Belgiannutt

Kante, Hazard, Morata if any of these 3 start this game i'm gonna completely lose my sh*t.

Really hope we stop playing Hazard as the sole striker. Even when he's playin with Morata he already has a massive sized bullseye on his back. When we play without one it just puts far too big a focus on him. It's weird but it feels like in this setup we're using Hazard as a decoy to attract defenders and midfielders rather then actually getting him on the ball in dangerous areas.

Morata's on the bench.

Be quick though as all the other have been taken down and this one will likely be taken down aswell.

Why are people comparing him to Mahrez ? Lemar is a left midfielder. He's a winger. If we bought him it would for the LWB position or to play left wing in a 4-4-2 not to play in behind the striker. I like him. Got pace, quick feet, ability to beat players on the outside, comfortable on the ball, still young. Also i don't think he's cup tied in the CL as he only played in the qualifiers this season. It's a lot of money though. Hopefully we can use Batshuayi to pull the price down.

Ofcourse there's a lot of things that come into play. Argentina is a weird team. They have so many options in attack but they don't really fit as a team. Too many players of the same sort trying to use the same space. Well we kinda did before we hired Mourinho. We seemed to move away from a pragmatic approach and we were signing small technical players at the time trying to play a more free flowing attacking brand of football. We were heavily linked with Guardiola at the time aswell but when he turned us down we then turned to Mourinho. I always felt that was an odd way to go. I mean it's weird to have Guardiola and Mourinho as nr1 and nr 2 on a list of managers to get because i don't think you'll be able to find a bigger clash of styles then that in world football. Gotta wonder what we were thinking at the time. Did we expect Mourinho to change ? To play in a different way or did we simply give up our attempt at playing more attacking football.

Messi WHU comments were an extreme example to make a clear point about the quality of teammates having an effect on a player no matter how great. So i chose the greatest player and a shit team. That's the thing though isn't it. If you buy them young then you're looking at a period of transition, a drop in performance, as those players need to grow to reach their potential but here's no guarantee they will. I don't think lack of resources played a part in selling KDB and Salah. Hazard i suppose played a part as he occupied one of the starting position although considering the other 2 spots were held by Oscar and Willian i'd say the biggest culprit was Mourinho. He saw them in practice nearly everyday yet preferred Willian and Oscar over Salah and KDB. Even if we sold Hazard for 200 million i have no faith we'd actually get in proper quality. We'd likely just spend that money on 5 Bakayoko's.

Don't know if City is really that great a comparison. We're talking about adding 2-3 players. City are loaded with quality in attack. Even on the bench they have players that would walk into our team. To be able to compare our squad to City we'd be talking about signing 5-6-7 quality players. Also i question whether we'd be able to sign players of the quality of a De Bruyne, Silva, Sane, Sterling and Jesus. Money is one thing but would they actually want to come here. Every player in the world is dependent on his teammates. It's a teamsport. You can be as great a player as you wanna be if you're playing with poor players then that's gonna put a burden on that great player. For example stick Messi in WHU and he wouldn't have scored as many goals or performed as well as he did for Barcelona. Please name me a better key player , that we can realistically get, then Hazard ? Overall poor quality of the team will effect any player no matter how good he is.

I don't think people want us to sell Hazard but you have to be realistic. Nowadays if a player only has 2 years on his contract, a significant bid comes in and he tells the club he wants to leave it's very difficult to refuse that as a club. Arsenal did it with Sanchez but i think it'll hurt them in the long run. Now they won't get any money to replace him with. Sounds good in theory but it often doesn't pan out like that in real life. Liverpool sold Suarez and have since then spent a lot of money on players yet never gotten closer to the title then they did with Suarez. Tottenham sold Bale and bought several players in his place but they didn't improve even though they got close to a 100 million for him. Even if we sold Hazard for 150-200 million i don't think we'd be able to buy top tier players/talents. We'd likely be looking at second tier talents who'd have the potential. That would mean a drop in performance a period of transition and looking where we are now that would likely mean struggling to finish in the top 4. Even then there would be no guarantee that those bought players would reach their potential. Also key players are needed if you actually want to win trophies. Look at Tottenham. They don't really have a key player that stands out in comparison to the rest of the team. They're a very solid and well rounded team with no real obvious weak spots yet they've won fuck all. There's a reason why so many teams have that 1 key player that's above the team. No matter how well rounded you are as a team there will always be games or moments in a game where you need that 1 player to make a difference.

2 key points will decide how we do against them. 1 How well we handle their attack, primarily how do we handle Messi. and 2 how do we handle their heavy press. If we're able to escape their press and can get Hazard running at them we should be able to cause them problems. In order to beat them we're gonna have to be at our best though. Morata would have to bury any chance he gets, Hazard is gonna have to run at them like a madman and defensively we're gonna have to be near perfection to stop them from scoring. Won't be easy but i'm quite pumped for this tie.

