Leif

These fucking wing backs of ours....If you don't know for sure that your pass is going to land straight at the feet of a teammate, don't kick it just somewhat in their direction.

Right. It's lunacy to praise our team for 'matching' Liverpool. And Klopp. A team which together has produced less results than when they had Brendan Rodgers. Nevermind that they're without 90% of their best attackers, who're still to come on. We're complimenting surviving against that. We're not even managing to play our natural game. No cohesion.

I'd rather Alonso be on the receiving end personally. Remember more headed goals than FK goals.

I have to ask, because his continued presence without adding quality only furthers my bitterness - is Bakayoko still carrying an injury? Is he still adapting? Is this one of those games in which his potential is further unlocked and he's better next game? Professor chaos my arse. Never seen a player put in less effort for us, not one single player. Would blow off my arm to swap him with Meireles or Tiago.

Never winning the CL with the likes of Drinkwater and Bakayoko starting for us, it's not even a rational debate to have; it's like thinking a 14 year old will win Formula 1 titles against the greats.

The whole point of playing a midfield 3 was to fit Fabregas. Now we play a midfield 3 with Drinkwater, who I believe has never played it before. We sacrifice an additional forward player, for, what exactly? 'Stability' which is clearly not there? I can't remember seeing such an obviously flawed line-up from us.

Remember, all but 1 of Liverpool's best attacking players are on the bench. And they're outplaying us in every single way. Conte. Got. It. Wrong. Say it with me. Flukey goals withstanding.

Bakayoko with the worst pass I've seen inside the box this season. Hazard seconds before, lighting up my heart and making me smile

Within the space of 3 seconds, 2 different players of ours in 2 different positions of the pitch, randomly hoofed it upfield into nowhere because they had no balls to hold the ball.

When you have one player on the field who enjoys being on the ball for longer than 2 seconds that can be proactive with those seconds, it's a disgrace, it just is. It's a huge problem to have this lack of on-the-ball quality. Everyone but Hazard becomes headless under pressure, thus they just start hoofing it upfield, no different from the last Mourinho era.

Simply shut Hazard down with all your men and you have no support for Morata. Don't shut down Hazard, and Hazard himself has no support, needing to create everything for himself. There is no way it can be rationalised that lining up with 2 attacking players is alright. Even if they're weaker players, the likes of Pedro and Willian at least give the opposition something else to think about. Hazard's best when there's chaos - are Drinkwater and Bakayoko going to cause it? I don't think so. Already everything for us is going through Hazard - but who can he pass to? Who can he pass to and receive the ball back from? Nobody consistently; he and we have to pray our other players have the games of their lives to give Hazard the environment he thrives in.

I remember too, but we weren't using a midfield 3 at that time. Ever since we've had 3 (Kante, Fabregas, Bakayoko) in the middle, I don't think Fabregas has had a bad moment. When you have 5 defenders + Kante & Bakayoko, it should be plausible that Fabregas can start in a more advanced role and forget defensive duties. Otherwise, like in this case, we have 2. 2... 2 attacking players. 2! And that's to Liverpool's 4, with their best attackers still to come on no less.

Yes, Musonda & Kenedy out stirs quite the migraine.

'Fabregas? Why would I play Fabregas when I have a slide-tackle master?'

Every top team we face under Conte I feel like we're playing not to lose instead of to win. 1 exception, only 1, was vs. Man City I think.

It is written.

Drinkwater hasn't yet had the opportunity to show we can actually trust him as a player. I barely watched him at Leicester, but for the cameos he's had for us thus far he's looked slow (football IQ) & not exactly great technically. I don't see what he offers which Ampadu wouldn't, for example. Is it really worth benching Fabregas, a superior passer, who can work in a midfield 3, with superior vision, with the most chances created per game in the league this season, for Drinkwater simply because the latter is 15% faster with maybe 25% more stamina? Madness if you ask me. We need quality one-touch moments to open up Liverpool's defence, not runners who can't launch more than 1 decent long pass per game. It says everything that our best passer in midfield today is Kante. The madness in Drinkwater no doubt playing 75 minutes, Fabregas maybe 15, instead of the reverse. It's completely backwards. You use as much of Fabregas's stamina as possible and then take him off. Common sense. Conte isn't right all the time. Even when we win.

Man United have made 0 tackles in 35 minutes, Brighton have made 12. There's a lot to take from that.

9 out of 10 times this season, Alli has been so, so, so, so bad.

More needs to be said of the fact Valencia are still unbeaten this season. Their manager said near the start of the season that for his philosophy, it was so important to have young players (on loan) who felt frustrated or hopeless at their parent club - it creates a combo of young-dreamers who believe they can beat anyone (much easier to believe you can beat Barcelona when you're 21 than 31), it creates a group that don't consider themselves too wise to question the manager's methods, and it creates a group with something to prove to their parent clubs. I don't think this recruitment policy would work as well the 2nd or 3rd time round, but it's working this time, because the manager understands mentality rules all. I wonder where Guedes will end up next summer. I don't think PSG will use him, I don't think Valencia can afford him, and so I imagine it'll be Atletico for him. They love to sign wingers who could be hit-or-miss before addressing their actually important areas (full backs), so it seems written in the stars. But following this season, will PSG let him leave cheap? I'd most like to see him at Roma, but they've just spunked so much funds on forwards lately (to no avail, which is hard to stomach.)

It's really depressing. There's plenty of young great players in Serie A, more-so than the Premier League, but the best of them are South American I think Italy's international future is in the hands of Juventus. They always have great Italians in their youth teams, and they're showing they'll actually play them or at least loan them to good teams. Roma are letting Italy down. They've loads of great Italian youth players, but they end up nowhere. AC Milan have the most Italians in their senior team, yet they're doing the worst out of all the big clubs

Even Arsenal have 5 at the back now. It's actually embarrassing how so many English teams have jumped on this since we started doing so for ourselves. Lack of confidence in their own systems? Trying to emulate what works for others, instead of figuring out what works for their players?

I like the idea of an unorthodox defence too. I'd line-up like this - Courtois; Zappa, Azpilicueta, Christensen, Cahill, Pedro; Kante, Fabregas, Bakayoko; Hazard, Morata. Alonso's a wild card. He can hit you with a decent header from a corner, but he can also get skinned. I actually feel safer starting with him than without him, but simply not in this game, nor vs. the likes of City/PSG. I think it's important specifically for this game that Azpi start alongside Zappa, and not in the centre. As good as he is, Christensen still lacks experience in games like these, and he's more likely to be covering for Zappa & then getting skinned than having a great game in this one. Let him be our heart, and let our previous-right back Azpi cover for our current right wing-back. Pedro has had an unspectacular game or 2 as a full back, but I think he's had 1 or 2 solid games there as well if i remember correctly.

Yeah, these days the PL is more about pace than strength, hence Salah now flourishing when he didn't before, IMO. The moment we have truly speedy full backs, I don't think it'll even matter how adept they are at marking or tackling. They'll simply always get back in time, or up in time, to provide some sort of support to their teammates. Currently, both Alonso and Zappa look like they're playing in their own bubble most of the time, like they're trying hard just to get in the right zones. That shouldn't be hard. It should be second-nature and shouldn't require being at top speed.