Belgiannutt

Yeah, this season we're just gonna have to make due with what we've got. Just hope we don't get hit with injuries.

Problem is we need actual starting quality players not squad players. We need to be looking for better players then Moses/Alonso/Pedro/Willian.

I really disagree with the notion that Hazard isn't a consistent player. It's perfectly normal for a player to have "quiet" games in a season. They are human you know. There's not a single player in the world that measures up to the ridiculous definition of consistency some on here have. Even Messi and Ronaldo have quiet games the difference is that they're tremendous goalscorers playing for teams that are so dominant they don't even need them to perform well to dominate the opposition.

I think he's gone in the summer. Probably came to an agreement that we'd let him go in the summer as long as he doesn't cause a fuss til then. We're not gonna find anyone as good as him. Best case, we find someone as close to his quality as possible (Morata, Lukaku,...) and use the rest of the money to strenghten other positions. Not much else we can do if he really wants to leave. People saying this is just the media making things up, i doubt it. If it was just the sun or the daily mail i'd say sure but the more reliable newsoutlets are reporting it aswell. Let's face it there's just too much information coming out for it not to be true. Maybe he changes his mind but i wouldn't hold my breath. Just gotta accept it and move on.

2 destroyers is just 1 too many. We need a creative force that can pick up the ball deep and distribute it to the entire team. Problem with what you said is that we'd need that creative forward to drop deep to pick up the ball leaving us with 1 player less in front of the ball, 1 player less to pick out. Not to mention we'd have 2 destroyers who would be close to useless when we have the ball.

Ever since teams started adapting better to our system he's been downright average (and i'm being kind) Especially his decision making in the final third is annoying the hell out of me.

You can add Pedro to that list. Lost count of the amount of times he lost the ball.

That does seem like an extremely high number given the minutes he's played. Maybe they count corner kicks as "crosses" ?

Think a lot of what you said is simply a consequence of teams sitting deep against us now. 1. It's a lot more difficult to dribble in the box when there's 10 players behind the ball. I disagree though that he's stopped trying to dribble into the box. He was cynically fouled twice against Palace otherwise he would have gotten into the box in a good scoring position. 2. Again i think that's just about the numbers teams have put behind the ball.(and the lack of quality on the ball from our back 3 and 2 holding midfielders.) The more players the less space you have to put the ball through. Same with switching play to the wingbacks. There's less space out wide then before so switching play is more difficult as the ball needs to be more accurate to make it. I think that's why our players are taking more touches they feel the pass is to difficult too pull off so they're looking for easy passes. 3. Yeah, i agree Moses is definitely feeling tired. We really need some squad depth in the wingback positions. 4. Disagree we are still pressing it's just that the likes of West Bromwich, Sunderland and Palace don't really care. They're more then happy to kick it long so out pressing is simply less effective against teams that play the long ball. Don't think changing formations is really gonna help. It's the personnel that's the issue. In a 3-5-2 we're still playing with the same back three, Kante and Matic. Personally i'd just stick Fabregas in for Matic and play the same 3-4-3.

squad depth ?

Think i had a conversation with you about the lack of quality passers in our back 3 and 2 man midfield about a month ago. Teams have simply figured that out aswell. They're sitting extremely deep and are focusing their attention on our front 3 and 2 wingbacks and allowing Cahill, Azpi, Kante and Matic time on the ball. You basically want what Azpi did for our goal today. Push forward into space. Force them to deal with you and if they don't, punish them and deliver that final ball. Fabregas should indeed be starting ( against the weaker teams) but it's frustrating that we again find ourselves having to pick between Matic and Fabregas. They both offers us something extra on one side of the pitch but they weaken us on the other end. In the summer we really need to be looking for a playmaker that can spray those passes while still being able to defend properly.

The adidas deal would have lasted till 2023 so it was more profitable to end it immediately and sign a better deal with Nike.

Wouldn't say we're overachieving. We're not playing better then we can we're simply playing at 100% of our ability. "Only" 2 goalscorers is actually perfectly fine (for now). Only the absolute top teams, Real Madrid and Barcelona have three goalscorers ( high double digits 15-25 goals). As long as Costa and Hazard keep up their goalscoring form we should be fine. Also about not having any goals from CM. Do note we are playing a different formation where the main responsibility to score goals falls onto the front 3 with our wingbacks pushing forward making it a front 5. The job of our CM's is to simply mop up behind that front 5 and offer a passing outlet out from the oppositions attacking third. So it's a bit unfair to expect goals from those 2 considering they rarely find themselves into goalscoring positions.

Got no problem with gay people. I feel like the government is actually protecting the child from being influenced by parents/friends or simply the social pressure of wanting to fit in.(being normal) I would say it's a similar situation to the government putting a minimum age for having sex. The government should, in theory, not have a say in when you are ready to have sex as that is a personal matter that's different for everyone however this is done to protect the child from being influenced or being forced into doing something that they don't fully understand. The same applies for choosing your sexuality. I think the problem is that at the end of the day it isn't up to the parents to decide what sexuality their child has. It's up to the child but can a child really decide something like that ? I don't know about you but as a child i had enough crap to deal with without my sexuality being up for debate. So the government takes the decision out of the parents and the childs hands until he is of a more suitable age(18) to make such an important decision.

According to reports he's on £120 000/ week here while at PSG he was on 150 000 euros/week so he took a very small paycut.

True but i don't think we should forget how vital Pedro's goal was just before halftime. Dominating a game like that, using so much energy only to be level 1-1 at halftime must have been a massive mental hit for them.

Yeah, i remember i had a discussion about this with "Excalibur" a couple of weeks ago in the Conte thread. About the lack of abillity on the ball from our back 3 and 2 man midfield. Looking ahead, if we want to have a chance to go up against the big teams in the CL we're going to need to upgrade in several areas. LCB(Cahill), LWB(Alonso), LDM(Matic), RAM(Pedro).

Think you need to take into account the way the game went. We were struggling to get him on the ball.(especially in the first half) Didn't think it was his fault really. He wasn't hiding, he wasn't being passive, he was making runs and dropping off but we just weren't able to get the ball to him because of the pressure Spurs were putting on us. Even so i did feel like the rare moments where we did get the ball to him we were at our most dangerous in the first half. Second half we did better, we were more composed at the back and making better decisions along with Spurs being unable to keep up the pressing. We had a good period of about 25-30 minutes (where the goal also came from). I felt he played his role in that period, interchanging and keeping the ball moving around. Also i do agree with "Blue armour" that he seemed to be more closely marked then any other player. I mean the space Pedro got for the goal i don't think Hazard ever got a quarter of the space Pedro had there.

“Thank you for voting for me, see you next month for the same award,” Hazard said. “It’s good, but at the end the most important is to win the season.“Without my team-mates I am nothing. We did well this month and I hope we can continue like this.”Hazard attributed his improved form to a more single-minded approach in front of goal.“People said I didn’t shoot enough,” he said. “Now I try to shoot and score every game when I’m on the pitch. Before I was thinking about the last pass to make an assist, now I can do it myself.”

Why ? There isn't anything for you to get pissed off about. Hazard was just saying that IF he'd ever leave it would be on a high note.

Cheeky bastard

a) I never said they misplaced passes. We do at times struggle to find solutions (circumvent the oppositions pressure) and end up getting forced to pass back to courtois and have him kick it long or have one of our 3 cb's kick it long. That's where imo the lack of quality passers comes in. It's not just about passing range but just general quality on the ball. You stick a player like Modric or Verratti (not saying we're getting these players just using them as examples) and we're going to become more comfortable on the ball. Why because they're simply better. They see things Matic wouldn't see, they're capable of making passes Matic wouldn't be able to make. "Why not we just wait and see if that happens first?" We need to be proactive. We need to keep improving. c) Oranges and apples, you can't compare the 2, different positions. The pace of the italian league is indeed slower then the PL. The 3-5-2 would probably struggle in the PL. The beauty of our 3-4-3 is that when we defend it's a 5-4-1. While hazard and Pedro aren't tasked with tracking back they do have an important role to play as they tuck into the midfield and force teams to play the ball wide giving the rest of the team valuable second to get into position. Our 3-4-3 is a lot more solid then a 3-5-2 would be. Why not ? What's the harm in thinking ahead ? I'm not saying we should immediately make these improvements but if we get into the champions league next season then i do believe we should make these improvements. Now maybe i'll change my mind over the course of this season. Who knows what's gonna happen but i don't see the harm in expressing my opinion on how to move forward.

I agree with the first bit. Like i said there are other factors such as like you say we've scored early at times which has allowed us to sit deep and counter. Disagree with your stats. Sorry i find passing success rates to be extremely useless. Kante and Matic might have high succes rate but most of their passes are straightforward. Maybe i should have been clearer but i'm indeed talking about passing range. About hitting those 50 yard diagonal balls, balls over the top, into the corner, finding players in those tight pockets of space. I'm talking about truly great passers. Right now i feel like the fluidity of the system is doing most of the heavy lifting and allowing Matic and Kante (and the back 3) to play easy and straightforward passes. But teams are going to start figuring out ways to deal with us and then we are going to need the players behind the ball to be able to make those quality passes. "The question is whether having that type of deep lying playmaker will work in this system or any sort of system Conte is comfortable in. The answer was presented in the case of Fabregas. No. " I did say "a great passer that could still do the dirty work". The reason Fabregas isn't playing has nothing to do with him being a DLP and everything to do with him not being able to do the dirty work. If Fabregas was able to actually do his defensive work then he would be playing instead of Matic. I agree with the last bit. I think Conte has done an amazing job getting everyone up to their very best. Personally i'd say of all our starters Hazard is probably the only one who still has a higher gear to shift to (2014-2015 form) the rest are all playing at their very best. But that's kinda the thing though. The way we've played so far is imo close to the best we'll ever see from this group of players so in order to improve even more we're going to need to buy quality players. We can't settle we have to keep improving as our aim as a club is to go further then just the PL. Imo we can improve in four positions. LCB (Cahill), LWB (Alonso), LDM (Matic) and RAM (Willian & Pedro). I know that it's harsh on Alonso and especially Matic as they've done extremely well but that's just how i see it.