get top talent, because they will get play time and develop well. Bayern is not catchable in current form, regardless of who Bvb buys. They simply lose players every year and bayern is not, which is the key difference to stability. IMO Dortmund is doing the best they can in current situation, but Tuchel cant motivate team to give 100% every game. And their defence is shambles. They can easily afford better players than Bartra and Castro, but they dont. The injuries are destroying them too. Not just Reus, but half of the squad is injured every two weeks.

Nah he would be RW. I like him very promising, but for 60m not worth it. Also like I said very promising, but not realy the man to count on every game. IMO not that we need right now. I call this BS tho. Where would city play him? They have Sterling and Sane. Are they crazy to pay 50m to have someone for the bench?

Lol how wrong I was. He proven me wrong and with nearly the same squad we had last year too! To me 3:5:2 or 3:4:3 was basicaly dead after seeing how much better juve played with 4 defenders after switch. But all the respect for what he did by putting players to new positons and hide their weaknesses (Luiz, Moses). Main reason I disliked that system was because there are no wingers, but with 3:4:3 we still have them. I still wonder how will the system work in Cl where Conte wasnt as brilliant as in national league, when we play more than one game per week and when opposition learns how to play against this formation. But he certainly proven me wrong so far. The formation works perfect, however I would first give him a year or two to make final conclusions.

Its very good squad, balanced well and managed by great coach. But it has plenty of room for improvement. The core is there we just need to add few players. The league performances are absolutely brilliant on paper tho. Most consecutive victories, hopefuly most consecutive home victories...not bad at all. Be it Conte or squad, this team can grind out the results. But before saying anything about being best or one of best, we will need some consistency (PL next season) and more importantly how we do in CL. As of now, I can think with player or two, we could reach realy far, but a total flop is not impossible either.

Some hate nike for boring, but I absolutely love their simple kits, where they dont go overboard. For example that United kitchen table kit or psg flag kit from few years ago were dreadful. But when they go for classy, one colour, very very little details (like this years shoulders), that nike hoof and thats about it, they are amazing. Very stylish, modern, yet simple and neat. If we have kit similar to those fan templates, it will be great. Less is more. 3rd I honestly dont care. They are 90% weird coloured with some awful geometry graphics, and used in about 3 games per season.

Last thing we need is to be cocky. Any win will do it for me. They will be out to pay for that 4:0 defeat and I think this game will be anything but walk in the park like last one was. Its a common mistake from fans to compare with last match, becuase this one will not be another 4:0 rout for us. Considering this is not a PL game, Conte might do one or two changes in lineup and play bit more attacking than we do in the league, but since its still quite far in cup, I dont expect all out tactic either. We play at our stadium which should be main advantage and if we get this right, we will win but not by much, its a derby afterall.

Completely agree bar on few things; 1.) Christensen replacing Cahill is a no go. Cahill is decently tall, powerful, scores some goals and we need him to defend corners. We already have problems in air, which Christensen will only make worse. Christensen is brilliant young CB, but not physical enough for the prem. Certainly shouldnt be starter next year, unless we would play two tall CBs next to him. To me he is still just a different version to Stones. Great on the ball, but he has that feel of uncertainity, I prefer athletic defenders over this kind Christensen, Stones or even Thiago Silva for that matter. 2.) The players you talk are way too young. Its good we build for future, but we need balance. For that CM, I would definately pick experienced midfielder like Vidal, Nainggolan, Marchisio etc. Semedo is brilliant, however for LWB I would target either Alex Sandro or Guerreiro if the former cant be bought. RW, there are plenty of options. Sanchez (althrough Im not realy convinced by him) sounds most ideal as he can provide goals, workrate, experience and european/pl proven. 3.) 4 top players are absolute stretch. First, I dont believe we can make successful transition by bringing 4 new players at same time. IMO 3 is the max. Also, its just hard to believe we would actualy get 4 top players in just 2 months because its harder than it seems. For me experienced midfielder is absolute priority. Getting someone in mould of Cesc/Matic or Vidal would give us more dynamic and control. Then we should target RWB for two reasons; Moses needs backup/competition and Semedo seems absolutely perfect for that. LWB only if before mentioned players are available, if not I would not pay big amounts on short fixes. RW is the same. If we get someone new, either Pedro or Willian will possibly have to depart, which is harder said than done since both are still quite important here. So we should only get RW if there will be someone of great quality. On other hand we probably need to get AM anyway since we sold Oscar, and we lack depth. I would seriously consider giving Baker some role next year and send RLC out on loan.

