Away Toon

Pre-season has gone well for us and I don't think he was the problem last night. I didn't like his starting 11 too much but I understand why he played who he did. He made changes during the game which were needed but the problem was that too many players let him down and he couldn't change more than 3 players. He'll have more players available next weekend and we'll have a better first 11 because of that. I don't understand at all why he picked the team he picked and why we were so negative from the off. This is not the first time Rafa has done this, Villa away last season which arguably cost us relegation was the first example. There is no excuse for playing three defensive midfielders, no excuse for ever picking Colback in centre midfield unless the rest of the squad is dead. Anita right midfield, if Pardew had done that imagine the reaction. Dummett is the poorest footballer I've ever seen playing for us, certainly recently, we have half a dozen who could play better than him as a LB including Colback for fuck's sake.

I'm absolutely fed up of people who should know better defending Colback, Anita or Dummetts performances. I can only presume they have only started watching football recently and have never seen how a good player plays. Dummett is particular is the most limited fullback I think I've ever seen.

If Rafa picks either Colback, Anita or Dummett for this one, I think it will be time for a reappraisal of his so called world class manager status. To a lesser extent Hanley and Perez should be no where near the starting line up either. He's been here long enough now to know better and he does have other options after buying 8 new players.

There is a good player in there somewhere, but to me he really didn't look like he wanted to be out there. He'll be gone before the window closes unless absolutely no one wants him.

If we play like that we won't go up, nothing wrong with saying it.

You'd think we still had a moron managing us after that display. That was worthy of anything the last few dickheads produced and most of them didn't get the opportunity to buy virtually a new team.

Am I the only one thinking that Rafa is just over complicating things and doesn't really know what he's doing?

Fulham must be favourites to go up, as they are way more likely to score than we are.

I fucking don't. He's had a couple of good games in what, three or four seasons now.

Colback, Ania and Dummett, that's a lot of shit for the other 8 players to make up for.

Keep it tight and wait for a bit of magic

Hoof

Although we know that Rafa is a defensive minded coach and that Hanley starting is no surprise at all, playing two defensive midfielders at Fulham with Anita replacing an attacking midfielder is not very encouraging from an entertainment point of view. There will be no gung ho KK tactics going on here.

When I watched Villa on TV last season, apart from the forwards most of the team seemed quite reasonable, including Clark. Brummie must have a better idea of what he's really like.

I don't think we can shy away from it any longer, the only question that matters at this point is what individually and as an online forum collectively, we are going to do if Rafa picks Colback to start against Fulham? This would of course mean that pretty much 99% of us on here, haven't got a clue about football and should automatically be banned from posting our thoughts about the beautiful game. I think it's important that we begin to psychologically prepare ourselves for this eventuality and agree on what as a board our reaction will be. We allowed ourselves to believe that previous managers that picked this talentless oaf were just idiots which to be fair they were, but if Rafa does, what then?

Well if he picks players in form for there clubs in there best positions who knows what might happen. It's not very promising however that he's talking about picking Rooney in whatever position he's played by Man Utd this season. If Rooney is still England's best forward we are definitely fucked.

Think he will soon be one of our starting CB's.

Good article and a reality check for the majority who seem to think we are going to walk it like the last time. I hope we do, but there are huge holes in the present squad and lots of players still with us that stunk up the Premier League last season, namely Elliott, Janmatt, Anita, Colback, Tiote, Dummet, Mbemba, Perez, Mitro. The others are either gone, going, or didn't play enough to know how good or not they might be.

He isn't an attacking midfielder Well what the fuck is he?

Sissoko is an attacking midfielder, like Payet, except he doesn't score goals or make assists. If somebody wants to pay a lot of money for him than good for them.

PSG don't sing players with limited technical ability. He'd look well out of place there. They've got Matuidi, who is definitely technically limited and shit with it, as we saw on Sunday.

Isn't Ibe just another winger who can't beat his man? Looked like that to me whenever I saw him play.

Neither Sagna or Evra have taken on a player the whole tournament.

This is heading to extra time and penalties and I've got other things to do today. Boring match, boring tournament.

Pogba and Matuidi have Colback and Tiote levels of creativity.