Really bad game against a shit west ham team. Lampard needs to own some of the blame for trying to bring giroud and Pedro in from the cold and thinking he could get away with it. Also willingly keeping kante on the bench. Lineup didn’t make much sense and when that doesn’t work the manager has to wear the criticism. Spurs and arsenal will be nipping at our asses for 4th soon.
I just can't understand the Pedro choice. Wanting to get Giroud going I can understand, but Pedro should never see the field again. Need to get rid of his ass.
I can see spurs getting it together (tho they’ve been conceding like crazy) but Arsenal are quite shit. More worried about United tbh. As to the performance...thought it was very good in the first half minus the Antonio chance and then were very good after the Kante/Willian change. Not great but it’s a long season, it happens.
united!? They have been worse than arsenal. They just lost to a team from Kazakhstan 2 days ago and unlike arsenal and spurs, they are sticking with their shitty manager. Not worried about them in the slightest. Not even sure they get to Europa league spots this season.
Feel like Valencia beat us there. Half the team looked like dead legs. Unfortunately the fresh legs looked dead too.
wasnt just dead legs. Team can only play one way and giroud isn’t capable of playing that way. Mount looked rusty. Pedro looked awful. I wonder what we’d look like in a 4-4-2 with Pulisic or mount at LM and Reece James at RM with kante and 1 of Jorginho/kova at CM with giroud and michy up top if Tammy is out. Team just can’t play the same way without Tammy. Michy can’t link up well enough and giroud is too slow.
I thought you were saying more than spurs. I can see an argument for arsenal. Will wait to see how they look under the new manager first.
Yeah. Great points. Mount hasn’t been the same since Pulisic has worked his way into being a starter. Not sure if that’s maturity or what, but he seems like he’s pressing and thinking on the ball too much instead of the free flowing talent we watched the first month of the season. Tammy is a huge loss for all the reasons you said. I honestly thought Giroud would hold up and link up better but his rust showed today. I thought Timori was really good today. It felt like watching that Emerson didn’t really try and take advantage of the line. It seemed he was pressing inside almost always looking for overlaps that just weren’t there. The left-center part of the final third was too clogged for much of the game. Not sure if that’s tactics as much as it is players that prefer to move that way. In the end, we are still very young and the lads have a lot to prove. Sad to lose to these Hammers but beat Lille and finish top 4 and the season is a massive success.
Also, I was completely and totally wrong about the transfer ban situation and apologize for my prior shitposting.
Great news but kind of concerning that Zaha (for 80 million) seems to be the big name that we want in January. Wing not even a big need atm. That said, good to see Chilwell, Sancho, Werner, and Haaland all at least mentioned but I doubt any of them move before the summer. LB, possibly striker, and another midfielder (preferably one who can pass and run as RLC looks done for the year) should be the only January signings imo.
I’d love Sancho. Though rumors of his training and being a diva don’t line up. I think he’d be a different teammate and be more motivated at Chelsea. after watching Zaha get shut down, I don’t want any part of him. I’d be interested to hear what Frank wants from a personnel perspective.
I would call RW a big need. Ship off Pedro, move Willian to a bench role, and bring in Sancho or Ziyech.
Just hopefully excited to see us actually have a plan for signings to address team needs instead of panic buys
I hope we take the approach we did in the 1st season of mourinhos second tenure. We wanted Diego costa but atletico wouldn’t sell him to us until the next season so we waited. We can’t win the title this year. I don’t think this team will win the title next year but with the right signings we can be in the thick of it. I would rather wait and make the right signings in summer instead of panic ones in January. that said, if we can take advantage of sancho being unsettled at Dortmund and get him in January let’s do it.
As far as the signings I would want I think we need a long term RW, LB and striker and we need to be open to any world class CBs who might become available. my preference for RW is sancho, LB Chilwell, unsure on striker and CB. maybe sancho is available in January but I have my doubts even with the issues he’s having. No way Leicester sell chilwell this January to us. I could see us getting a striker maybe in January. Beyond that, I’m hoping for a quieter January than the tabloids and twitter fans want.
Came here to say this, totally agree. Hope we sit on our hands in January unless we can find an advantageous deal. We have needs, but don't need to rush to the window in January.
It'd take a Zaha transfer request and outright refusal to play to make his fee somewhat reasonable thanks to the stupid contract extension he signed. Not even sure who we'd target at striker in January, if it happened I'd prefer to keep Giroud over Batshuyai.
I just read the official statement. There was some strong anti-FIFA rhetoric in it which in my opinion is awesome. Glad we call them out. Infantino needs to get his organization in line.
Why is Christensen the starter now? Our defense looks worse since he replaced tomori in the starting lineup.
Why does willian take corners? I just can’t imagine that Reece or mount aren’t better. Frank has such a hard on for everything willian.