The College Dropout

Still don’t think he was to blame for the Milan goal. The Milan central midfielder ran past 2 central midfielders who were well positioned to stop him. When he goes. Someone should fill in. It’s basic.

We’ve done the same thing with Botman as we are doing with Barnes. His comeback has been delayed but it seems to have done the trick.

It’s a penalty tbf.

Spurs were also not at full strength. Neither are Brighton. I’ve never heard of the goalscorer. He’s 18. Wow a squad.

The thing we have to understand about Brighton, is that it’s Bloom’s Love child not Ashworth’s. We will have our own approach to continuity and transfers and infrastructure etc. that Ashworth is helping to build.

Aye I would expect they report into him but he is ultimately responsible for them if they report into him. I don’t think he’s ultimately responsible for transfers but he is one of the key decision makers for them. Im not blaming Ashworth for it btw.

I assume the same applies to any international. If Tonali was doing an Ivan Toney in private. No blame to the club. But multiple people and parties did know. Just not us.

I did and I was wrong. He has quality and will get goals. He's not creative or good 1v1. He has a similar profile to Barnes and is the same footed. Moving him to RW limits his goal threat due to the angle of shooting opportunities and less supply coming from the left. That's not Gordon's game. Sure he could do it but you want him to get into goalscoring opportunities and to shoot. Going wide and crossing/cutting back to switch things up. Murphy is more of a traditional winger. SO being on the RW suits him. That's not Gordon or Barnes. A left footer, ideally a creative one is what we need at RW. Keeps the teams balance.

People can deny it. But Barnes LW & Gordon RW is suboptimal. It doesn't make a lot of sense considering what we have on the right more naturally.

The Tonali signing - if we had better intelligence, we would've heard whispers I'm sure. If an England international was involved in betting and talking to teammates about it. I would expect one of Trippier, Pope & Wilson and their camps to at least heard rumours and possibly alert the club to the smoke. He was the alleged "ringleader" - multiple people did know for a fact. The club should question itself about how good our due diligence is.

Agreed. I think even in Jan, we were light and the gamble paid off. The gamble has backfired this season.

Aye but Chelsea was running at an operational loss for 20 years - most years. Abramovic had a 1.5bn loan given to Chelsea. Spending £2bn to make £500m over 20 years isn't a great investment. Edit: Haven't looked at the numbers in detail

Including the years of losses? And cost of infrastructure?

A profit in buying/selling. Overall both would have made a massive loss iirc. The money they've spent on transfers and infrastructure

He’s has games being excellent defensively and not offering much going forward and vice versa. When he hooks it all up he’s going to be some player.

Or the fall over and fail to win a free kick.

I can see this too. He would be dynamite under Howe.

Without Stones, Dias, Gundogan, KDB, Haaland, Mahrez - this City side isn’t scary.

Agreed. Same with Olise. But Olise plays with less touches which helps him.

He’s an upgrade on Almiron. Bur you would hope for Palmer/Kudus level.

The fans at OT were really good

When he first came into the team under Rafa he looked so composed on the ball. Sometimes Howe should tell him or someone just to stay goal side is the ball and break up attacks before they get into the back 4.

Almiron has a lot of use. Should not be sold. His pressing is the benchmark for the team and his eventual replacement.

If you think Howe couldn’t have done anything more to rest Bruno - then let’s respectfully agree to disagree. Ditto Gordon, Almiron, Schar, Trippier, Burn when fit. Even Lascelles and Libra are picking up fatigue from injuries. But aye - nothing Howe could’ve done.

You don't think they could have won the league cup? Or he prioritised the fitness and sharpness of his team in the medium/long-term over the 1 game? Howe said: "It's in-built in me, I think every game is a must-win, and the term is probably overused in football. "But it's the only way that we prepare. We prepare to win every game, we never have anything else in our minds and we will prepare to win this one." So when Tonali, Murphy & Barnes got injured - long-term injuries btw - the best course of action was to run the fit players into the ground? You can't rule fatigue out as a contributory factor when you play a lot of minutes unless it's a high-impact injury. You could also argue at least one of these players came back too early and played too much. With injuries and fatigue. Howe needed to be more flexible in his approach both tactical and in terms of personnel. I'm not saying it's all his fault. But he could have taken a more long-term approach to keeping players fit and sharp. But ok - Bruno has played 93% of available minutes + Brazilian internationals and there is nothing Howe could have done to help keep him fresh and sharp. It's just unfortunate. Onwards and upwards.