TRon

That article is talking about them having a £200m budget.

In theory I do agree with this. In reality though I am absolutely bricking it for Thursday, to the extent it feels like I'll almost not be able to enjoy it at this point. But usually by the time the game comes round I'm hyped up enough to lose the nerves and get into full battle stations mode.

Yeah I think it's clickbait stuff tbh, if they don't land Rice, they would probably have Caicedo as the back up midfielder.

I think that's a very surface level way of looking at things. Firstly, Chelsea might have been underperforming, but they still have a squad which is brimful of high quality players. They are still capable of beating anyone bar City. Secondly if we stumble now, it's not necessarily under-performance, our last 5 fixtures were always liable to provide some challenge, Leeds and Leicester were the only ones you could look at and say we should definitely win those.

Arsenal have been given the green light to sign both Rice AND Caceido according to an article in the Times today. They'll fund it by selling Xhaka, Smith Rowe, Holding and Balogun apparently. I mean that's just being greedy tbh, but realistically they'll probably be after one of those two, think this is just journalistic license saying they want both.

I'm surprised we haven't been able to get anyone else to replicate his role tbh. Joelinton would have been the obvious choice, but he seems to be prone to diving into tackles more than Longstaff would be.

Especially considering they wouldn't have won a third of them without VAR intervening on their behalf for the collective good of the nation.

He's obviously better on the ball than Willock, much more accomplished finisher, but he doesn't have either the pace or workrate that Willock brings. Not sure at all about that tbh.

Leeds were terrible. What concerned me about that game wasn't the result, it was how underwhelming we were. We barely created a chance in open play, and scored two goals from gift pens. Then still couldn't close it out. We have to get better service to Isak and Wilson, they'll put them away if we can find them in front of goal.

Chelsea is at their place, Brighton is at home. They also have less firepower, although I don't know that much about this new lad Ferguson. When we played them earlier this season they missed a hatful of chances, i'm hoping they might do the same again.

I think we need a win personally. I'm not one of those who thinks a win away at Chelsea on the final day of the season is an easy fixture at all. Personally think even an overpaid bunch of prima donnas would fancy stopping us from getting CL football in front of their own fans, and they do still have some very good players.

I think Villa under Emery are one of the few teams that might be able to cope with a bouncing Anfield. They have players who can hurt them.

Would help if we had Spurs back line stepping in for Brighton on Thursday then.

It's the one game I have said for weeks might be the wall for Liverpool. If Watkins and Ramsey play anything like they did against us they will cause Liverpool's back line problems. Also Emery is a crafty coach, he'll know how to set them up to nullify Liverpool.

Yet quite a few of us said it could happen, purely because we've seen it before. They also have the power of the establishment behind them to help out when it gets a bit rocky.

Soz like, but I don't want to have to win at Chelsea on the last day of the season to qualify for the CL. Worst manager will mean less now that Poch is set to take over. It's a team full of high value superstars, I don't think them being poor by their standards suddenly makes this a game I can be confident of winning. Like I said, they might well be up for it to impress the new manager coming in, and to put us in our place as it were. It's still in our hands, but I'm now hoping Liverpool might come a cropper against Leicester or Villa. Hopefully both.

Yep, that was my point. It's pretty hard for anyone to win the title in the current era with the majority of best players at Man City.

It is a bit unfair to dump on Arsenal considering City just blow everyone else out of the water by hoovering up the best players across the world. Not sure Arsenal's form has even fallen off that much, just City are winning just about every game like they seem to in the run in every season.

Any game is winnable. I'd rather have to beat Bournemouth or Notts Forest though if I had the choice.

He's started trapping the ball with his studs last few games and rolling it to give himself some space or maybe move the ball away from the opposition press. It worked initially, but seems like players are spotting it now and catching him while he takes that extra touch. I don't know if this is injury related, but he is definitely getting caught more. Doesn't help that he looks far more isolated since Longstaff has been out. Doesn't help that Joelinton has looked a bit tired recently and seems to be slightly off as well.

Any game is winnable, but I'd prefer not having to rely on beating a team full of international superstars on their own patch tbh. Especially if they know they can deny us the CL place which they assumed was theirs by right over the last couple of decades. At this point I'm pinning my hopes that Liverpool will come a cropper in their next game or two just to ease the pressure. To me none of our remaining games look easy, although a couple of weeks ago with a fully functioning midfield I'd have fancied us to win all of them.

This is my concern as well. From an attacking perspective we look much better than we did a year ago, but defensively we look more vulnerable, especially since we lost the midfield reinforcement Longstaff provides. We had Wilson and Isak up front against a poor Leeds side, but couldn't muster a decent effort on goal other than the pens which were handed to us. The service wasn't good enough. I realise it should be easier against Brighton as they will play more openly, but that also provides more danger to our backline if we get caught pushing up without the end product.

Yep, we had no right to be anywhere near a CL place tbh, but would still be a gutter to miss out with it in reach.

I had assumed since other than Lascelles, we don't really have big lads who can attack the ball in the air with conviction, we might start playing short corners and try to work some stuff on the deck more. But we haven't really gone that way apart from the odd time.

What I remember from the away fixture is that they played good football, but had no one who could put the ball in the net. Hopefully that will be the same here, because we are conceding chances regularly with our more attacking style, so if we don't score early, then it will help if they miss theirs when they come around. I think we have to win this one, I don't want to be going into the Chelsea game having to win that one.