I hear some Marchisio rumours. Even though he is 31 already I would still have him. Brilliant player.

I didnt say Verratti or Dybala wouldnt be good at chelsea per se. But i think for example in current formation, Conte would prefer another worker ala Vidal next to Kante, not Verratti (if we talk about big difficult games). Same for winger. IMO one thing is to have Eden with rather free role, the other is having two. I know Griezmann and Dybala can track back and could be a part of this team, same as Eden. But if you look at Pedro or Willian, those two chase the ball all the way down their flank. Pedro is like a duracell rabbit when it comes to that and helps Moses alot at limiting opponents space. While Dybala and Griezmann arent lazy, they will not go so deep, mainly because they have huge quality and its better for them to wait upfront for counter attack, but by that we essentialy lose a body at pressing. Sure having Dybala would give you entirely new options in attack and could even control the game, I seriously doubt thats in Chelsea dnk. Even if we had five Edens, we would still play pragmatic in key games without any nonsense. Conte is different to Mou no doubt, but honestly when we will play Barca, Real, Bayern, you realy believe we will try to control the game or attack more if we had bigger stars? IMO we would score that goal and then defend while try to counter them. And players like Vidal and Pedro are more useful in such tactic than Verratti and Dybala. Juve and Atletico are similar to us in certain aspects, but they like us have that one star with rather free role like us (dybala, Griz and Eden). IMO Eden and Dybala/Griezmann could disturb the balance. Perhaps someone like Sanchez, Lemar would suit us more because of their big workrate.

We will forever be pragmatic team, as long Conte is here. We could attack alot more like we did earlier in season, but you can see we now have a very safe and strict way of playing to WIN games. For such style there is no point of having several Edens. Therefore even if Griezmann, Dybala, Verratti etc become available, I doubt we would try to create superstar squad. Improvements yes, but as long it doesnt unbalance team. We saw psg and their attacking stars try to play bunker (for whatever reason) and how they failed. IMO like it or not, we wont dominate games for a while. At best we can outpower the opponent and kill them with high efficiency. Conte will not risk defensive stability in order to bring one or two superstars. Thats why I doubt we would replace Matic with Verratti and Pedro with Dybala even if those two could arrive, mostly because they cant defend in same fashion. Same for wingbacks. I would say this team under Conte will get maximum of one more star player and even he will need to be quite a worker. Conte will always prefer Vidal type of players to give that stability. Not that Im against this. If we get back to efficient killer machine we were in 2005-2010, I dont mind. But those who think we will sign another "Eden" or two in summer and play fancy football next year are IMO wrong.

Indeed. La liga is better in many terms, but when it comes to individuals, its certainly easier to players. First the schedule is not as difficult, then the refs dont allow harsh challanges and finaly the opponents are not as physical. During the course of season(s), it gets to the player and usualy it takes few seasons to adapt. Clear example should be Suarez who scored 40 goals in laliga, something that would be impossible to do in Prem Not to mention that there are only barca and real on another level in laliga and Neymar plays for one. On technical side, sure laliga teams are better, but that doesnt mean they are harder to play against. Lot of players will say its more difficult to play stoke than Arsenal because of the opponents physicality. Bottom line is the CL where Neymar been far superior to Hazard. But IMO playing in laliga gives you alot better prep to play in CL than PL does. Heck even Ligue 1 is better starting point to play season and have CL matches between. PL is very physical and thats why we are winning the league with the likes of Alonso, Kante and Moses. Because they can play stokes week in week out without fatigue and injuries. Then in CL they lack that technical skill neccessary to win it. But we cant play technical players because league demands Moses and alonso type of guys. Modern english teams want to evolve, but nature of league doesnt allow it.

We never had much luck in CL except for 2012 where we got it back for everything before. Sure we could have at least 2 CLs, but I have absolutely love what we achieved in past 15 years and have no regrets. If we won in 2005, then maybe Lamps or Drogba or Terry would move elsewhere sooner. Who knows. We created brilliant era since 2000s and every non biased football fan knows it which is most important. Im sure there will be opportunities to make our trophy cabinet bigger.

