Erikse

Was mint under Rafa aswell. Probably our best player back then alongside Federico Fernandez and Leujene. Bruce might have saved us from having to sell him to a top club. Bruce took over a very solid defence and turned it into a horror show..

Sometimes lucky.. It will all be forgotten the next time we are unlucky and VAR screw us over.

Early days, but I find it harder to get excited over this UCL league system rather than group stages. Having a 36 team league feels like a mess. A group of 4 teams and 6 games meant that each game was even more important, you now have 8 games to make sure you get through, and 24 teams out of 36 will progress from this stage.. I'm sure the final 2 games of the league stage will bring some excitement though.

This Onana guy looks like a really good signing!

But there had to be rules in place to put some kind of breaks on them, or else they would have dominated way more than they have, and noone would be even close to competing with them until our Saudis takeover. After that we would have technically been able to buy just about every elite player there is out there in one window, if the Saudis wished to do so. Football would also be ridiculous at this point with no boundaries in place for spending, but unfortunately they saw their chance to make the rules in an anti competitive way, where they made sure that the elite would be as protected as possible from any other team with any sort of ambition.

Mazraoui has been transferred in by 1 million users (net), but he's still 4.5. FPL pricing system is pretty strange..

The likes of Villa and West Ham would probably be interested unless our pricing is too high, but I feel like he lacks the quality on the ball required to play for top teams. He has never really been effective against low blocks for instance.

Then we make Chelsea pay more.

They played France in the first game, and Nations League matters. Obviously he picked the strongest possible team for the occasion. Italy won 3-1 against a France team full of star players, and some would say that Tonali was their best player that game.

Not sure starting him would make things much better at the moment, as his age and private life concerns are probably limiting him. But fuck me, our attacking play is really struggling to adapt to life without Trippier. Everything used to go through him, and it shows. There are parts of games where we are showing some promise on this part, so I guess there's some hope with Willock, Barnes and Tonali coming in.

I think the problem, as someone else pointed out, is that him and Longstaff together means that we lack creativity in the midfield. Both Tonali and Willock are far ahead on that part. Feels like some of our attacking play is poor when he's playing alongside Longstaff. I know we used to score lots of goals with both of them starting in midfield (without Willock), but I also think that was largely due to players like Trippier, Isak and Gordon being so inform at the time.

Agree, I sat there today thinking what is our identity currently? It almost reminds me of Man Utd from the start of last season. They didn't play well, they didn't have a clear identity or style, but they were still collecting the points. Although in their case they were possibly even more lucky than us.

If he can stay fit and injury free it will have such a huge impact on our season. Obviously.

Just had a look at some stats. I know most probably don't care, but we have overperformed the stats the most, while Wolves are on the other end of that. They have higher xPTS than us, 4.55 vs our 3.92. We have 10p and they have 1p. Our xGA is also higher than theirs, 7.59 vs their 6.55. We've conceded 3, while they have conceded 11. I think the Wolves - Chelsea game is inflating their stats the most, they had higher xG, but still lost 2-6. https://understat.com/league/EPL

I still have my doubts about it tbh. Not saying it's right or wrong not to start him, I just have this suspicion that Howe wants to field a strong team against them, without players that he doesn't trust yet.

Ah, that means he got every decision right.

Strange how the Italian coach chose to start Tonali and play him for 90x2 right away then, and was rewarded with excellent performances for 90 minutes each game. Howe would never do the same in that situation, and you would be here defending the decision to not do it. The players that you mentioned was benched because other players deserved the spot ahead of them - through strong performances. That wasn't the case here.

Starting a suboptimal team to have better bench options is madness. Noone does that. No way that was Eddies thinking.

We all knew what we were in for when he started. Everyone focused on why Tonali shouldn't play, but noone gave any good reason as to why Longstaff should play. I think that was the bigger issue with the decision. Even at 50% fitness Tonali will give us more. I have no doubt he could've done atleast 75 min today and still look fine. He looked fit all game both games for Italy.

Got the starting lineup wrong, and for the same reason it was expected that we would be way better after the subs. We would be better in the first half with a different starting lineup. Still very pleased that Howe surprised everyone with a tripple sub at half time.

Gonna be 2-0 soon this

When Tonali comes on he will show show everyone why he should've started.

And Longstaff has barely played a single good game in 2024.

Coincidentally we will play way better when Tonali and Barnes comes on.

So not playing in 2 weeks doesn't matter anymore? Why don't you reply to the actual point?