stozo

The problem is we’ll almost certainly get fined for a UEFA breach at the end of this season already (because the Anderson money doesn’t count because it’s deemed a swap). The way it tends to work is we’ll agree a financial settlement agreement with them in relation to it but those settlement agreements tend to contain large future fines for non-compliance. Villa’s agreement last year saw them get a £4m fine but with a settlement agreement that would see them fined £17m if they breach again. And if they breach again, it wouldn’t just be £17m because that just relates to the agreement of their past breach, they’d be fined again and have to agree another settlement agreement. So you’re looking at a circa. £25m+ bill. And that fine gets booked on your losses for the financial year (which impacts both league SCR and UEFA SCR), effectively reducing the amount you can spend further. So we are probably not in a world where we can just ignore UEFA rules moving forward.

His number one quality as a centre back is his comfort on the ball, and simply when he is playing on the left he is less comfortable on the ball.

Massive win today. Sets us up for a critical moment in the season. If we don’t seriously strengthen our attack in the coming window, it will be a huge disappointment. There are no spending restrictions in the women’s game so it is completely in PIF’s gift to do the business that will get us up to the WSL. With us only 3 points behind the automatic slots now, we really should finish the job in the second half of the season.

There is about one second between Elanga’s check, which is the first time he’ll see where Barnes is, and his shot. At that point he has a defender one yard in front of him who has the potential to make a challenge and probably has some idea of the positioning of the second defender, but probably not exactly because again he has come from behind him in the past two seconds. On balance, was Barnes probably the better ball? yes. But the idea it’s a simple pass is just total rubbish. It’s a split second decision that led to a decent shot. As I said before, if Barnes or Gordon do that then nobody is bothered.

That last sentence is just bollocks. He has two options inside - Wissa and Barnes. At the crucial moment, Wissa is yet to reach the D of the penalty box and has a Chelsea defender dead ahead of him. Barnes is the better ball but he’d need to play it right across the face of the Chelsea defender at a point where you can clearly see the Chelsea defender moving his body to try and block that ball. I think he has every right to take the shot on and it’s not a bad effort by any means. If Barnes or Gordon do that, I don’t think anyone says anything.

Brilliant today. I actually think when attacking that playing RB suits him perfectly in that he is good on the ball and ends up having plenty of time to pick his pass.

Very good performance. We were the better side over 90 mins. Chelsea scored two goals from nothing and we were unfortunate to draw. A bit more luck and we’d have won. I think the frustration is really that if we’d played like that against Sunderland (or even West Ham) we’d be in a lot stronger position in the league. As it is, games like Chelsea feel like a must-win, which they really shouldn’t be.

Not sure what people were watching saying he was dogshit?! Terrible first moment when he got caught on the ball with the crowd on his back but after that was really bright I thoughts.

Think some of the criticism this season has been over the top but he was dismal today.

Has to start on Sunday.

Superb tonight.

A good point. Poor first half, excellent second. Very unlucky not to win. Particularly gutting that it’s a mistake from Tonali that costs us, but I guess they also showed the benefit of having a player like Grimaldo who plays all over the pitch from left back.

100% this. Despite playing a not great half of the season, we are right in the mix. The recruitment in the winter window will probably decide if we make it or not.

I don’t think we managed the game badly last night though. We didn’t defend a corner well and we paid the price. I think people think we were too negative but you cannot do anything but take a more defensive approach when Spurs play with 4 forwards and their full backs high. Our approach gave them nothing from open play and then unfortunately things went wrong from the set piece.

We have this issue because we're a good but not elite footballing team. Because we're good but not elite, we find ourselves in close games more often. City have dropped points in 1/3rd of games where they've been holding on at the end - the trick for them is though they've only had 3 of those games this season. By comparison, last night was the eighth game we've faced the 'holding on at the end' situation this season. Yes, we've made mistakes in some moments this season (e.g. Bruno doing a one-man press against Liverpool and leaving us exposed) but overall we're just not good enough with the ball to (a) ensure we aren't getting into too many close games and (b) relieve pressure with elite passing.