Ibra is the only one that can pull the goal out of nowhere and united is relying on his service in games too much. So many games they looked clueless but Ibra did his magic. Also, our biggest problem this season are headed goals. And Ibra is surely brilliant in that aspect so its very good for us. But sure Martial and Rash are not to be understimated. We will need to be very good to stop whoever they bring upfront. We just need to control the game and since we play at home, we take that advantage. I wonder what lineup will Conte pick tho. It would be nice to play one or two of Zouma, Ake, Chalobah, Bats but maybe Conte will go for safe option and field strongest 11.

Ibra banned for 3 matches, that means he wont play us on monday?

Bunch of rubbish. Barca is getting a new coach in summer. Besides what would Matic do of all people in barca?

He had same when he played in shakhtar

True. Eden strikes me as that kid with unlimited potential, but he needs to grow. I think he will peak at around 28, hopefuly still here.

But if you look at championships only, Eden is having much better season so far. Neymar picked it up in past weeks, but was poor before. And Busquets was having nightmare of season before recently too. Kante being best defensive midfielder of year so far deserves some mention in your list too, otherways you got all top performers right.

Neymar is a wonderful player indeed, but those dives are disgrace to football. Even Barca fans admited yesterday that he and Suarez are cunts when it comes to that. On another note, should Eden play in barca, he would be on same level as Neymar, but different qualities. I have no doubt about it.

Great result for us, small but big step towards our title.

I was quite sure that Psg can fuck it up after their horrible games against city last year. But it seemed impossible still. Games like this, Psg has no place in europe elite. They did well last year against Real and this year against barca in first leg, but then they absolutely bottled it vs city and barca second leg. Ref totaly blew it yesterday, and technicaly psg should lose but not by such difference and get to next stage. However their attitude and performance were horrible. And with games like that they have no place in europe (althrough barca didnt deserve it after first leg either). Also not playing Kimpembe who was sublime in first game and picking Silva, that alone shows Psg is showoff club and nothing more. They have much to learn. Verratti and Rabiot played like kids too.

How was he a leader? Just because he scores few goals and works hard? Then after season goes on, he becomes frustrated as fuck and shows how unprofessional he is? Leader will guide you when shit gets tough, and he doesnt even have to score or anything, but motivate the squad because its not easy to find motivation in difficult games. And then you see Sanchez rising the flag, laughing at his own team (for whatever reason). He aint that brilliant player to have that right and to demand it. From our perspective, its funny, but thank fuck he aint our player. If I was in arsenal situation, I would want him out as soon as in summer, regardless of these goals. And as soon those goals get low, people will suddenly see that. I said the same about Cesc and Ozil even when they were racking those assists for years now and people finaly see it too. And perhaps Alexis would actualy do well for us in PL, because you play those lesser sides, but in CL no way. Nevermind the fact we need to provide Costa with more balls, not less. Alexis would either shoot from all angles or like I said fuck things up, because his passing, decision making is poor for a winger (good for striker tho). He is as frustrating as Willian, but gets away because he scores those goals.

Ref was terrible, barca are lucky cunts, but all in all two things; 1. Kudos to barca for not giving up (not they deserve the win) 2.) Psg did it to themselves. 4:0 after first leg, and they come to camp nou in most ridiciulous tactical prep; you can lose 3:0, but dont 4:0. Parking bus that allows barca all time and space instead of exploiting weak pique umtiti defence (when psg attacked for like 5 min in whole game; cavani almost scored twice), yet they go and park the bus for whole match. In any normal attacking match, psg would score at least two and even if barca got 4 or 5 they wouldnt be through. Instead mr Emery says, lets see how many can barca score... On another note; psg parked the fucking bus and still concedes 6 goals? There you go...

I dont watch Napoli alot, but Koulibaly and Ghoulam two of supposed top napoli players played like shit in both games against real. Koulibaly gets lost against dribblers, he didnt mark corners well, while two goals from real in first leg came through Ghoulams side. Judging by that, average performers at best. And napoli conceded shitload against besiktas aswell... Just cant see why in the world would we pay 30m over Koulibaly, nevermind 60.

Would get Semedo over Cancelo any time. Just curious, press linking us with Cancelos and Gayas and Sciglios of this world, those players are playing average for two seasons now. And yet the sums clubs want for them are in 30s...