kellzfresh

Exactly. So many people were happy and satisfied with his unselfish nature in the past, I'm having none of it. Let opponents know Eden f****n hazard is on the pitch.

You can clearly see how everyone is playing according to how they feel like. No patterns, no practiced moves just random movement from their attackers. Even martial has become rubbish. Compared to our off the ball movement and patterns against Burnley and Bristol (first half) we're already showing much more chemistry. If we get a centerback and leftback we could easily finish above them if hazard maintains his 14/15 season form.

Much more one touch passes instead of holding unto the ball sluggishly made the difference

Matic lost his powers vs Burnley last time, he's got it back now. The cycle is complete ?

True. Like for example, no fabregas to create... Hopefully Oscar has one of his 6 good games of the season here

I hope so. You can't play attacking football without dribblers and attacking fullbacks. Hopefully we learn this fact

Mane showing our right wingers how to be daring and make attacking impact on the game

Exactly. Getting a starter at this point will be nearly impossible because no one will have time to replace whoever they sell us, we have pretty much just screwed our defense up. It’s a shame too, because this started some promising with Batshuayi and Kante. We have such a huge gigantic glaring hole in the middle of our defense and LB. Azpi is competent there defensively but offers absolutely nothing going forward. If we had a LB that was even SOMEWHAT capable of going forward and providing a cross, it would open up so much more for Hazard. As it stands right now, nobody respects Azpi and they know that even if he overlaps he’s no threat to cross the ball, so they pretty much ignore him knowing that even if he gets the ball he is just going to cut it back and play the ball back towards our end or right back to hazard. I have seen this happen COUNTLESS times and it is sooooo frustrating. It’s not his fault of course, he isn’t very good with his left foot and he’s being played out of position. Even if you do consider him a good left back, there is still next to nothing behind him except kids. Then of course Bran is just awful through and through on the right side. Signing a good left back would kill three birds with one stone. It would add another CB to the mix (Bran), Strengthen our RB position significantly (Azpi), and strengthen our LB position (new signing) At least our flanks would be safe for the season instead of that last season ivanovic nightmare.

If hazard is on his game and Costa doesn't get banned too much, we'll still narrowly make it if Conte's astute enough. Leicester and Spurs are occupied in the Champions League, their squad will be stretched and they won't be lucky with injuries as they were last season so I don't think either will make top four. Manchester clubs will finish top two as it stands so our main contenders are Arsenal and Liverpool.

No he won't be sacked. But if he was planning on playing any attacking football then he'll have to scrap it this season because we can't play a high line with this back four. Attacking football with the slowest back four among top teams is impossible, AVB tried it and failed, RDM tried with mazacar and we eventually got exposed once people started getting in behind our tortoise defense, Mourinho tried in his second season and when our attackers lost small form we got destroyed by Spurs 5-3 and till this day we've been parking the bus or risk losing with any high line. So I expect Conte to eventually tweak his tactics as a tactical manager (at least he's not naive like wenger) when our defense ships too many goals for his liking, even if he does his favoured defensive 3-5-2, and we'll scrape top four with one goal margin victories. If we don't add any quick, ballplaying, tackling centerback this summer, I still expect us to finish in the top four but at the cost of much attacking football. Hopefully hazard shows up or even this will be a struggle.

I know Everton didn't want to sell last season, but if stones had a release clause last season, we would have gotten him. Just like costa. Players want to come but the people negotiating with the other Club's are poor at it. The moment it has to do with convincing another team to sell their KEY player without a clause it is beginning to look like we don't know how to negotiate from that perspective as things stand. But Manchester clubs easily get it done by throwing too much money to refuse (even bravo, a starting GK for Barcelona can leave to mancity) That is the Manchester clubs style, I'm not suggesting we should break world record bids but I'll highlight a little problem we have in negotiations. While we were struggling to get nainggolan from Roma, Juventus swoops in and gets pjanic from a direct rival, we started going for Koulibaly for a while and Juventus swoops in and gets Higuain from the same clubs that supposedly don't want to sell their players, while we struggle. Something is not quite right imo. I think we actually piss off teams with very low starting bids but this is another topic. But the truth is these days, if you want to convince a big team to sell a player to you, you have to put an offer they can't refuse instead of pissing them off with low starting bids and coming up with the money later when they've changed their minds to sell. Thankfully we got batshuayi after other smaller clubs had agreed a deal so we bid a little higher and got him like willian. But I had this feeling if we started to bid it could have turned out differently.

Simple, kante had a release clause. If he didn’t, he won't be here.

Blaise Matuidi has reached a contract agreement with Juventus, a deal between clubs is close, according to L'Équipe bit.ly/2bv0Jqz Honestly I would offer Matic to Juventus and grab matuidi to replace him. Matuidi was a starter in a midfield of a good possession team like PSG and starts for France and didn't look out of place. He's better than Matic right now, more mobile and is perfect for a box to box role. And we always have good players from the French League (Makelele, Drogba, Cech, Essien, Azpi, hopefully kante and batshuayi)

Very funny midfield we have. We have one that's good going forward with passing but terrible in defending/marking. And we have another who contributes little to the defence and nothing in attack. We need to try another combination without Matic to see if anything clicks

True, Matic has been poor of late 3-0 to Porto Surely we can get a centerback from them after conceding two to Bristol

Porto leading Roma 1-0 halftime. 2-1 aggregate lead, Roma down to 10 men, Derossi redcard. Roma could be out of the Champions League if it stays this way, no champions League money (35mil or so). Maybe a cheeky bid for Manolas first thing tomorrow????

Batmaaaan!!!!!!

Youth.... But it's Chalobah I want to see play the most

Since everyone is rejecting our offers and we cannot buy defenders, we have to start thinking of loaning some. Let's give cuadrado to Juventus for 2 years but in exchange we get Rugani from them on a one year deal so that we can get a defender in at least.

Needs to raise his head when attacking, why does he always look on the ground when he's supposed to create??? Annoyingly average

Strong, good technique, knows what link-up play means, can control the ball in tight spaces and can shoot. Needs to play more

He has weakness defending but because of the number of people in attack that can't pass or control a ball, we have to shoehorn him into the side and hope no one takes advantage of his deficiencies. Especially against smaller teams.

Exactly, he reminds me of Fellaini in attack. Maybe that's why Mourinho is playing him as well

He's so clumsy on the ball, no right leg, no ball control, so slow, awful when asked to attack. You could see the difference between him and kante when kante was allowed to get forward. Matic should be the one sitting back, he has no ball control in tight spaces.

What has happened to Matic? Ivanovic has always been terrible but Matic my word..... He's so clumsy on the ball, no right leg, no ball control, awful when asked to attack. You could see the difference between him and kante when kante was allowed to get forward. Matic should be the one sitting back, he has no ball control in tight spaces.