Hybrid Angel

Andreas is a great player. If he stays patient with us and the game time he's getting right now, he'll be a guaranteed starter in 1-2 years. We have to remember that David is 30. God bless being in four competitions. Rotation when we have such quality options at CB feels so nice. Everyone is getting playtime and everyone is developing while having the hunger to establish themselves in the starting XI.

This guy has to be the most delusional footballer on the planet. Him having the audacity to reject Chelsea for Liverpool solely because of his will to play in midfield (not even realizing he'd probably be 5th-6th down the pecking order in Liverpool's mid) makes me think we've dodged a bullet, even though I think he'd be a perfect wing-back under Conte. Oh well, he's an idiot and he wasted his only chance of becoming a very good player in a certain position and actually having some sort of identity as a player.

His passing is just fine, he just needs to improve his awareness which is the most important thing in Football. There were a few instances where we would have probably scored if he was a little more aware of his surroundings, like the breakaway where he saw Pedro late (might have been just poor decision making in this example) or that one time Hazard was peeling off Leicester's defence and he tried to do it all by himself instead. I've been a big fan of Alvaro since his days at Juve. His ceiling definitely is in the realm of elite strikers, hopefully he gets there in two or three years. I think next year with a proper Conte pre-season(and of course this season under his belt) will be big for him.

Morata's movement in the box is pure quality. You can tell he's trained with some of the best strikers in the game, Ronaldo for example; They way Morata attacks the ball on crosses really remind me of Ronaldo's movement in similar situations. I had my doubts but I think he'll become a top striker, if he isn't there or on the brink of it. Fast, strong, good link-up play and decent at holding the ball - he can improve in this aspect -, and very solid finishing. I can't wait till he plays with Eden. Eden to break his goal tally for the club once again, imagine what he's capable of in terms of numbers when he has a striker who won't screw up a simple one-two almost every time. The Belgian thrives on link-up play.

My mistake, somehow I missed the 'he could hardly' run part entirely.

Not a midfielder for me, only should be considered an option there when an extreme situation calls for it, as it was the case against Spurs. That being said, if Matic was the one who made that interception leading to Alonso's second god knows how much media would have talked about him being the greatest DM of all time.

False. I'm not saying whether Morata is fit or not, but Conte's decision clearly wasn't because of that. It was due to the fact that we needed our front-men to press more and give the Spurs defenders less time on the ball, also for them to win more second balls, all of this to help our backline to push forward and not sink deeper and deeper.

WHAT A WIN. I don't know what some of you mean when you say Spurs 'outplayed' us. I don't see how that was the case in the slightest. Having more possession, more corners, and more stats in general =/ domination. I'd be gutted to have watched that performance if I were a spurs fan. Their only goal came from a Chelsea player and after failing with their initial plan, their plan B was cross after cross after cross, which we dealt with pretty comfortably. This just goes to show the team that has the ball doesn't necessarily dominate the match. From our point of view however, we could have done better in keeping the ball. But the circumstances we were in weren't the best by any stretch; Luiz in the middle, Baka's first game in months, no Hazard or super sub Fabregas to come on and slow things down. People need to calm down, this was the only exact type of win we were going to get.

Luiz in midfield. Willian behind the striker. Looks like it is a '3-5-1-1'. Will certainly help with our problem of getting overrun by Spurs' midfield in recent times. PS: Liking the technical profile of our back three.

Absolutely scandalous that we seem to be looking at Drinkwater instead of this guy. He'd be an infinitely better option for the squad, and I think he'd be just happy with that, getting occasional starts here and there and being a crucial back up.

Back to the Mourinho days with this one. Park a big bus and hit them on the break. Luiz and Kante may actually cope with Spurs' midfield so we don't get overrun there like we did last year. Big games needed from Morata and Willian. Burnley game was weird cause in one hand we lost to fucking Burnley and on the other there were promising signs. I genuinely think we can beat them but that's only possible if we don't fall in behind early, if not at all.

