Argo

Wouldnt have made a difference to Ethan I don't think, it was Tomori who's immediate future at the club was saved by David's decision.

The ironic thing with the media and oppo fans is when our players are on the right side of the numbers (ie Lampard Vs Gerrard and now Mount Vs Maddison) all of a sudden the goalposts change and it's more than about the goals.

I thought that when he resigned but in many ways it was kind of a perfect closure for him. He came in, contributed when necessary and gave us one last chance to enjoy him being about, and I think his second exit was even more fitting than Munich, he got carried off the Stamford Bridge turf while he ran the show on the corresponding title celebrations with everyone else including Jose willingly taking a back seat.

Just starting? I've been totally convinced we're finshing 3rd ever since the Liverpool game.

Puts into perspective how good we are at it.

Problem is, now they have the winning feeling, it's a lot easier to handle the pressure once you've started winning. They got an absolute gold bit of luck getting a CL final against the only team with a bigger track record of freezing at crucial moments than what they do, any other team i reckon they would have found a way to lose like they did in Kiev.

As I've constantly stated before assists are subjective unless you do them at a rate of KDB. You could play the best through ball in football history yet you're relying on the forward finishing his chance for it to go on record while equally you could play a one yard pass to a player before he smashes it in from 40 yards and oh look they've got an assist. For example, do you reckon whoever passed the ball to Hazard before he ran through the Arsenal defense that time really truly feel they had an assist for that goal? Key passes is a truer picture than assists, which the defenition of should be redifined.

You need more than to just be a top passer to play DLP. Cesc was far too easy to mark out of games (when opposition targeted that area) which meant he wouldn't have worked in a DLP position. Would Jorginho be able to constantly play balls over the top as accurately as Cesc did? Probably not but Cesc never did (for us) control games the way Jorginho does.

Cesc was great in terms of creativity but was very susceptible to high pressing, i remember even Sc**thorpe managed to cut him out of the game in the cup once they realized it (after he caused havoc for the first half hour). So for that reason i don't think he won't fare that great playing DLP despite his obvious technical qualities.

Even then he was fine for me. He stopped a lot of dangerous situations just by being a passing option to a player under pressure and then comfortably distributing it to a player who was free from immediate pressure. Trying to adapt to the new football without him would have led to us constantly playing ourselves into danger, look at the sh*t Arsenal get themselves into trying to play out without a specialist DLP. I think in this system he's our most important player, purely because he's the one player we don't have adequate cover for in terms of the role on the pitch.

Shouldn't that have also meant Azpi's goal against Liverpool counted given Mount's toenail was offside about 30 seconds beforehand?

Does that apply to Fernandinho and Rodri aswell? Both have a record of fouling to stop counters. When you play in a highly demanding attacking system the risk of the counter is always there, stick prime Maka in this system and there be times he's stretched aswell.

Would these be the same pundits that slated Southampton for sacking Nigel Adkins and replacing him with Pochettino? Or the ones that were so adamantly stating Solskjaer was the right man for United? Or the ones that said we were wrong replacing Cudicini with Cech and persisting with Drogba? You've really weakened your argument bringing pundits into it, 95% of them don't have a clue.

If I'm honest I don't think he's (Willian) too different from what we usually see especially in an attacking sense, only at the minute he compliments the younger guys so well it's causing us to appreciate what he brings more as opposed to bemoaning what he doesn't. He brings something the youngsters (at this moment) lack in terms of managing in game situations while they're providing the end product Willy lacks, meaning we don't have to scrutinize that side of his game as hard as when we only had Hazard as a semi reliable scorer. The balance between them is very good.

He's probably our only untouchable at the minute with the outfielders. Anyone else we can lose and the team performance by in large won't be too highly affected (even Kante as has shown) but I don't think we will be able to control games the way we have lately even against the likes of Newcastle if Jorginho wasn't playing. Hopefully Gilmour is being moulded into an alternative because "Sarri's pet" is just as crucial to Lampard's brand of football, if not more so.