The College Dropout

I'm not sure there's a player in our team i'd have over their's. The goalie - maybe. Lascelles over Keane a personal choice. I reckon these lads on their bench start for us or extremely close: Lookman, Zouma, Tosun, McCarthy, Calvert-Lewin. Everton are lightyears ahead. Walcott usually scores against us. Sigurdsson penalty. 2-0 defeat.

I've been one of his biggest critics but it's not his fault he's the number 10 and shouldn't get boo'd. Apart from his first 4-5 months here. At a PL level he's consistently been pap for us and has consistently played through it. It's just now the boo boys have targeted him. Samething happened with Sissoko. He played more or less to a similar standard when he was being "Pardewed", over-rated, then worse than shit. He was performing to similar levels except perceptions had changed.

A good night tonight and i've got a decent chance of breaking into the NO league top 10. With 3 Everton players in my team - another 3-0 battering with the right players scoring and assisting wouldn't go amiss.

If you're going to have 3 City players, you're going to need a couple players on the bench that start or come off the bench for big sides. Sterling and Laporte out for me. I expect only Milner will come off the bench for me. Bissaka's team are getting punished. Sane goal though. In for Hazard.

Firminho’s been awful for some time. This season he’s not offered anything. Not creative. Not creating space. Not scoring. Lukaku - he’s scored 15 or more PL goals in 5 of the last 6 seasons. Including last season. In the division currently only Kane, Auba, Vardy and Aguero would have that level of consistency. Maybe Laca too. So he’s a good valuable player. He’s not the first and won’t be the last attacking player to lose his mojo with Mourinho around. BUT his all around game has always been p*ss poor. The touch is so erratic. He looks too heavy and half a yard short on pace. Link up play is terrible. He’s 25ish and still can’t play with his back to goal much. There was a time some thought he was better than Kane and there’s no argument to be had there at all. So that level of hype? Nah he’s not on that level.

Into the top 20. And my captain got 4 points. Had I been captaining Raheem I would be out of here and probably top 10 In the NO league. 64 points.

Didn’t know he was still playing tbh Scored a classic Robben goal in the CL midweek

Can’t see Liverpool keeping pace with City. They lack that bit of class in midfield. Like the look of Lookman a lot. Top technique. Andre Gones routinely looked awful for Barcelona but I thought he was the best player on the pitch today.

My opinion on Perez has remained the same for awhile. He’s the right #10 of a side that should be in a relegation battle. He’ll score 5–10 goals. And a few assists. But not consistently good. I expect attacks to breakdown when the ball gets to him.

Hardly comparable since it's done for safety reasons and it's not a national competition. La Liga and other tournaments will use it as a precedent. Whether it's right or wrong they will. I believe they've had this issue before at an earlier stage in the competition. And the offending team (well the fans) were kicked out of the competition. That should have happened again. But there's too much at stake. Too much fanfare. Too much money. If this is allowed, why not the Champions League final in Qatar? Why not the FA Cup final in Seattle? Why not a regular PL game? IMO it's a slide.

It's a slippery slope imo. Gives La Liga a leg to stand on to have games abroad.

This is true but also not the full story. The stats seem to suggest that he works really hard, does a lot of ‘take ons’ and wins the ball back a lot. That’s why I force myself to put up with how rare his genuinely brilliant moments are, he obviosuly contributes a lot to the team. He’s a really hard player to assess, especially in the context of our limitations and the other options in the squad. Like him a lot as a lad though. I think about it... James Maddison cost £20. Anderson double that. Josh King would be £20m+. For what we speculate, Ayoze is about the right level. I feel like a Maddison would take us to the next level. A Fraser on the wing. We'd become a different beast entirely. But that would mean spending £50m very well. We won't spend that.

There was a few times I was certain he was about to lose the ball but he either used strength or quick feet to get himself out of danger and I was impressed. Thought he was better than Kenedy on the ball.

Clark on the left of that three is better suited imo. Dummett too. Need a bit more pace on the sides of a back 3 imo and a left-footer is a big help. Never liked Lejeune on the turn.

There's also less pressure for him to do so here. We've given him the respect to do things his way.

Firminho is horribly out of form and it's ruining their attacking rhythm

Agreed. Although it's a bit more ugly than City on the pitch. More star names and less foresight. Neymar is a brilliant player but the play-acting is OTT. Re: Thiago Silva - people have such static opinion on players. They ignore fluctuations in form. Silva was immense tonight aye.

This season how many teams are genuinely fun to watch in the PL? City. I like watching Bournemouth and Fulham were a laugh for the wrong reasons. Liverpool are far more pragmatic this season. The technical skill of teams now is very impressive. Due to rule changes and stricter refereeing there's more room for more technicians these days.

He's brought out something in Diame too. Him and Diame link up well. Diame can be very good with his passing and movement himself and Ki brings that out.

Great header. Bad goalkeeping. Cane be conceding goals from headers nearly outside the damn box. He was in no mans land

It was to the point the Burnley fans would get anxious whenever he started closing one of their players down. Bossed it.

Doesn’t have as much quality on the ball as I hoped. But strong in other areas.

No need, Diame is back doing well in his destroyer role. Aye we’ve benefitted from two mobile and dynamic midfielders. We look to keep the ball much more in midfield. Shelvey is much more direct.

Many thought it would be him to drop out for Lejeune when? Because Lascelles didn't start our first game back in the Prem, Clark was favoured in front of Lascelles A lot of people at the time did think it would be Clark and Lejeune like. Clark was generally rated higher than Lascelles after the championship season Aye. I was saying how Clark was rated higher than Lascelles by many in the Champo. But it was Lascelles that became the indispensable one.

Made Dyche look a league below. We looked the far better coached team. Could’ve won this 4-0 no complaints.