opinionsarelike

i think that's harsh enigma. thought he was absolutely incredible in the second half, dominated kicks from oppo's goal keeper, dominated the running game and found his passing feet throughout the game. absolutely incredible increase in fitness on him from last season to this, really thought his athleticism looked the part again.

thought conte did everything right. west ham were never in the game and got lucky by a carroll dive, before that they couldn't string 5 consecutive passes in our half together. when that happened his 4-4-2 switch worked 100% (like absolutely 100%). having a true plan b is something i've felt we've lacked, and conte provided it the first game of the season. oscar brilliant, matic incredible (especially in the second half) and kante very good. costa back to absolutely running 90 minutes bat sh*t crazy pressing like he was at atletico (and imo far more than under mourinho), and even hazard pressed and defended extremely well. there will be ups and downs, but i don't fear for one second that we are behind in the manager race (unlike ie. arsenal who's imo behind city, united, us and even liverpool and spuds).

i so agree you wouldn't know. matic hasn't been super sharp offensively, but he's been, bar one bad pass, a rock in the pressing game and defensively. if people can't see the use of that then i'm out of words.

i don't get this. whilst we haven't created a ton, we had one huge with ivanovic, a denied penalty and two near misses from costa and hazard. all the while west ham hasn't played three consecutive passes in our half bar the first eight minutes. if we sucked so bad last year, and our defence is so rubbish, how is that? this is a huuuuge improvement over last year. only need the winner now.

we (many) would have thought it would have been wrong to pick fabregas based on talent instead of conte's preferances, and we (many) will think it's wrong that he picks his selection based on his preferences over talent. fabregas is a supreme talent, but he can't run, can't tackle and is very undisciplined defensively, all traits conte has shown for the past 5 years that he likes. as i've pointed out in a previous post, conte has played with davids and zidane in their primes. he managed a pirlo-vidal-pogba trio and he got completely mediocre parolo and giaccherini to severely outplay two of the best midfield players in the world, busquets and iniesta. the history is on conte's side here... conte can make mistakes, and maybe this is one. but at least let him try to graft his own team rather than just picking who mourinho and hiddink would have picked.

the man who was a zaza penalty away from euro semis with sunderland rejects and mid-level serie a-players (apart from the backline and the goalie) will have my full support until proven not fit for our club. attracting a coaching talent like that is an opportunity that comes once every decade (if that!), and i couldn't be happier with mourinhos replacement.

at this moment i feel like some people are just complaining just to complain. some of the criticism made towards individual players as well as the collective doesn't make much sense to me. yes, we are in need of at least one centre back, and i'm sure the club is looking after it. but given how hector and djib... turned out last year, maybe it's not such a bad idea that the club is taking their time trying to find the right one? and our full back situation isn't the best, and i'm 100% sure the club and conte are looking into it. yet, with all these problems, we still kept a clean sheet a few weeks ago against liverpool, a team that utterly destroyed barcelona yesterday. sure, they weren't at their best, but we lacked a lot of players as well. i think that conte is too good of a coach to not have a plan. against the dippers it was clear to see that he went with a conservative approach. this game i felt that conte wanted to see how our attack could gel together. the first 15-20 minutes i thought we were excellent with our pressing and our link up play. conte got to try his (i think) preferred midfield of oscar - kante - matic, but he also saw how a more offensive minded midfield could do (fab in for matic). i though we were more open in the second half than in the first, particularly on our left side, and i'm sure conte has read something of it as well. anyways, i would believe the man who played with edgar davids and zidane in their primes and managed a vidal-pirlo-pogba midfield to find the right solution. we aren't the finished product, but we aren't that far off i think. i don't think it's all doom and gloom.

i mean, for all the blame matic gets, our left side has been a complete autostrada this second half.

really liked the first 10-15 minutes when we pressed high, then not so much when we got played lower and lower into our own half. don't agree with the shaming matic gets, but hey, each to their own i guess. besides a dangerous back pass i think he's been quite good, always pressing and always filling up the oppo's box as well as covering large areas of the pitch. hopefully batshuayi can come on and get a goal, and i hope to see if cuadrados spell in the us wasn't just a false hope for him to shine in our shirt.

i agree with this. costa may not have recieved any 'good passes', but he certainly didn't try to recieve them either. the things i like costa for, constantly running and providing a target for our midfield players to hit, was very lacking vs ac milan. traore seems to me like everything costa was 2 years ago, running defenders out of their positions and pressing for the entire duration of his spell on the pitch.

i'm not sure what conte thinks, but if matic looks lethargic in a two man midfield i cannot image what fabregas would look like. i do share your thoughts on having a player who can play the ball through the oppositions midfield, but kante is pretty good at that from what i saw last year. as well as this, to truly examinate how bad/good our two player midfield situation is, i would like to see how they will cope when they get a striker ahead of them who can provide a target to aim at without the ball returning right away because no one can hold the ball up well.

matic certainly doesn't look like the player he was one or two years ago, but besides a moment of tics during a back header to begovic i didn't feel that he was all that bad. all of real madrids dangers came on our right side, where oscar and willian were supposed to help aina. i would personally wait to see if the introduction of a good defensive midfield player like kante would make matic up his game, but i wouldn't hold it against the club if we got the chance to cash in on the serb either, i would just hope that the club sells him out of the country if so be.

my biggest fear with rlc is that three managers have deemed him not fit enough for a midfield role. if he hasn't managed to muster up his fitness to an adequate level now i doubt he'll be able to do it in the future. it's not like he hasn't lived like a pro athlete for many years already, with stamina probably being one of his main focus areas all those years. the fact that conte plays him 'out of position', or what we believe is out of position anyway, is at least a testament that conte has taken a good look at rlc in training which could bode well for our future youth players. as for the match it's still early days fitness and tactics wise, along with a very very whistle loving refree who broke up a lot of our rythm i felt. i actually like the look of traore a lot even though he didn't produce the goods. he's lightning quick and has good technique. on top of that he works like a true champ all game long. against both liverpool and real today he slotted in as a fifth midfielder in defense as long as he was on the pitch. conte will probably love that intensity from him. also liked batshuayi's presence out there, even though it was pretty obvious that he at times was a man among boys. he also seemed more technically gifted than what i feared before we signed him (given that the reports on him were of a very raw player). having him slotting in right behind costa (or another striker) could maybe work. i also do think that football nowadays is played at such speeds that you need some sort of pace, especially in the back line. the cahill and terry pairing is severly lacking in that department imo. getting zouma back on his feet and hopefully another quality cb in is an absolute must, as most have pointed out. having a quicker defense would also allow for a higher defensive line and thus allowing us to press further up the pitch. i look forward to our next game and hope we can build on our second half today, and maybe have conte come one step closer to figuring out our best xi for west ham.