WhiteWall

Play nicely today! . We could be Spuds fans. No complaints here about anyone from a 4-1

Get the soap, somebody needs their mouth washing out. Dirty, dirty talk.

Really pleased with our ascademy products again but i feel i need to tip my hat to those that i have been particulary critical of this season. Willian, really good performance. Probably the best i have seen from him for many a season. Alonso, really solid performance. Didn't get bested at any stage, Didn't deliver a huge amount but solidly defended. Dave, same. Not sparkling going forwards but defending solidly with both fullbacks providing the foundation for the young attackers to perform. Jorginho the same. Again without doing anything stunning, it was a competent, professional performance and pretty much always looked in control. With four senior players al giving 8/10 perfromances provided the confidence for the rest of the youngsters to perform. That's the level of leadership that we need. ....and despite the natural instinct to temper this with some negative comments, i'm leaving it there. Thanks for the entertainment today Chels!!

I agree. I am happy that we won, of course and in pockets we played okay. Ultimately we deserved to win the game because they were poorer than us. However, for major portions of the match we passed the ball around with little if any penetration. The media are now continually going on about our youngsters but i actually thought we struggled a bit at this level and Mount and James were pretty anonymous. We need to take the positives from this and, if it wasn't for this sh*t zonal marking we may have kept a clean sheet. This should help our players gain confidence for our league campaign and hopefully it will also improve us in the CL., but i fear for us against more clinical sides than Lille. What i would say is that despite the 2 mistakes, Tomori is still developing into one of our best centre backs.

Do you mean the one that Tomori gave him as a lofted ball with a player bearing down on him, which he then shanked having to use his weak foot.

Rudiger will make no difference with zonal marking. it has never worked for any team and doesn't work for us. its a ridiculous tactic and we will continue to concede set piece goals, regardless who is in there, You can't blame the defenders really, its the system that is sh*t.

Yep, last week......Row Z. Left foot mate!!

The reality is that once again those that run our national sport have contrived to take a decent idea and completely fck it up. Nothing highlighted more the hell in a handbasket direction our game is going in than watching England in the rugby world cup. Miked up referees discussing clearly with their video counterparts coming to a reasonable decision. Clear, respected, understood. That can't happen in football because of the arrogance of tw@ts like Mike Dean who believe they are superior to the players. We needed VAR to clear up the travesties, the miscarriages, the Roy carroll's clawing a ball back from a yard behind the line, the Thierry Henry's handball France to a world cup finals. The cheating. We didn't need this to decide that if our players's nose happens to be 4mm longer than the defenders then he is technically offside. The fact that a ball accidentally hitting a golscorers arm in the act of scoring is disallowed but the same contact to a defender is not an offence is another indication of how fcked up this has become. And it's so simple to solve. All of it. If our player's whole body is in front of the defender he is offside. Whole body, Clear air between them. If his elbow, knee, nose of c*ck happens to be more advanced he's level and on. If a shocking tackle goes in that the ref misses then call it back for a VAR red card check. Ifa clear case of cheating, diving, feigned injury etc, then VAR for unsporting conduct and yellow card. The rest of it, just leave the fking game alone please, before you suck the very life out of the reasons why we watch this game of ours

This is the time, that if our owner was as aggressive about the progress of the side as he once was (allegedly), that the inquest should be held about the fking idiots that wasted money on some the cr@p that we have bought so that there is no depth in senior players to draw upon. We moan about the quality of our senior players, but after Dave, Alonso, Willian, who else is there really. Jorginho and Kovacic. For a club with so many players i am amazed how thin our squad is regarding quality in depth. I saw a graphic today where we are the second largest gross spenders since 2013. £897m gross spend. Bakayoko, Drinkwater, Zappacosta! ffs.

I think aerially we're poor all over the pitch. Add the zonal marking element at corners and i have to hold my breath every time. If feels any contact with the ball from the opposition will end up in a goal.

You might be being a little harsh but i generally agree with what you have put here. If we are running with a group of young inexperienced players there must be a blend of experience in there as well. That experience needs to be leaders one and all to take charge when the hits start comig and to keep confidence in the group of youngsters during the ebb and flow of the match. Other than Kaiser Rudi we just don't have that. Willian only ever plays for himself, Pedro i like generally but he's just so hot and cold, sh*t hot one week, just sh*t the next. Alonso, Giroud, Dave, these are just not leaders. Jorginho is a good communicator but not a leader in my book, or else Barkley would never have had the chance to take that penalty last night. For Jorginho to have continued to take the penalties all through the media and fans sh*tstorm over that silly little bunny hop of his when it was going wrong, tells me he is the penalty taker, so Frank's comments last night for me was just taking the heat out of the media that's all. We desparetly need Rudi back. We need Kante, not a verbal leader but christ i'd follow him into battle simply because you can see with his whole body language he will never fail. And we need the ban to be lifted. Not to change our new identity. God no. I want Mount, Abraham, James, Tomori, Pulisic, RLC, CHO, Zouma and Christensen being the bedrock but i'll admit i was casting covetous glances at Kondogbia last night. A midfield general in there galvanising the youngsters whenwe lose our focus and direction is what i think we are missing at the moment.

He's the same player he was at Everton. When fit he is okay, but only ever a squad player. Doesn't have the speed of thought for the next level.

Don't want to be negative at all this weekend but the keeper also needs to step up. Stronger wrists and pushing the ball to angles not popping it back out between the posts.

Whilst i fully get what you're saying, using Torres as the example actually disproved the point for me personally. Whilst i don't doubt that Torres was extremely frustrating and never delivered on the funds invested in him, my everlasting memory of him will always be that Barcelona goal and Gary Neville's orgasm.

So you're happy with 12th then? That's where i think we could end up.