Leif

Here is the only player we should replace him with. Nobody has played this position & role this well at 19 years old. If he still performed to this level in Europe at 20 or so years old he'd simply have to be considered the best allround playmaking prospect considering age. The vid starts with his goals, then assists, then how he defends the ball.

He & Christensen are our only young loan players with top professional attitudes on the level of any other player we've had. The determination to succeed, and knowing you have to make a mark in football to be remembered (not just collect cheques like RLC & Solanke) will carry a player so far on its own, never mind combining that with a year or so of training with the likes of Lampard not too long ago. If only the likes of Musonda/Boga/RLC didn't already think they've made it.

And they thought 2nd place with Brendan Rodgers wasn't good enough, baha

Mahrez has shades of prime-Kalou.

If we signed only him, and kept our XI the same but for Radja in Matic's place, we'd probably retain the title, and at least get to the CL semi's. Add just 1-2 more players, like a Sanchez, or any top quality addition in either defence or attack, and we, Bayern & Madrid will be clear favourites for a CL win. Radja is 3 players in one. Kante is 3 players in one. It'd be pure domination.

There's a reason the board have no intention of allowing Luiz, Hazard, Kante, Fabregas, Pedro, Terry, Azpilicueta & co. to go, at all, but are more than happy to entertain in press conferences via Conte that Oscar, Costa, and more could leave. Those aren't indispensable players, clearly the manager believes that too; but we have a handful of players who are. And those are the players who by some shred of compromise within myself, deserve this 'halo effect' Costa gets for doing fuck all for 3 months but scoring 3 tap ins. There are so many strikers we could buy with a Costa sale & league win (with money left over) that'd genuinely raise the level of the players around them, fit our system more, give more as an individual, and score at least 85% as many goals (and no doubt assisting more) (there better not be any replies to this like 'do u really think we cld get him? :S'; yes boob, we have over a hundred million to splash next season) - Lewandowski, a damn run down Aguero who'd make us better than Costa does, Dybala, Sanchez in theory, Griezmann, even Morata & Mbappe if he plays how he played vs. City week in week out. Then there's the miriad of players who simply don't have the marketing agencies behind them, on a great level for the level of coaches & players they work with; but there's no point listing names hardly any of us recognise. They're out there, though; we usually buy them for 40m+ once they've joined a club slightly below our own. Next player we need out is Matic. And no, he won't be a 'scapegoat now that Costa and Oscar and Ivanovic are gone', , he's been rightly under scrutiny for 2 years now and we'll resume the campaign to have him out as soon as other priorities are taken care of. Though i'd sooner purge ourselves of Cahill so we don't have to experience the '8 games without an own goal or defensive calamity? he must've been a good player all along!' malarky again.

Are you implying Ivanovic's critisism was undue? That would be proper deluded. One day we're going to see posts like 'it doesn't matter he scored 3 own goals; it's a team game, and if the team didn't go out and score 4, this player isn't entirely responsible.' Take the blue specs off. There's a reason the players we can't stop bickering about - Ivanovic, Mikel, Oscar - have the door held open for them by the board. I wonder why. Maybe, the management see what 'we' do too; the faults in these players - and they're not so bad at their job to keep expecting 'good enough' while ignoring the reality that that mentality cannot nurture winners. As spectators, we're armchair-managers, but all managers, armchair or in the dugout, must share the common understanding that there's an upper echelon of class in football, and without ensuring you're part of that class you're allowing your rivals to adopt a more fierce squad & mentality. If Madrid fans never jeered and only ever graciously kept their mouths shut whenever Ramos scored an own goal, he & they wouldn't be half of what they are today. They demanded better - thus, everyone became better. If they were so passive like I'm seeing people on here being, you today being one, they'd never give a contest to Barcelona again. They'd be an Arsenal instead of a Manchester United - beacuse the difference boils down to mentality; a difference which determines whether or not you'll be winning league titles. If Barcelona 'supported' their manager this season, they'd be stuck with him for another year and run the risk of not even getting in the Champions League. Bayern? Ruthless. Juventus? Ruthless. Chelsea? Toothless, if we take this proposed road of wrapping professionals in cotton wool while they don't do their job properly for 3 months.

Posts are posted when relevant otherwise they'd be pointless; she isn't talking about 10 pages ago clearly, nor am I only highlighting her; I'm highlighting everyone on pg 185. Not everyone can be offhandly & randomly referencing some other pages in the thread. But if i'm wrong there, am I right in thinking there's a collective ruckus based on posts I still can't find, probably from 10+ pages ago, no doubt an opinion shared by about 0.5% of the forum? #185 simply makes no sense. This one day on this one forum on that one page we see one of the most bizarre things in spectator-sport history. Favelas will be named after page one-eighty-five.

What are these walls of text & lowkey comments aimed at? You read back the last 3 pages which includes posts from the same people and there's nothing but praise bar one valid comment on pg 185 that some of his decisions are 'odd', which they are, which is fine, because from some that would be a compliment. What the fuck is this mini outburst? Is it towards ghosts? Past demons? Find me 2 forum members not in love with Conte, because I'd struggle.

Throughout his Atletico career, his loans, and the bulk of his time here, he enjoyed his successes while playing as a lone striker, with few players around him; as in, he's been isolated up top, and made the most of it by being hardly marked, while wingers in those teams occupied the defence. In the 4-2-3-1 we used to use, he was quite ahead of that '3', and that is exactly what we did. Now, he's part of a 3; he's expected to link-up with, provide for, and work with those players around him, instead of solely feeding off the whole team (which you can see clearly is his preference.) This doesn't play to his strengths. He isn't a player who elevates those around him. So, we won't ever see him go up to that 'next level', unless we change formation again (not worth it for this 1 player), or he rejoins a slightly lower club and prowls around up top for them. There is nowhere but a downward spiral to go, if we wait for him to add anything more to his game in this system. And I'm glad more of us are agreeing now; he breaks down our build-up play. 1 out of 10 exchanges between him and Hazard aren't ridiculous. But it's not his fault. We bought him, somehow expecting him to be the key for the likes of Hazard to become even better, as-if he has a track record of this sexy style of football we wanted for 5 years. It's like if Barcelona wanted to cement & return to their 99% possession tactics, so seek out Ramires.

Struggling to bang goals in vs. the small sides, with the goals drying up further still, compounded with less & less clean sheets. A striker that's been about as useful as Demba Ba for all of 2017 so far. Nonsensical defensive calamity leading to conceding, highlighting yet against how consistently prone to brainfarts the side is after scoring - which, make no mistake about it, looks rare every game. No crisis, perhaps just tired players & methods, but, to not question this, to not demand better, would be typical of a club like Everton or Liverpool, who should simply be counting their blessings. We aren't them; we shouldn't be overlooking and ignoring glaring holes in our game just because we're 'so lucky to have so-and-so'. We all appreciate the win, but only losers are going to bed tonight not expecting more next time. And more the next time. And more the next time again. Winners take strides and set personal bests over and over again. That could never happen though, without someone, whether it's themselves or a coach or the fans, being critical of & thus working on the faults.

Bog standard goal that any forward should produce; there was nothing decent about his game today. His goal better not excuse that.

Introducing Matic is no different from Mourinho introducing Fellaini to protect a lead. Both meme-worthy, but we escape the Matic memes since we're represented by a classy manager now.

If Oscar was given 10 games in a row as a striker he'd be equal to if not better than Costa these past 10 games. I am begging for the China money. We can do so much better; the goals he's scored are the minimum for us from a striker, they were always the minimum before Torres came. He fulfills our minimum expectations.

Beautiful. Our Spaniards are our only reliable scorers; excluding the Brazilian pretender.

Fact is, we can draw every game until the end of the season and still end up top 4. We're fine.

I thought we'd scored and my stream was lagging. Thank you kind sir, for that second of joy, which'll be followed by an hour of sorrow.

Introducing Fabregas again, takes the pressure off of Hazard & Costa to perform; they surely believe goals will just come now that he's in the side.* Now, those are our 2 biggest attacking outlets; both (possibly) on a lax day because they aren't feeling that pressure to perform; there's no 'or else' in this scenario, there's Fabregas to save them. But it's unfair to rely on a midfielder to score you 2+ goals in a game. So in other words, bar a cheeky set piece and a defender getting in, or Pedro sniffing some coke while he's down, we're fucked - we do not have hungry forwards. Most teams do. *Now that pressure IS on after conceding, they're confused, they didn't prep their mind for this the night before. They're weak professionals with the discipline & consistency of Ash Ketchum.

We've finally been #exposed.

2 of our fowards are non-existent too. We are Kante+Fabregas carrying a team with Pedro as support.

Fucking Matic. See what training with him does? A bad apple ruining the whole cart.

Kante's clearly been instructed to pass forward far more instead of to his side or behind. He isn't doing it well, but I hope Conte doesn't give up on it, he can & should improve that area of his game, to become truly a top 5 midfielder worldwide. Even without that part of his game, I struggle to easily come up with 5 better midfielders all things considered. We're very lucky considering his age. We won't be selling him, so barring a horror injury, we're set for over half a damn decade in that position.

http://www.navixsport.com/sport.php?id=2601User_TwoPacWasActuallyAniceGuy

Picture us starting Matic instead, one less player who likes to score (we only have 2/3), we don't score that goal pretty much out of nowhere, we enter half time 0-0 whereas every other top side has been spanking Swansea, and we start biting fingernails. We need a central playmaker, end of.

This Fabregas/Matic fiasco is the only flaw in Conte's ideology this season. (I'm sure it'll resume soon unfortunately.) I disagree with the more 'rational' thinkers who somehow argue that Matic has had a good season. Compared to last season, yes, compared to any top player, far from it. Matic offers little defensively and nothing going forward; Fabregas offers as much defensively, but far, far, far more going forward. It isn't science. It's like remedial math.