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Lol got an absurd amount of flak by saying pretty much that. Poor cho and bad Sarry... the irony here is that cho’s fans, some of which accused me of not thinking forward, imo are the ones not thinking forward enough... I mean past a single player. the next chos are watching all this with interest, and so are their agents. Club looks very week in contract negotiations and planning, and reckon this one is on marina.

Warning: Norwich just lost in the Carlin cup to a pub team, which imo emphasizes the point we are still very much a work-in-progress.

I will always wonder what is the love affair between EPL and players without any skill whatsoever. Glad to see the current England manager thinks differently.

I will write my last post here, and make my point, so not to dwell on it. zouma is a fucking terrible footballer and I wish he played elsewhere, esp a direct rival. But he’s here, so I just hope that he wins high balls, tackles and doesn’t fuck up. As for becoming a better player, he won’t. His technique is just not good enough at this level. He will hold us back in a different footballing era, when defenders played a different sport. Ok now I will just crawl back under the same rock. Enjoy your Zouma.

So you are saying I will have to do your homework? Ok once I get a to a real computer will do... but reckon a mere search on here should do. @tomo yes! Playing a cb (even good on the ball) as a cdm will naturally make a team more defensive. So only a good strategy against tougher opposition.

This is factually incorrect. Please check your records... several games with 100% success rate. once again factually incorrect. Surprised by how many folks got this one wrong. and no I will not do your homework.

quirky Luiz will always be made fun of, but arsenal defending, as a team, was ever more comedic. Of course bbc won’t write about it, after all the money is on eyeballs not on how to watch football games. I mean we are talking about Luiz' performance when in the first half Arsenal was pretty embarrassing. it’s going to be a very long season for arsenal and Luiz, because he will be exposed and we all know how he does when exposed, no real news here... how old is he and folks are still being surprised by his play style and weaknesses? Had that naive manager put Luiz as a cdm to disrupt the attacks of a far superior side, well, that’s too hard to imagine except that Jose has done it before. And it actually worked very well in these type of games. for folks who think zouma is a better player, even defender, there is always rugby... You might be missing that football is a game about controlling, yes! The football. And no, CBs do not play a different sport.

Increased presence in the US marked liked priced in.

Yeah poor opposition no doubt. Will provide a different challenge as they will likely employ a very low block, so not a whole lot of spaces to run behind their defense. definitely a confidence builder and a game to be on the younger side with the starting XI. Perhaps give rudiger his first start if ready? I think a good gauge for the quality of the opposition is just to think how important a player our “beloved” willian would be for them.

It’s all opinions, but if someone thinks zouma is good on the ball... well there are always other sports to watch. Do you notice that zouma always adjusts his body posture before making the easiest pass? Often even sticking his hands out a la bakayoko for balance. That shows that the task is laborious and unfamiliar to him. Handling the football is just not natural to him. It will be exploited and errors forced. On the ball, he’s exactly the same player and it is something that rarely changes. in other words, regardless of how solid and good at defending zouma becomes, he will never be city (or any possession side) material.

Heh call it whatever you want - couldn’t care less. Like I said, I disagree. I do not expect him to do anything like that against better sides. Would liked very much to be proven wrong here.

What ire?! Because some of us think he’s not the second coming like you? That I in particular prefer a different type of attacker, essentially more skillful? That I don’t see tammy ceiling as being that high? I have no issues with Tammy getting minutes this season, or starting yesterday, given our lack of choices. You’ve been reading the wrong posts from me and without context. I only argued that for the super difficult initial games we had, a more defensive approach was needed, and one with giroud (or no striker) bc tammy does not help defense as much. regarding Norwich, then I just can’t agree. They are shit and their defending was shit. Despite the excellent finishes, it’s not like tammy had to lose his markers, they were just not very close to him. All our players made free runs into empty spaces which will not be available against stronger sides. And once again, our regents would be their star players, especially the much maligned Willian. folks here are talking about two boats: tammy is bad and Tammy is good. But it’s a bit more nuanced than that. He fact u it’s sent lukaku packing should give a hint at what is at stake here once we intent to fight silverware again, hopefully soon. Regarding the stupid generalizations again, from other posters, was always a big fan of RLC, because he always had the most important for me, which is skill.

When all defenders underperform, look at the rest of the team. zouma wasn’t just slow in the second, he was very poor. That was too easy and that was Pukki sic not salah!