Dreadful, absolutely dreadful. The worst performance I've seen from a Chelsea striker in a long while. Hold up play and movement non existent. His first touch would have put Costa's and Lukaku's combined to shame. We were playing with 10 men from the first minute.

Because the person you're quoting didn't read the article.

Please god make this happen. I hope for Christ's sake we don't go with low-ball offers and piss off Daniel Levy. Go in with a concrete bid and get him. Get one of Aurier/Cancelo and Barkley/Drinkwater and this has been a very very good summer.

This thread is beyond pathetic. People are actually calling him Torres #2 for 20 minutes of play where he was completely isolated upfront and a penalty he missed. What would you expect Morata to do in this situation? He did all he could in winning multiple headers - which Costa never did - and he was unfortunate that he missed a penalty, which everyone does. In fact I found that he was quite good given the circumstance he was in. He's just been super unlucky this pre season. Getting played out on the wing a lot and the one time he gets to be a lone forward he is so isolated because the team is down a man and is parking the bus. Not to mention some on this forum are calling him out for his 'weak mentality'. What nonsense. Is that solely because he's good looking? Because the boy has a very good record in the Champions League and has overall proved himself to be a big performer in big games. Apparently 20 minutes isolated upfront is a more accurate sample size than his record in the past 3 seasons.

I can't stress enough, Kante needs to track Ramsey's runs. He failed to do so in the FA cup final and that's how they scored their second goal. A similar thing happened in the friendly we played earlier and Ramsey was unlucky to not convert that chance.

Just begging he's fit for Spurs. I bet Conte will play him if he is not match fit. Spurs' midfield will probably overrun ours all game if he don't have him in the team. Need his great press resistance ability in these type of games.

Yes because David Silva and even our little own Hazard are struggling in the monstrous PL. Let's be honest, Neymar has tolerated the Brazilian league and they're not any better than the prem. He would tear this league a new one. In fact it's this emphasis on physicality and less of it on technique and actual talent that is failing this league in Europe.

It's not logical at all. Luiz can pass because he has time and space as a CB. You can get the best ball playing CB in the world in Bonucci and stick him in midfield and his passing would look much worse. David is our libero and he's perfect where he is.

Van Dijk - Luiz - Rudiger. What a back three this would be.

I really hope that by the end of the season our back three is Rudiger-Luiz-Christensen, with Azpi as RWB of course.

Completely disagree. Not sure how much you've watched those two players but I find Nzonzi and Dier to be much better than the Serbian in the offensive aspect. The former has transformed himself into a regista with defensive capabilities in the last few years, and Dier is much more comfortable on the ball than Matic. Defensively, Matic is very overrated. He chases shadows instead of being proactive and trying to read the play.

Some are arguing that we're directly strengthening United but you can also look at it a very different way. United were gonna sign a DM anyways and I'm just happy that they didn't get one better than Nemanja and you best believe there are a couple of those on the market; Fabinho, Nzonzi, or Dier would have taken United to the next level. Even Dendoncker would have been a better option. It still improves the United first XI but at the end of the day United not getting a much better player like those mentioned above is a silver lining.

It's about time we win one of these "Super cups". God knows how long it's been since we won our last one. Hopefully we don't see any of the Batshuayi up top Morata on the wing nonsense. Start Morata as a CF, he has a great record in big games. In all honestly it would be a great morale booster going into the season if we win.

By god I thought he was terrible today. He likes channel a certain swagger in his play but he contradicts it all with the continuous need to impress and worst of all impress only through goals. Michy shows a lot of potential in a lot of aspects that are important in a modern striker's game, but he seems to focus too much on scoring goals, a lot of times trying to do so even though other options are clearly more viable to take. I understood this last season as he barely played, but I didn't think it would continue after his terrific pre-season form. Today's performance wasn't very mature. I expect more from a man whose job is also to link up with very good players around him. Morata definitely needs to start up top against Arsenal.