5 minutes ago, Zatman said:

i would look like a decent centre half next to him

The point was supposedly that when you take away the world class quality, suddenly Stones looks defensively frail. I don’t think it’s true

56 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

I think defensively he is not as good as konsa but with the balk at his feet for sure. But him and pau would leak so many goals i think be a disaster personally. 

I do think you take stones out of all those quality world class players around him, you see his defensive weaknesses 

Stones doesn’t make a lot of mistakes when he’s paired with Harry Maguire and Jordan Pickford. I think he’s a pretty special player. Are you going off his Everton / early Man City days here? He was very young then and made the kinds of mistakes a lot of young CBs make. Different class now.

Stones is the best English CB by some distance. He’d be fine with Pau. It’s not as if Konsa is a hard tackling beast.

Let’s get back to ripping into Girlish?

Don’t mind him at all as a player, incredible engine, seems like he has a great attitude (captaincy aged 23 is a v good sign), and technically he’s not as bad as people make out.

Sounds like someone who’d be well overpriced though, and if FFP is a worry, probably not who we’d be in for.

Also reeks of someone who’ll spend most of his career in London.

I think they are going to turn us over pretty comfortably unless a few players can find second wind suddenly

1 minute ago, Alakagom said:

Honestly any result that stops Spurs winning by 3+ for GD is a huge win, there's no way City loses to them 

Why would you say something like that?

Bookies have a Spurs win at 11/2 which is about 15% probability (more like closer to 20% if you factor in bookie’s cut).

So yeah it’s unlikely, but it’s definitely not a foregone conclusion.

On 06/05/2024 at 20:08, T-Dog said:

I've no problem with a player being tired, I do have a problem with a player being a faff. I don't think he's tired, I think he's had his head turned. I like the bloke but he's fallen off so much recently. He's a Brazilian international and he's playing like a fart in a Smarties tube at the minute.

I think he's just knackered tbh. This is for midfielders in the Premier League:

Quote

Minutes Played

This table ranks players based on the currently selected stat type

Rank	Player	Club	Nationality	Stat
1.	Declan Rice	Arsenal	England	3,050
2.	Bruno Guimarães	Newcastle United	Brazil	2,998
3.	Morgan Gibbs-White	Nottingham Forest	England	2,980
4.	Bruno Fernandes	Manchester United	Portugal	2,970
5.	Martin Ødegaard	Arsenal	Norway	2,919
6.	Vitaly Janelt	Brentford	Germany	2,912
7.	Conor Gallagher	Chelsea	England	2,877
8.	Pascal Groß	Brighton & Hove Albion	Germany	2,844
9.	John McGinn	Aston Villa	Scotland	2,832
10.	Douglas Luiz	Aston Villa	Brazil	2,831

Throw in 10 Europa Conference starts (+3 off the bench) and 3 domestic cup starts, plus international weeks with Brazil, and it's been an epic marathon season for him.

He's also never looked quite the same since Kamara got injured.

I don't know why we need a negative explanation for this (he's had his head turned, he lacks heart, he isn't strong enough, bla bla) when a very simple explanation is staring us all in the face. Footballers aren't superhuman, they accumulate mental and physical fatigue, they get niggling injuries which they can't fully recover from... and the obvious consequence is their form suffers.

He’s just quite thick isn’t he?

Was terrified when I saw his name on the team sheet, predicted us throwing a winnable game away thanks to him.

Turns out he was the only one who cared, and nearly got us an undeserved point. Fair play to him. Regardless of his skills, clearly has a lot of character.

20 minutes ago, andycv said:

I want both - and I think we can still do it.  We can win 3-0 away from home....

I agree. We’re more than capable of battering Olympiacos in the second leg, and we’re clear favourites for 4th place now. Don’t think one priority comes above the other at this point. Trophy better for the fans, 4th place probably better for long term spending power.

53 minutes ago, GeordieVillan said:

That clearance was a howler, but I think we should remember that he’s generally played a decent part this season in a team that is going to finish 4th/5th.

This season was also his return from a pretty major injury, and our back 4 has changed a lot all season because of injuries etc.

I wouldn’t be too upset if he moved on this summer, but I also think if he stays then he’s a decent squad player and we might struggle to do better than him as a backup. 

Pau / Mings (assuming he comes back strong) / Konsa / Carlos and one more should be enough to cover to centreback places next season. Depending on the quality of the “one more”, Carlos may be 5th choice, and I think if he ends up being our 5th choice then we are in pretty good shape!

Feel like replying to most of the threads in this forum with words to this effect. Memories are very short on here sometimes.

He’s played enough games this season in a top 4 side that he must be doing something right.

I do agree with others that on the eye test it often looks like there’s limited brain power going into some of those decisions, and his physique often seems to have more cosmetic than practical value.

But Emery wouldn’t keep starting him if he was as bad as some on here are claiming. I think he’s pretty solid for a 3rd choice CB at this stage in our development.

The problem position is RB not CB.

9 hours ago, Lichfield Dean said:

Not been mentioned much tonight, but I think he had a bit of an impact when he came on and in retrospect I think he should have been given much more time. We needed a big strong guy to help deal with Chelsea's physicality and speed and he would have been a really helpful target up front.

Completely agree, I think Chelsea’s defence were enjoying the lack of real threat on the break, and he would have been a threat if we’d brought him on earlier

1 hour ago, OutByEaster? said:

The system and the passing let Ollie down last night - not the other way around.

 

He had a poor game individually too IMO, it wasn’t one or the other

28 minutes ago, Pinebro said:

Unpopular opinion, but apart from the pen I Thought he had a really good game.

I agree, the pen was a shocker and sadly you cannot make mistakes like that as a right back at this stage in his career. It was such a simple decision to not dive in there, most top flight right backs aren’t giving away that pen there, the thought just wouldn’t cross their mind to do what he did.

But he was pretty good the rest of the game, and his long throws were useful for setting Watkins, Bailey and Diaby free.

Don’t think that was a foul on Diaby tbh. If it was, it was so minor & debateable that VAR were right to go with on field decision. Players need to be tougher there, and Cash needed to be smarter

Can’t believe* how easy Cash made it for him to win the pen. We could all see it coming from a mile off

* obviously I can unfortunately

Shame as he’s been quite good otherwise

1 hour ago, osmark86 said:

Not sure if shared yet, but love Lee's commentary on this one haha:

 

Felt every single emotion watching that one. Brilliant!

Was anyone else cackling at Emi making all those kids cry 

Testament to his progression too that when he came on I didn’t think “oh this is a last roll of the dice” but was actually expecting him to cause them problems.

There were a couple of moments where I thought he showed great calmness and discipline, and I thought the yellow was completely undeserved

Thought he completely changed the game tbh, what a player he has become 

This ref is an idiot, bad manner with the players, desperate to get cards out, aggressive, overreacts to everything.

He’s going to lose control of this game 100%

21 hours ago, DJBOB said:

I think it’s no surprise that Unai has turned to Morgan (and Zaniolo) despite his youth and out of possession learning. 
 
In January, teams started figuring out they could press us early into mistakes because we had no out ball. Diaby and Bailey were not consistent enough back to goal. Tielemans is better facing forward and not under the isolated pressure out left or out top. Watkins was often isolated and McGinn was not a constant duel winner up the pitch. 
 
So by turning to Morgan and Zaniolo, we now had much more physicality and ball carrying to drag us up the pitch against the press. 

Very smart post. Could call them “hold up wingers” - Grealish offered a bit of that too.

I like Rogers a lot, he just seems to have settled straight in with no dramas.