9 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Its a good partnership as they compliment each other really well. Still growing together as well

Easy to forget it's still very early days for them as well. I don't even think they've played 20 games together as a CB pairing.

12 hours ago, Greenfly said:

Just read that this game was the first time ever Aubameyang has played a full 90 minutes without even registering a shot.

That's not right, he didn't have any shots against Man City a few weeks ago or Liverpool at the start of the season.

Ever since he signed that massive new contract he's been a shadow of his former self

Quote

I think we’ve challenged him on a couple of parts of his game and his response to that has been brilliant

This absolute chancer is still trying to take credit for his form.

His response? Before he wasted his time in your pathetic training sessions he was the most creative English player.

I can't wait until he's sacked and replaced by literally **** anyone with half a clue

6 minutes ago, villa89 said:

I think we'll struggle against teams who sit back and let us have the ball. We are built to counter attack. 

I honestly think with the quality we now have we can both counter and break down a packed defence, Arsenal were fully set defensively in their own box before Grealish and Barkley toyed with them to find an opening for our first goal.

Southampton were sat back in the second half, Fulham were deep too. So were both Leicester and Sheffield United come to think of it, although we did struggle to break both down.

In fact the only defence we haven't scored against is the most open one we've played. So **** annoying neither of Grealish's chances went in.

3 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

Not necessarily. Didn’t Ginola win it once even though Spurs were mid table. Even being a contender would be a fantastic achievement.

Obviously it's not as prestigious as it's voted for by a bunch of self congratulating words removed but Parker won the Football Writers' POTY award by captaining West Ham to 20th.

32 minutes ago, SuperTed said:

“oUr JuDe Is So MuCh BeTtEr ThAn GrEaSy”

Get use to it, folks. 

Luckily I don't know any Dortmund fans so won't have to hear this

6 minutes ago, Zatman said:

Funny if we signed him when he wants to return to England 

The perfect heir to McGinn in 6 years time.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/54885688

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Danny Drinkwater: Chelsea midfielder produces highlights video to kick-start career

Last updated on2 minutes ago2 minutes ago.From the sectionChelsea

Danny Drinkwater has played twice for Chelsea Under-23s this season

Chelsea midfielder Danny Drinkwater has produced a showreel featuring some of his career highlights in a bid to get his faltering career back on track.

A Premier League winner with Leicester in 2016, Drinkwater has played only 29 games since joining Chelsea in 2017 - his last appearance coming during a loan spell for Aston Villa in February.

The 30-year-old, who has not been allocated a Chelsea squad number this season, revealed a desire to kick-start his career in September.

And, with the help of a production company, he has published a three-minute video showing some of his best goals and assists as he looks to remind the football world what he is capable of.

Drinkwater, who has three England caps and has also been on loan at Burnley, was an integral part of Leicester's stunning title success and joined Chelsea for £35m in September 2017.

But his lack of appearances since, coupled with some personal issues, led to him "falling out of love with football" with a 30-minute substitute appearance in the Community Shield his only first-team action in 2018-19.

This season, he has turned out twice for Chelsea's under-23s, most recently in October in a 3-1 defeat by Liverpool.

Turns out none of his contributions at VP made the reel. Who'd have thunk it

4 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

To be fair to Bellingham he's getting games and doing ok

Barkley and maddison left at home though is a bit daft

I was under the impression that Bellingham was more of an 8 or even a 6 than a 10.

England play 7 defensive players every game (8 if you count Pickford, although I'm not sure why you would) so we've probably already got too many attackers in the squad to include Barkley and Maddison.

13 hours ago, MaVilla said:

 

this game aside, we know as well as anyone just how pointless "X points" is compared to reality, we were much higher last season on expected points etc,.

Err what? We were on 37xPTS in 18th place, IRL we finished with 35 in 17th. Seems reasonably accurate

I feel like the xPTS table from the end of last season did a good job of highlighting the lucky and unlucky teams. Newcastle overperformed by 12 points and were the luckiest. To my untrained eye that seemed spot on.

Watford underperformed the most. They should never have been relegated. Hah. **** em. Whether that was down to 'bottling' is a debate to be had but a lot of bottling is often bad luck imo.

14 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

I thought it was a poor decision to not make a couple more changes last night, to get minutes for Conor and Davis at the very least. These are players we could well find ourselves relying on in the near future, and more than for match fitness I think it is important to show some level of faith in them to perform when called upon ahead of time. What better moment than when you are 3-0 up? 

I think on balance it's more important to keep our hotshot, 6 goals in 7, record signing happy and confident by letting him stay on and try to complete his second hattrick of the season than it is to show faith in a guy who cannot seem to buy a goal at this level and who will be our 4th choice striker by January.

I thought they were fairly unlucky against Palace.

The twelve year old they've got in goal hid under his bar and then dived backwards into the net for the first, they were yet another victim of 'VAR-tshirt line-offside gate', the second was a fantastic free kick which is unlikely to be scored (despite us managing to concede two of the bastards last week) and the third was just a ridiculous schoolboy error again from the goalkeeping schoolboy.

32 minutes ago, Dante_Lockhart said:

7 matches. 4 goals. 5 assists.

100% class.

32 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

And two cleared off the line, Leeds and Arsenal.

And he won a penalty for us which is the equivalent of winning 10 penalties for United

Brighton are a very good side this season and have been incredibly unlucky in several games so far.

Understat's xPTS table actually has them ranked 5th this season ahead of us.

Lamptey looks like the best value signing of the season so far. Can't believe Chelsea keep that 80 man squad of loanees and then sell him for £1m. Awful decision.

They'll have Dunk back for this one as well, although Veltman has done well so might keep his place for a week. If Dunk does play they'll have that comically large defence that just looks awkward to play against.

All that said there's no reason why we can't tear them apart as long as Mings winds Maupay up enough to distract him from doing anything useful.

We saw glimpses of his link up with Grealish last season but now Barkley is here we're starting to see it most weeks.

His technical ability is very good and has never been in question, he's definitely improved his defensive 'bite' and willingness to battle as well.

Fitness and athleticism are the only areas I have concerns over and they are (or at least should be) the easiest areas for him to improve.

48 minutes ago, Vive_La_Villa said:

I have to admit I’ve rarely seen a manager not make 3 changes when 3-0 up. I think Smith wanted us to score more and make even more of a statement.  Also give Ollie a chance to get his hattrick. 

And in these circumstances (before a break) this is exactly what I want to see. We don't want to limp to 2 goal victories against the clubs playing in Europe, we want to crush them, see them driven before us and hear the lamentation of their women.

Just noticed Lawro has now predicted 5 consecutive losses for us. What a dork

He's very impressive  Created six chances today. Six!

Teams would kill for a player that can do that and we've now got 2 of the ****

He absolutely **** bitched Bellerin for the third. He is completely unplayable at times

Just now, Laughable Chimp said:

But you can't tell me he subbed off Trezeguet for any other reason than he felt like he had to use a sub eventually.

He did it to waste time, obviously. Not because he felt like he had to.

3 minutes ago, Laughable Chimp said:

He's subs are so formulaic that I genuinely think I can write an algorithm tracing when and who he's going to sub on or off each game.

Go on then. Post his subs for the next game before kick off, including 5 minute windows. We'll all be impressed

15 minutes ago, villa89 said:

once we went 3-0 up he should have made a couple of subs. When we do get the opportunity we should be resting Jack.

He'll be benched for the two England competitive games, 5 extra minutes tonight won't hurt

7 minutes ago, Xann said:

The Kennedys.

The Roosevelts were 4th cousins twice removed or something as well

Trump in the oval office after seeing the latest Pennsylvania numbers: