Matt1892

5 days before the transfer window slams shut! Hopefully they are not having the bank holiday off.

Chelsea are that much of a batshit club that Madueke could have scored 5 today and they would still sell him without much thought. Palmer and Colwill are their only untouchables this summer.

Neither is Chilwell.

I don’t see why Man Utd would want Chilwell with Shaw and Dalot already there.

The problem is we look to Joelinton to do things that he isn’t capable of because we do not have that type of player further forward in midfield. Our midfield set up was successful in the beginning because nobody else was doing it so there was no blueprint to deal with it, now it has been figured out it is creatively ineffective. We need to either sign an attacking midfield to link the midfield and Isak, who is often isolated up top, or sign a defensive midfielder and push Bruno further up. If the money isn’t there then play Willock or Barnes in the attacking midfield role, but the Joelinton and Longstaff pairing in front of Bruno doesn’t offer a great deal creatively.

For all of Hall’s ability on the ball he isn’t very good at the defensive side of the job at this point in his development, he also doesn’t have the pace to recover when he does get beaten and neither does Burn who would be next to him. Howe knows how dangerous Semenyo is for Bournemouth which is why he went with Kelly, who also had a difficult time against his pace and trickery, but he would have had a field day against Hall, which is why he was dropped. People will say that we improved after Hall came on but it is worth remembering that Bournemouth’s attackers had ran themselves in to the ground by then with their constant pressing and running, they were all taken off apart from Semenyo, who stayed on but was clearly fatigued with the amount of ground he had covered.

I didn’t see any of the highlights of Brighton’s first game last week but I came away from watching this one thinking that he is going to be an exciting player when he gets bedded in to the league. Every time he gets the ball you can hear the roar from Brighton fans urging him forward. Ten Hag deserves credit for how they set up to defend against Brighton as by defending deep there was never any space for Minteh or Mitoma to get in behind the fullbacks, so they were left to try and beat them in tight spaces which Delot did really well in. He has quite a lot of similarities to Gordon when running at players, as well as out of possession in terms of work rate. Some have said about him giving away possession with stray passes but I thought he made some good attempts at through balls that his team mates were not on his wavelength to yet, which will come the more they play together. Joe Cole was praising him after the game for how direct he was and his pressing game. Good luck to the lad and I hope it works out for him, we need to move on from what could have been and that will be helped when the club sorts the position out.

Fair play to Son for staying on his feet.

Pickford!😂

Great play by Kulusevski and an excellent finish by Bissouma.

Hopefully Spurs and West Ham drop points.

He isn’t going for much either, would fit in here as cover for Bruno in the holding role and would add to our collection of Chelsea youth players.

I have never taken that much notice of Van Hecke before but I thought he was excellent today.

Hopefully this opens the game up now.

Man Utd the better team so far but the game hasn’t really warmed up yet.

I don’t think he will throw a public hissy fit but he will be disappointed that the club failed to bring in the quality he needs if they expect him to push on, especially when the clubs around him are strengthening. He will also know that if our form suffers because we haven’t strengthened like those around us, then it becomes difficult to keep our better players. That might not be his problem though, as if we don’t get European football then he will be gone at the end of the season.

I don’t think it is a coincidence that Solanke found form in the Premier League after the arrival of Ireola, it took the players a while to get used to the style of football he wanted from them but once they did they have been very good. There is no reason why we can’t beat them, we just need to be disciplined in our performance as they will look to draw us out and then hit us for pace on the counter.

I will rephrase that to take in to account that Howe doesn’t specifically negotiate and sign players… I cannot believe Howe would willingly advocate the club not signing players this window when money is available.

Seven days before the transfer window slams shut. Hopefully Mitchell is working this weekend.

I cannot believe Howe would willingly not make any more signings when money is available, add to that his comments regarding staying instead of taking the England job and it points to things not running smoothly behind the scenes. If that is the case then either him or Mitchell won’t be here in a years time.

Joao Pedro scored 20 goals in all competitions last season but 11 of them were penalties.

Likely that Howe is trying to protect him if he can’t get his move away, it doesn’t benefit anyone if his place at the club becomes untenable.

I thought he was going to be riding the motorbike.