There are fewer players doing the dirty work in those teams because there's less dirty work to be done. Barca or Real rarely have to defend deep for longer periods of time. Even against top teams. When Barca played with Neymar-Suarez-Messi did they pull their weight defensively ? Messi didn't do anything and Neymar did close to nothing on the defensive side. I didn't see either one of them busting a gut trying to track back a fullback into their own final third. Same with Real when they played Ronaldo-Benzema-Bale. I think you're overestimating how much workrate is needed when you're an attacking player playing for one of Real/Barcelona.

I don't think there were any real chances for him to shoot apart from that 1 in the second half where he shot it over with his left. When you talk about more direct and beating players do you mean centrally or in the wider areas ? Given how narrow WHU were defending i really don't think there was any space centrally to run into with the ball and even if Hazard beat players in the wider areas, if he went past a player on the inside he was just going to run into traffic while if he takes them on the outside at best he'd be able to cross the ball in. I think he would improve if he played for Barca or Real. Just need to take a look at what players Hazard had to play with over the years. A striker like Torres, a midfield of Ramires and a past his prime Lampard, Azpi at LB. It's not a coincidence that his level shot up in the 2014/15 season when we bought a goalscoring striker (Costa) and a playmaker (Fabregas) to help him out. 6 th season here yet we still haven't partnered Hazard with an attacking, pacey fullback. Even now he's playing with players like Alonso, Bakayoko, Drinkwater, Willian, Pedro, Cahill, Moses. Also while it's not as bad as it was under Mourinho we're still a very pragmatic side. Against top teams we rarely set out to dominate. We don't really fight other topteams for possession we just sit deep and try and hit them on the break. Teams like Real and Barca always try and dominate. That would also play to his advantage as he'd actually see more of the ball. You can debate how much but there's no doubt in my mind he'd play better for Real and Barca. I mean just look at how good his interplay is with Fabregas at times. Imagine if instead of 1 he'd have 4-5 players on his wavelength.

Can i ask what you expected him to do more ? With West Ham defending as narrow and as deep as they did i feel like there were only 2 real options for Hazard. Either stay central and rely on his teammates to stretch West Ham and open up some space for him in the central areas or move out wide and stretch the West Ham defence himself but then the question becomes who's gonna exploit the space in the central areas ? IMO, the only thing he could have done more was move out wide, try and beat players on the outside and cross the ball but Hazard isn't a winger though that's not how he plays. He doesn't purely outpace players.

Oh shut the fuck up you idiot.

Against teams that defend as deep and as narrow as West Ham did today we need better wingbacks and a 3rd midfielder that's a lot more creative then Drinkwater or Bakayoko. There's nothing wrong with the formation it's the personnel that's just too defensive and not good enough going forward.

That had a lot to do with the fact that West Ham were allowing him time on the ball. Let's face it when Kante's is expected to create something isn't right.

Disagree with the second part. Despite improvements Kante is still quite limited when it comes to the final third and really isn't an ideal fit for a more advanced role. Besides i feel the central role he's playing now suits him best. Normally the central player in a 3 man midfield acts as the holding player but for us ,due to our midfield being flat, it's actually the outside midfielder furthest away from the ball that acts as the holding player. This allows Kante to get stuck in all the time as he never really has to hold his position. He can always provide close support on both sides. Kante and Fabregas are playing in their best position. I think now along with better wingbacks we should be on the lookout for a 3rd midfielder. Bit of a mixture between Kante and Fabregas. Someone who combines their 2 skill sets together (obviously not as good ) Someone capable of providing a creative spark in the final third and linking up with Hazard Morata Fabregas while being able to defend well, cover a good amount of ground and help Kante out on the defensive side.

True but the lack of quality in wider areas will always be an issue regardless iof what formation we play. Better to go all in on your strenghts then to try and spread yourself thin to cover the weaknesses.

I think the 3-4-3 might be a bit too predictable at times. The 3-5-2 allows Hazard and Fabregas more freedom to move around the pitch and allows us to mix it up alot more.

Courtois; Azpilicueta (c), Christensen, Rudiger; Moses, Kante, Drinkwater, Fabregas, Alonso; Hazard, Morata.

Not disagreeing with that but it's easier to bench Willian/Pedro for the 3-5-2. If we sign a top attacking player he's gonna want to play. It'll be a lot more difficult to switch to a 3-5-2. And even with a quality injection to our front 3 against the top teams the 3-4-3 is just too vulnerable in the midfield area. I don't think we lack goals. We just lack quality in the wider areas and our midfield options are also too defensive (not enough quality on the ball) Of the 4 midfield options we have 3 of them are defensive players.

Disagree Pizy. I don't think we need an attacking player. Imo the 3-5-2 should be our starting formation. Better wingbacks and more quality on the ball in central midfield is a must for me. (that + some squad depth) We're extremely poor in the wide areas due to our wingbacks inabillity to take on their direct opponent and lack of a final ball.

Referee's a joke. Botches the call then sends Conte to the stands.