Nibs

Just pray we don't look at this and think "Ah Wolves - should be easy enough so we can start Badiashille and Hato and Garnacho..............." Get Acheampong in that starting 11 if Fofana needs resting. No need for all this resting players on mass. LR knows every game is a must win so hopefully he acts accordingly.

Under this new regime, the days of us appointing a Mourinho, Ancelotti, Klopp, Guardiola etc etc are well and truly over. It ain't gonna happen, so we may as well get used to these new style appointments. It's early days, but I have a much better feeling with LR than I ever did with Maresca, so happy to give him time and see how things go. Way too early to judge - especially with some of the dross we currently have in our squad.

I like Merson and normally have a lot of time for him but he does talk a load of bo**ocks. As LR said, it's easy to be a pundit and there is good reason why Merson had a shocker as a manager himself. Merson is talking like this was the CFC of old, where we had quality in every position. We now have very few players who would force their way into the Arsenal starting 11 and last night hardly any of those started.

No happy with it, but understand the methodology down to the circumstances / players we had missing.

Absolutely Bang On. We all know deep down that we have too many players in the squad who just aren't good enough to be top level. So when you start a game with no Colwill, James, Palmer and Estevao (possibly Lavia too), it's a big ask, as it's really only Caicedo, Cucurella, Santos and Pedro who are at the required level and they don't have enough creativity or goals in them.

I meant strongest possible. Although many will view as negative, I think LR played it right last night - well almost. I wanted to see Palmer and Estevao come on at HT for Delap and Gusto and to give them long enough to get into the game and make an impact. Thought we looked the better team for large parts but because we didn't have our main match-winners, we just didn't do or create enough. Another night and one of those Enzo chances or one of those set-pieces gets us back in the game. Disappointing but the damage was done in the first leg and I feel more positive now than I did under Maresca.

Palmer can be rested for the Wolves game when hopefully Estevao will be available again. He HAS to play tonight.

Yep, think that would be the preferred line up for most of us. You then have Acheampong who can be rotated with Trev and Fofana plus Delap for some games and Lavia when he's fit to rest midfield players.

I think it's down to the fact we didn't know huge amounts about Badiashille or Gittens before we signed them, whereas we ALL knew Garnacho was sh*t and we didn't need him, after seeing him at Man Utd in the PL for some time where he had failed to impress. To think we could have signed Semenyo instead of Garnacho AND Gittens. So many poor decisions.

Need our strongest starting 11 to have any chance of a result tonight and it's a real shame we have no Estevao. Don't want to see Badiashile or Gusto. Only decision will be does Josh start or will it be Chalobah & Fofana? Pedro up front with Cole on right, so one of either Neto, Garnacho or Gittens on the left (which one will be least sh*t on the night?). Or we play Delap and Pedro and hope Delap roughs them up and a bit AND discovers some form. COME ON THE CHELS!!

I'm surprised Lamps hasn't looked to take any of our youngsters on loan, bearing in mind Coventry's form has dropped off a cliff lately. That said, I don't know how good our youngsters are these days. Was a time when I was well up with them and knew the decent ones but other than Ibrahim Rabbaj (the new Messi!), I don't know if there are any that would do well in The Championship.

Before that West Ham game I would have agreed. But that 45 minutes was possibly the worst I have seen from a CFC player in a very long time.

I hope you're right. Do we know if Estevao is likely to be back as well?

Head scratching why Acheampong and Santos didn't feature against West Ham. Maybe, LR thinks he can improve some of the dross. Perhaps when they worked on things in training the likes of Badiashile and Garnacho performed really well (I would be amazed!). I get he has to keep bigging the squad up in interviews and he cannot come out and say "clearly some of these players just aren't up to it". But I hope he has seen enough of some of them to know he cannot keep selecting them and that players like Josh HAVE to play more.

Is he still saying that after that first half against West Ham? If he is, he's completely delusional!!

Just underlines how poor our wide options have been / still are when we start to question whether we'd be better off with Sterling and George. Over last couple of seasons, with the exception of Estevao, they have largely been as bad as each other. Sterling, Mudryk, Neto, Garnacho, George, Gittens, Madueke. All extremely inconsistent with a lot more bad games than good. At least we got a decent fee for Madueke - can't see us getting too much for any of the others. I still have slim hopes for Gittens, as he does show little glimpses now & again, but have never seen a player so timid and light-weight.

Touched on it the other day. Hate how LR goes on about working with this "incredible group of players". We have a few very good players and some who can do a job now & again, but the rest of the squad is padded out with utter dross. And when you play too many of them at the same time as LR did in the first half yesterday, THAT is the result. Thank f**k for the changes and the second half comeback as that first 45 was an utter embarrassment.

The above just shows me there are two players plying their trade at CFC whereas their level is more West Ham / Burnley.

Dead Rubber? Don't be so defeatist! If Man Utd can beat the Gooners at their place - so can we! We just want a "Wayne Bridge" moment....................

Agree with all of the above @WhiteWall . When they perform like they did last night, Neto and Gusto are a waste of time having them on the pitch. Neither offered anything. Was frustrating when Napoli got on top, bearing in mind the number of players they were missing. Glad a fit KDB and Billy Gilmour weren't on the pitch as it could have been a different story. But at times, they still opened us up at will. In contrast, we did our usual painful passing backwards and sideways and HT couldn't come soon enough. Thankfully LR reacted and Palmer helped change the game (TBH, anyone would have been an improvement on Neto) and then the other changes also helped (always good to see Gusto exit the pitch). Even applauded bringing on Badiashile to combat the late aerial threat of Lukaku. Had to be Gittens or Garnacho to come off as both are too light-weight and it nearly cost us with Garnacho losing the ball on the edge of our box. But all in all, a decent(ish) performance and result. Just want to see us passing the ball better with a lot more purpose. The return to fitness of Palmer plus Santos and hopefully Lavia can only help with that.

My issue with Fernandez has always been the fact he is over-played. He isn't that good that he should be playing just about every minute of every game. He does some good things and I also like his passion and how he stands up to opponents. Last night, on the whole, he played okay. But he is always looking for the foul against him and too often goes down and the ref rightly sees not enough in it so plays on and then we're on the back foot with Fernadez still on his arse. If he could cut that out, as well as those annoying little passes where he plays one/twos with a team mate in the middle of the pitch for no apparant reason (to me, to you etc.....), then I would be happier.

That was unbelievable. Why we love football. Great to see - especially Bellendham moaning at the ref at the final whistle!

Still early days and last night I was worried after the first half that his inexperience was showing as it appeared he was getting schooled by Conte. But he made the right changes second half and he got the result, although we rode our luck a little. So early signs that he WILL do a better job than Maresca and I'm happier with LR making the decisions than I was with Maresca, who let's face it, kept getting a lot of things wrong and didn't seem to learn from those mistakes. I just don't want to hear LR come out with the same line though when he#s interviewed - the one about "working with an incredible group of players". That probably only applies to a handful of them - last night underlined that we have quite a few who are nowhere near incredible!

What is it with Villa and our ex players? Ross Barkley, Maatsen, were after Gallagher and have now signed Tammy Abraham. Do they know Sterling is available.......................?