The Madrid game, while huge in stature, isn’t nearly as important as we thought it would be a few months/weeks ago. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him on the bench for that one, though. We can win without him as we saw last year against City, and we should absolutely dominate the United midfield with the return of Dembele. It’s obviously not ideal, but I still feel very confident of getting a result tomorrow. Sonny has been in fine form, and Llorente will be perfectly ready for the moment.
Still sucks that we now are basically appeased with 2nd in the group when we would all feel cautiously optimistic that we could win with Kane in the lineup. Hope we stick it to MU tomorrow without him, make me feel very confident in the remainder of the season and our chances to cat City should they slip up
The real shitty thing with finishing second in our group is that we can't be drawn against a fellow EPL team in the knockout round. That could potentially rule out up to 4 groups which would just leave PSG, Barcelona or Beskitas. Obviously not a guarantee yet with 3 match days left but just sucks that all the other EPL teams got easy ass draws.
Out until 1 in the morning in Nola, I've been up watching this whole time (on a terrible stream or my friend's internet is butt). Where the rest of you at?
From the 64 frames of the first half that I saw, it seemed like we were more comfortable on the ball, MU had sparse chances but Rashford's fk and the giveaway from Lloris that had Dier flailing on the ground were both points of concern. We've launched like 4 super long range shots into De Gea's belly, although we're close to unlocking things, I believe. COYS!
I'm probably more upset with Dele's missed opportunity, Sissoko's (inevitable) moon ball with an open look, and a couple of bad passes from Eriksen, than the shots at range.
How many shots have we got off in the box? I think we could really use a tap in merchant style of player right now.
Thought Dier was very good outside of the goal. Just shitty all around there - still no idea how that shitty of a shot managed to completely avoid Vertonghen and Lloris. Eriksen and Dele provided little, if anything. Wish we’d play 2 at the top with Llorente on because he provides nothing solo. Winks was ok. Dembele looked great and Aurier was all over the place. Our bench, especially when compounded by injury, still isn’t close to good enough, and that’s always going to be our achilles heel. We just can’t afford to buy and stash like the big clubs. We didn’t deserve to win, but United certainly didn’t either. Hopefully we’ll put on a good performance against Madrid midweek before destroying Palace on the weekend.
I punched my coffee table like an idiot after the goal and my hand is already swollen and bruised. Jfc.
I don't understand why we tried to start the game with a Winks/Sissoko midfield partnership. I also don't understand why Sanchez didn't start. That was a winnable game and I can't help but feel like we fucked it up with a shitty lineup.
I completely agree about the midfield, but we did nothing to show that was a winnable game. It was either going to take individual brilliance, a lucky bounce, or a mistake for either side to win, and unfortunately as we are far too often (especially at OT), we were on the wrong end of that.
I don’t know if he’s head’s been turned or he’s just in a season-long slump, but vintage Dele needs to get back ASAP. Maybe ucl will jumpstart him.
No Aurier? Guess Poch is going more defensive, we can always bring him in as a sub if we need offense. Would have liked for Mousa start as well but Winks certainly showed well in Madrid. Some damn good bench options for us there. Let get a fucking win.
Need to get through the first 15-20 minutes without conceding. Game is going to be open during that time so that will be our chance to score again. If we get past 65 still up 1-0 we're probably going to bunker down and have to survive their onslaught. Shit this is going to be nerve racking.