The College Dropout

He’d do a job under Eddie I’m sure.

They faltered because Conte wanted to get fired when he realised they wouldn’t challenge for the league. They’ve spent a lot of money in the summer. And have had a squad that’s competed in the CL or Europa league consistently. With the benefit of not being in Europe.

They are on pace to win the league. A dip is finishing 3rd at this rate. I think they could do an Arsenal and challenge a bit until the nerves kick in. A lot of people wrote them off at the start of the season. Never understood it.

Writing off CL football?

Be a great result for Spurs this. They’ve been surgically with the PL bottom half so far.

Livra will end up getting minutes on the wing. Tomorrow if we want to take Almiron off - there's only him.

No. 3 points against Wolves would make the Arsenal game a bit of a "free hit". You'd take a draw against Arsenal now.

I've resigned myself to the fact that only an injury will stop Burn playing in the PL & CL. I feel like Burn has started every game of significance that he's been fit for since he's joined.

Aye. Fact of the group is - we could not do too much wrong and finish last.

He has intelligent movement. Presses intelligently. He doesn't have the technical ability for me to know if he's intelligent with the ball. He spends so much time getting it on the left foot and rarely disguises a pass.

Nothing wrong with a 6-month loan or a cheapish short term signing. Sometimes teams need bodies in a squad. Arsenal got Jorginho because they needed the body. Real Madrid have Joselu because they needed the body. Both short-term signings to get from A to B. We'll need at least one of those signings. I do think we'll try Hall at CM though. We'll have no choice in the next couple of weeks,

From what i've read -we are close to our FFP limit, which is why Hall is on loan and obligated to buy.

We can't spend. Only loans. Unless we sell. And we can't afford to sell anyone useful.

The carrot of being 1 or 2 injuries away from playing was there though. But aye it’s as good as we could have hoped for.

At our best we beat them. From that angle I’m a little disappointed. Chelsea beat them over 2 legs this year. They aren’t an elite team. full perspective everything you say is true regarding Dortmund. I’ve not seen anyone act entitled to beating them though.

Their game plan worked very well in the first half. If they were clinical they would’ve scored at least twice. They kept finding space behind Trippier. The RW kept getting at Burn 1v1 with success. They overloaded central areas when attacking. If we went in at HT 0-0 we would’ve been the happier with the score line. The goal was gutting because we almost got away with it. Injuries didn’t help. We landed some punches with Isak on the pitch but without him in the first half it was either even or Dortmund. Second half I was distracted with life stuff. But we huffed and puffed and only created 1 good chance. We were unlucky that we hit the bar twice but they came from a set piece that deflected off a shoulder and another deflected shot. It didn’t come from quality play or successful patterns of play. I think our general pressure meant that we probably deserved the draw. Everything kind of went slightly to Dortmunds favour. Tactics, injuries, fitness, individual performances etc.

Aye. Bruno (suspended in CL) Joelinton (coming back from injury) Longstaff Willock (not played in 4-5 months, coming back from injury) And those are the fit ones. Hall is next up.

Thought Eddie got done by the BVB manager. And probably started the wrong XI in hindsight. I think he'll improve for the return fixture.

We're going to have 5 first-team squad players unavailable on the weekend. We are going to struggle to maintain results with that. Most teams would. But your Man U's can deal with it much better than we can.

Lovely first touch these days. Striking the ball cleanly too. He's getting there. He's reminding me a bit of Sadio Mane. Excellent pressing, great engine, pace, good ball carrier. Good box movement.

I think a proper CL club has 3 first-choice CBs. Or close to it. Dortmund had Sule on the bench. I've never rated him particularly but he's a full German international with almost 50 caps 100+ games for Bayern. I would've thought he was first-choice. I know ow that Schlotterback or w/e he's called is highly rated too. And everyone knows Hummels. They had 5-6 well-regarded names on that bench.

They exploited the channel behind Trippier. He could've done better on a few occasions in that space. I think Howe & Trippier himself are more at fault for that though. We should've sat Trippier in more and left less space in behind him. We've done that before when teams first targeted us there.

Massive blow that.

Maybe as a second striker ghosting into positions like a Dele Alli. But he's not the ability to play as a traditional 10. Turning on the ball, cute passes, perfectly weighted. That's not his game. Closest we have is Isak and he's injured.

They are 16th in co-efficient over the past 5 years. They lost to Chelsea last year in R16. They finished 3rd in the group stage the year prior and lost to Stevie G's Rangers in the Europa League. That's very poor. They are the level of Sevilla, Leipzig, Benfica, AC Milan. Good proper CL side who should aim to make it out of the group and, with a bit of luck of the draw, make it to the QFs at best. We were done by a slick European outfit, no doubt. But on our best day, we beat them. We weren't at our best, and they were close to theirs.