Mole_Toonfan

At this point where every game matters you have to pick the right players for any particular game. If Rafa thinks that the best team to get a result is to not play Ritchie and Gayle then that's what he should do. Besides it's a completely game, you can't really let a performance against Man Yoo dictate team selection especially when the players in question have rarely played like that. Easy to say it now but I think Ritchie and Gayle was the right call for Man Yoo but I do wonder if against Bournemouth a different approach might be necessary.

Just the 20 goals in 34 games this season. 's****' It's very possible to score goals against bad teams and therefore have good stats and still be performing badly overall, happens all the time with multiple players every single season. Game is so much more than the stats you obtain.

More meant the over to the top through ball to the wing, Xavi almost always found Alves in ridiculous amounts of space. Messi's understanding with Alba reminds me of it tbh.

Have been for a while tbh, has hallmarks of Xavi and Alves about it.

Wasn't just any old scrub he was doing that against as well, Carvalho was fucking class.

Wouldn't be surprised if he's just another midfielder(i.e. there's no striker) and they just pack the box tbh, which considering the lack of direct play outside of Messi they'll probably have quite a lot of success in stifling them. Of course now i have said this Messi's gonna score a hatrick.

Do people rate Emery? he's a known big match flop, i mean he's not a bad coach but he's constantly been bad when it matters going back to his Valencia days. Mentally he's just not strong enough to manage a club that aims to win trophies every year. Disagree on Allegri mind, he's consistently had to retool the Juventus squad because they keep selling their best players and they remain competitive.

Yeah like a lot of people I do favour PSG but it wouldn't really surprise me if Madrid won either.

Madrid are full of proven winners so it wouldn't surprise if they suddenly turn up when it counts tbh.

I still trust them, Bayern, PSG, Madrid over anyone from England tbh, mainly because they are all stacked with players who know how to win in this competition. Even City are very inexperienced when it comes to winning the CL or even going far quite frankly for the most part.

Then Madrid and Barca go mental in the summer and we forget this ever happened.

I've been relaxed all season tbh, which is why I rarely post in this thread. Rafa Benitez isn't taking this team down when people like Alan Pardew, Paul Lambert etc etc exists.

My main criticism of him would be he uses his athleticism well but not his size, basically he runs off the back of defenders and takes them into areas they don't want to be really well but i feel like he doesn't play with his back to goal very well. Because of that he doesn't really take advantage of smaller defenders as much as his frame suggests he should but has a lot of success against bigger defenders where his athleticism comes into play. Not many forwards these days do though so it's not like it's unique to him.

Aye but Swansea improving was pretty much because they changed managers. It ain't happening here, they are done.

He would have already if he was more consistent when it mattered. As opposed to Bale... Hazard's still been very good this season, just not quite the same as last year. He's easily good enough for Real Madrid. Aye but you need to consider why they bought Bale in the first place, was just as massive hype vehicle as it was for his performances. Hazard is very talented and technically could play for anyone but he's not as consistent as he should be against bigger teams. If he were someone would have bought him by now.

He would have already if he was more consistent when it mattered.

Rafa spoiled the ending for Game of Thrones for him then, that's it we're done.

Most football fans are incredibly knee jerkey, when he scores a couple next week they'll be saying how amazing he is.

Despite my pessimistic reaction to his signing it would be class if he could have a similar impact to Kenedy and Dubravka.

He looks quite tall tbh, problem is he's not in a professional footballer shape to say the least. Something that doesn't seem an issue with Dubravka.

Yep, zero chemistry between the two of them. Seems a decent fit with Lascelles mind.

When he saw Jelliot

Didn't realise City are the only ones to beat us in the league in 2018. Loads of draws mind but still.

He's been a lot better in recent weeks but where has this been throughout his time here in the PL? Yeah but you should ignore that because he's had 2 or 3 good games.