Chicken Field

Firmino has never played as a striker, but a "false 9", he would not be a watkins replacement. He's been in awful form for awhile, last 2-3 seasons at liverpool. Also he is probably on a £500000 a week contract in Saudi. I'd personally stay far far away from him, as we would be stuck with him and Coutinho on massive wages next season

Today was Carlos' best game for us yet imo. With the back for today, we could have an expceptionally strong back 4

Saw Twitter rumours that he has picked up some injuries and he ddoesn't seem to be in Poland's squad today, anyone know any news?

Emery seemed to try to use him en Diaby's striker role, which Bailey struggled with, combined with low confidence from a tough start to Villa life, a victim to Gerrards tenure and injuries, it's no wonder he struggled. Hopefully he kicks on from here and becomes the player he is capable of becoming

In moments like these, I find myself constantly needing to remind myself that everyone connected with football is human. When I reflect on how Everton fans turned against him (understandably so), I can't help but feel genuinely sorry for him knowing he was simultanously fighting cancer and ultimately passed away with a strained relationship with his beloved Everton and their fans, it's kind of sad. (I do not blame the Everton fans, I wanted Doug out too, very similar owners)

He played 50 games in a treble winning team last season, I don't thing Guardiola, or anyone else heavily involved in City would call him a flop, which tbh. are the only viewpoints that matter when assessing a signing.

Scared to post on this thread, the conflict is understandibly a sensitive topic. What is and has been happening for a long time there is a tragedy. I was just thinking about these videos with "poor arabic", IDF have millions of pounds, surely if they were to fake videos, they would hire someone that speaks the language properly? It reminds me of when people criticize the moon landing videos with massive wrong details, these companies are worth millions and are trying to convince billions, surely if they are hiring actors or whatever in an attempt to convince that someone is arabic/palestinian, then surely they would have in mind that they would need to hire someone that actually speaks the language? (this respons is more to the phone call maybe involved in the hospital explosion than this video)

It's not just about a starting XI, we need options to rotate and change our approach. Personally feel that RB is a priority for upgrade, Cash has had some really good games but he is defensively not great, especially he struggles to hold the line when we do the offside trap, he is also very limited technically. Zaniolo and Bailey are yet to prove themselves imo, so need more forward options

You can also look at it from the angle of - we might have sold a player for 5m, who potentially is and never will be good enough ' Should we decide to buy him back for the 10m extra, then it is because he has developed and he is worth those 10m for us, potentially even allowing us to sell him for even more in the future

Dendoncker was absolutely worsr, hence he was taken of. I though Tielemans, like must, was average

The number I saw eas arounf 84% if I remember correctly. Also disagree, a player trying to create will always have a lower passing percentsge than one thst plays it safe, passing percentage by it self counts for nothing. Tielemans wasnt great that game but nowhere near the worst, shows a strong confirmation bias if people can single him out that game or critique him after that game imo

The stats that I saw showed that Dendoncker and Luiz had a combined total tackles of 0 (McGinn had a wooping 1 total tackles). When a team has so much possession, it is typical for midfielders not to be tackling. Tielemans had by far the most involvment yesterday, he made the most passes, second most shots, 2nd most free kicks made (if that is something count as being physical and involved),

Unacceptable by our fringe players.. do they now know that being out of form, low on confidence and lack match sharpness is not allowed? I say sell them all. Stop rotating, or throw in the youth if absolutely necessary, although if they don't perform instantly, then we should sell them too. Players that should be sold: Olsen, lenglet, Carlos, Tielemans, dendoncker, duran, bailley, traore, hause, chambers, Tim, Digne (when Moreno is fit) and so on.

The offside decision in the Liverpool game is potentially the worst VAR decision that has been made in the Premier league so far. I do though feel that Liverpool fans, and the club itself are too extreme (the comment about escalation is hilarious and embarrasing). We are talking about an embarrasing horrendous humar error - nothing more. Maybe liverpool fans should be criticising the other person on the pitch that made a horrendous mistake, which most definetely cost them a point, Matip. The worst VAR/referee decision against us that I can remember (since VAR was implemented), was Grealish's "dive" against Palace IMO.

Does "greal-hiss fans" refer to fans that don't or do like him, i am confused? I think the most telling sign is this weird argument is that Man City passed up buying Luiz back at a lower fee than he was worth, Trezeguet ended on our bench/going to Turkey, yet Grealish went for a £100m, the arguement that the others were more important, or downplaying Grealishs role, is just wrong. Luiz and Trezegeut did do their parts (especially Trezegeuts goals were important in the latest stages), and Luiz has developed into a super star. Yet Grealish went for a premier league record fee, which he just would not have if he didn't perform really well

Ofc - altough you'd expect us to have a back up option, and I'd argue that right back is a bigger concern with Moreno hopefully returning soon.

The only thing I struggle to understand with our tactics currently is playing Zaniola on the left and Diaby up top. Zaniola does not have the qualites to play on the left imo, he seems to have the qualities to shine up top, great hold up play, small tricks and passing. Diaby is struggling to find any room to manouvre, so that he can unleash his blistering pace. Altough Unai has proven time and again to be the mastermind, so there are probably reasons for it.

I think our biggest failure of the summer was not being able to upgrade our fullback options, Digne has some qualities but is too inconsistant and pretty poor defensively. Cash, as much as I like him, offers great workrate but is defensively really poor, the amount of times he is not on the line with the other defenders when we play the offside trap is staggering. I think these areas are a priority moving forward.

Singling him out from yesterdays game is a stretch. Altough one thing that annoyes me, is his incredibly low threshold for pain (or his acting). Seems to get seriously hurt at least once per game.

1. Offsides to be judged on the placement of the feet. 2. If it takes more than 30 seconds to review a decision on VAR, then the original decision clearly is not a "clear and obvious" mistake and should be upheld.

Hmmm.. doesn't ring a bell, I don't remember us losing 2-1 against stevenage in the cup last season, pretty sure that game never happened.

I wonder if he has ever experienced a more embarrassing performance in his managerial career. Absolute pathetic performance today

On the chance of sounding overly negative.. I find that one of the reasons he doesn't get dribbled past much, is because he for the most parts backs away from oncoming attackers, he doesn't get dribbled past, but at the same time doesn't stop the attack. Many other defenders will stand their ground/attack the ball more, resulting in stopping more attacks but also getting dribbled past more often. I do though like Konsa, he has a lot strong qualities.

I'm predicting him to start the next prem game with Kamara in the right back or center back role

Or even when they review it for 5 minutes and still can't decide if it's a mistake or not, then clearly it's not a clear and obvious mistake.