Magic Lamps

I remember bas Dost scored like 14 goals in 9 games or so twice in his career and he still is an average striker. There are no really world class strikers available so there are huges prizes quoted for the in-form decent ones. I would say stick to Giroud until some true quality becomes available.

Emerson who is the most ordinary of players might very well be more reliable. Especially in games like these were defending a lead is the priority. in 80% of games Alonso does nothing offensively but passing the ball back to Hazard every time he gets it and maybe put in a mediocre cross once in a while. I am 100% Emerson can do that too but he will not get found out on the break and if so he has the pace to recover.

They would have never given us Martial. But if we had taken the money and invested half of it in some run-of-the-mill in-form winger like Douglas or Rebic we maybe would have like 4 points more now. Marina obviously fucked up milking Barca for money but my word. when someone comes to you and offers you twice as much as he is worth for an average, over-the-hill winger you fucking bite their hand off. Pure luck they even came back once with a better offer. I just sold someone from my uni an old financial calculator which is basically useless to me because I got a better one, for almost its original price. Sure, he was desperate and his exams are just days away so I could have milked him for more. But then I know that my calculator is probably not the only one he is in for so I grabbed the money and ran. The prospect of holding out for a few more quids when you already got the option of an excellent deal is not worth the risk of not completing a deal at all.

in all of these games we were very dominant in the beginning and crumbled defensively more and more.... I think this is testament to a) us not being completely immersed into sarriball yet especially in defense b.) our inability to finish off games after a lead which is imo due to both a bit of lack in killer instinct and attitude as well as our poor finishing skills in our front 3. We have to make up for these results on the road. where we must not get beaten. OT, Anfield and Etihad will be hell. I hope Sarri gets a bit of a plan b cos if we play like we did so far vs City we are gonna get humiliated. We need to be able to make games more tight and not concdede so much space right and left when having a lead which allows sides we have dominated at will to come back into the game.

Once again awol when caught on the break. his constant roaming around in front of the strikers without being able to create something on his own or anticipative enough to prevent counter attacks on his side is absolutely annoying in big games. Especially against rapid counter attacking wingers like United's. Forced Luiz into a rash decision which we know are not his forte. Left his side deserted so often., it is a wonder we only conceded once from this. I really like his unpredictability against teams with limited counter-attacking prowess who just sit in deep. but clever, pacy wingers will always exploit his catastrophic combination of lack of pace and lack of tactical discipline. If he was Marcelo who can run rings around the defence fair enough but he is not. He is just an average player with an above average eye for goal but deficiencies in all major parts of a left-backs game.

I think that should settle it. Not gonna improve. And even if he were to go on a purple patch like in his first 10 league games here we knew his confidence would just drop when it matters and he would let us down. Just like Torres, every ball into him is a turnover.

Still playing like some 18-year old in his first professional football season. Just never learns. If he was just a plain average player like Alonso it would not even be as infuriating. But there he is all the skill and pace in the world but just not able to make his mind up and concentrate one fucking time when it matters.

AS glad as I am about the equalizer this is really worrying. We are unable to kill of matches and have been basically since 2016 where we still had a decent striker. It is plain obvious how much individual mistakes and a rift in individual quality costs us. Alonso, Willian, Morata and to some extent Luiz, as everyone on this forum here knows. are passengers and a clear cut below our core of world class players like Hazard, Jorginho, Kante and Azpi. And the really mind-boggling fact about this is that we more or less got capable albeit not class replacements for all of them in the squad and just don't play them. Conte has not played them and now Sarri does not. I don't know what tf is wrong there. Really need to cut our losses with Morata and buy a decent striker. I maintain a decent one will do. Our front line will make him look like a world beater if he does the basics right and has stable confidence.

great shot by Kante. thought that was in.

every ball played into morata ist lost. what is he still doing on the pitch?

indeed. Kovacic has been great. ran rings around their ponderous midfield. Grioud and Pedro are what we need now.

that could have easily been a red on mata.

Once again a free header. really wasteful once again.

Lukaku's ball control is so wayward. I would wager even our goalie is technically better than him. Could have used a player who just holds his ground and hits the ball hard and in a sensible direction from time to time today tho.

Willian is so damn useless.

hazard will score. i feel it.

it always like this. we score a goal we get complacent dont finsih the game off despite dozens of chance and then concede a stupid lucky equalizer from a shit side who had not had a chance all game

player down with a head injury and play goes on. abysmal refereeing once again. but tbf we just need to take our chances better. once we are 1-0 up we go so wasteful

Got to be kidding me with that freekick

My opinion is that you can not really judge a person on his public persona only. Few people are just good or bad. In Terrys case there are a few incidents he cought negative attentiona nd they were overblown by the media but then again he did a lot of good things too in his private life with his chairty efforts and also on the pitch ofc. JT was a player who always gave his all and put his body on the line literally. Remember those head first dives, hands behind the back. He did this without blinking once. Without knowing, I can tell that he is a caring and very brave person by that alone.

They did not only draw, which alrady is the best outcome for us but they drew in the most humiliating fashion too. Esp with their wonder defender van Dijk causing the dumbest penalty in history bundling over Sane half a meter before the touchline running into nowhere and their short on confidence record summer signing blasting that pen over after a match where the so called best offensive lines in the league fialed to produce anything worth mentioning. Nice to now that Shitty and Loserpool go into the international break with a fresh reminder of their limitations.

Last year we bossed posession against them too and won at the bridge and lost at OT where we had less.Utd are not really that good on the break anymore. I dont fear them but still after that rigged international break is always dangerous.Hopefully our players dont feature much but I am afraid they will.

could still have fucked up the lob or tried to poke it. but yeah if that ball had been inch perfect he probably would have shot straight at the goalie like the one before. Maybe hazard played it like that on purpose.

exactly, what i said: regardless of the outcome of City-Pool we will be second.

But that is not the same is it? Torres already showed how good he can be and jsut lost his pace and confidence with an injury reducing him to the average striker he actually was without both. But RLC has shown that he is an ok player at Palace and everytime he is. We dont rely on his confidence or pace comign back but just to show more of what he is good at. But anyway I don't think we will see that until he features regularly but even then I dont think he is that good. Next summer we should decide. Either sell or give him a chance at the starting XI if he has warranted it.