I think you are underrating how technically good you have to be to do this. Apart from when opponents give the ball away, it’s really only Arsenal/City level teams that can kill games in this way. When the opposition put their full backs high and put defenders up front, you have to drop players back with them. But that in turn usually means that when the ball breaks you have very, very few passing options and none of them are usually easy. I think Tino had a moment in the 87-93+ period where he hoofed the ball away - really you only have three potential passes in that situation. And all of them involve moving the ball from the right back position into a central position within our half, which if you get it wrong is an extremely bad pass to make. All to say ‘keep the ball’ is not easy at all. Even last night you saw City concede a very good chance to Fulham late on at 5-4, which they got away with. So it’s not like even the best teams kill games all the time. It hurts because it has happened to us before but the late goal is just unlucky last night - Thiaw wrestling with Romero resulting in him ending up on the ground and leaving Romero free, ball breaking in a place where we had nobody, an unlucky deflection off Thiaw and then Ramsdale not making the save probably because he doesn’t see it coming through bodies and the deflection doesn’t help.

Did he do much wrong apart from the poor pass to Tino at the end? I don’t really remember any standout bad bits apart from that? And I think I can forgive him for the ball at the end as part of his adjustment period here - that ball inside to the full back is a very ‘us’ ball to play but it just wasn’t on that particular time.

Think you’ve just got to take this on the chin. We were the better side, and then get caught at the end by a freak goal - overhead kick off a shin and then knicks Thiaw on the way through with the goalkeeper unsighted. I think what it speaks to is that we aren’t as good attacking as we have been in previous seasons. We could have blown Spurs away today but we were pretty patchy going forward - some good spells but equally in previous years I think we’d have scored 3 or 4 today.

I think the last sentence is key for me. It's fairly clear Schar and Burn are in their last 18 months as top Premier League footballers and the same with Trippier. So even if Botman stays in the next 18 months we need to buy two new centre backs, a right back and a left back (given Hall currently has no natural back up). If Botman goes then you're looking at five new additions. And I think we'd be naive to say there is no risk around Tino and Man City, so you could very easily spiral into an 18 month period with a complete overhaul of the defence (bar Thiaw and Hall). That's a very high risk thing to do - you might get six wonderful players, but equally if you miss on a few of them the defence looks shaky quite quickly. In that context, if Botman is happy to renew then I think that would be the smart thing to do even if he is a bit more pricey than we'd like.

Their basic problem is they have no central midfielders who can pass a ball. Bergvall is a converted attacking midfielder, Gray is still very raw and developing, Palinha is an excellent tackler but doesn't offer much from a passing perspective and Bentancur is similarly defensively minded/limited from a passing sense.

My prediction: he plays 30 mins tomorrow night. In Scunthorpe with the U21s.

You’ve quoted one line of the post because you have literally no way to address the rest of it. It’s tactical basics and why you press as a team, not with one or two players. Just be happy we made smart choices on how we set up defensively, which led to us winning the game. FWIW I agree Elanga has been very average so far this season, I just don’t believe in battering players who have done nothing wrong. Elanga was fine today.

It’s exactly the same. Whether it’s 10 yards outside the box or 30 yards, if you press and get bypassed you have a potential problem. Example: Elanga presses Dias, who bypasses him and steps forward with the ball into midfield. The only way to stop him is for Bruno or Tonali to step onto him, that leaves space behind them and with a few short passes, they find the extra man and it’s a goal. That is the exact sequence of what happened against Liverpool and it’s exactly why Elanga was right not to aggressively press.

I'm sorry but those saying he should have been pressing are absolutely clueless tactically. Elanga's job was to stop them doing the things that would give them a massive advantage e.g. a defender running the ball straight onto our back line. He did that fine. If you want to see what pressing at the wrong time gets you, I refer you to minute 90+10 against Liverpool, where a decision to press at the wrong time cost us the game.

Pleased we stay in touch with the top teams with the win today. But what on earth is happening with the new manager? It's been nearly a month since Langley was sacked. If this was the men's team everyone would be going barmy about a new appointment taking this long.