Honestly you and mr killer are underestimating our squad. Willian and giroud would be Norwich star players this season were they there. Same with the vast majority of our players. sorry, no, Norwich defended poorly today. Bad defense usually means a drop. They did not stay focused and closed down players. Even in our goals Tammy had no one even annoying him. It was a very easy game and we still conceded twice. if Norwich can improve and defend better, then this win becomes more important as they will take points from others. But what I saw today was really poor all over the place defending... i’m saying that Everton will go there and get all 3 points.

I also stand by what I said. norwich will finish bottom 6.

Heh fair enough I guess I’m really not a fan. Thought he was one of the poorest players against Norwich today. Very wasteful around the opposition box esp with the amount of spaces he had. His shooting is quite poor too. prob zouma does not make his life easy with awkward and pedantic passing, so will have to wait for rudiger on that.

His consistency is impressive too, esp at his young age.

He defended the score. That’s why he was introduced. We also had already built the score, so we were not attacking as much. Giroud is no longer a solid scorer, which is why he no longer starts, but he will help the team defend and be more compact. we seem to have a more fundamental disagreement here, which is that you seem to think that strikers score, and defenders, defend. That to me is not not how the game works.

Will have to disagree. Norwich is a very bad team and will just hand points to any decent side. They aren’t compact enough and players can easily find spaces behind their defense line very easily. Teams with good possession will just lock them down in their own half. regarding their attack, despite zouma obvious shortcomings esp with the ball, it’s our midfield and attack that are not yet defending well enough to protect the defense. That’s why that Willian and giroud come to close down the game, even if on paper they play in the same positions of the players they replaced. so, in a way this game wasn’t any better than he others, just ugh weaker opposition. Don’t get me wrong, extremely important to win it, esp for the young players. Huge boost of confidence, esp Tammy. We need to be more compact and defend better or we will have a hard time with the better teams. Hope the win and the confidence help and we improve. just to throw it out there, I guess I’m really not a fan of Emerson.

I guess the context is lost in you. Go back rooting for bakayoko buddy. Good for Tammy and confidence for the young team, and I wrote before he may become a useful striker for us (not great), but we all knew he could score against championship sides didn’t we? here’s another one: in this game, Norwich, we were no better than in the other games, but the opposition was championship level. Still a worrying performance for me.

That's how close any manager will get from calling a player lazy as fuck. Explains a lot actually.

Give it time... lots of bakayokos out there. makes sense, thanks for the clarification.

While you may have a knack for data analysis form your profession, you’d still lack time and focus, which the professionals who do this for a living have in abundance. I think it’s also an issue with the quality of the data. They have access to a lot more information about players than what is publicly available. Some from their own network (which is priced in their services) and some within the club. Often scouts travel to location to observe players and regions. They attend live games to get that extra detail regarding how the player moves and behaves when the ball isn’t nearby. They also speak with current and former colleagues (managers and coaches) to find out about the player (and/or use their network). Yes bakayoko is one of those who makes you scratch your head, but sometimes it’s something as simple as an influential agent pushing his product. And even after all that, we still have a morata who fails for completely different reasons. Mental aspect and football style. Sometimes they won’t adapt to life, region and language, like Diego costa. case in point, the fact that scouts and agents move so much money. Regarding, Marina, does not seem like she does a whole lot more than contracts and deals in general, which is a whole lot already with these complex player contract ownerships. Would also be very surprised if she did more than that.

In certain situations, yes. Better at what? We use the word “better” which usually encompasses a lot: like a particular characteristic that we value, an ability we value, and finally perhaps a deficiency we don’t mind. In other words personal preference plays a big part. At defending and tactics, not even close. pulisic was average against Leicester and that will happen a lot this season given his age and fact he’s not used to the PL. cho had several poor games last season, which is also normal and expected. senior players oscillate less. Willian is a weird one, but I’d not put Pedro in the same boat. experience is much downplayed around here. And yet you look at the teams winning silverware and the vast majority of their players are very experienced. When a team like Ajax loses to a mediocre team like spurs in UCL, folks say wow but they are a young team, as an excuse. even the physicality is different with younger players usually being more lightweight. So they are far more likely to get bullied by say a team like Leicester. so it is relative imo. Point being it’s nice to have options. I don’t agree that merely throwing youngsters in the team will make them develop.

We’d have established at least two youth players without fucking up our chances regardless. Same as we did last season with Cho and RLC. Lamps would naturally give more minutes to homegrown. All this is just making us less competitive in all fronts without any real benefit. now if the manager and coaches believe James can offer about the same, then it kinda makes sense given how little Zapa played.