g3.7

I think we may have paid moenchengladbach a fee to break christensen's loan contract. but you could be right, we might well have signed someone, but I don't think JT not being at the club would make it easier to sign the guy from napoli or bonucci. until january, by which time zouma should be back, JT, cahill and ivanovic (plus hector and even chalobah) should be enough in terms of numbers in the middle. obviously moving ivanovic into the middle means at the moment we would have no real cover in either fullback position (other than cuadrado- and I have no desire to see that guy in a back four in the premiership). as I say, I think that is where we should be focusing as a priority but there isn't much in the press to suggest we are... don't forget we're not in europe so until the next window we've only got the league and the league cup to worry about.

as much as most of our players under performed last season it isn't easy to find central defenders who are actually significantly better than what we have. there aren't many, and fewer of those are realistic targets. yes, we are starting the season with JT and cahill (and ivanovic at fullback, for me a bigger concern although he has done reasonably in pre season for whatever that is worth) again, but don't forget zouma and christensen are on our books so that is a ready made long term partnership in waiting. with that in mind, personally I would want us to be going for a top player or nothing. my preference would be to sign a fullback which would allow ivanovic to be more of an option in the middle where I think he can still contribute to a decent level.

should we just sign anyone though? personally I don't want this guy and I'd rather muddle through a season with what we have than see us pay a huge amount of money for a player who will add more depth than quality.

If you are angered by this decision I think it's fair to say that anger should be directed at conte and not the club. Also I'd if you think the club should impose certain players upon the manager? I'm more than happy to wait and see what his approach is. If we have no kids in the squad when the window closes that would be extremely alarming. I expect that we will though, and if so it will be a question of waiting to see if they get used or if they are there as a result of tokenism or poor squad building.

Could mean either we can't shift Remy or lukaku is coming. Could also mean Ruben has a season playing up front. Which will be interesting... I do think he has some attributes to play like a target striker but I wouldn't expect many goals. It's a shame but he has Costa and batshuayi ahead of him never mind any other possible signings given he can't be a back to goal target striker.

on pogba; amazing signing, he'll be great for them eventually, but it is amazing that £100m buys you a player who for now isn't one of the top three midfield players in the world and in john stones' case £50m has bought a player who is still almost entirely potential. I think in the long term both pogba and stones will be successes, but I do think that if this is the market we now live with more than ever we should be thankful for our amazing youth system and it really is time we start seeing some real integration. a new player every season or so. that was the club's target, so this year hopefully aina (and loftus cheek or chalobah), next season surely christensen. I don't think we can compete with those sort of fees and I don't want us to take a retrograde step of leaning on abramovich to make these types of moves either. if we think about the long term of the club- and I mean in the next three decades- what we need to do is remain self sufficient rather than dependent because it guarantees that we will continue to exist. for me our ability to compete at the top will be dependent (amongst other things) on keeping the edge in youth development. I've read posts bemoaning us not going for these guys and saying we should sign bertrand for £30m rather than rely on the likes of aina. I think it is crucial we do the opposite.

Something has gone between his ears. Still think that we should give him another season to see if he can overcome it. Whatever it is.

don't agree, thought we looked at our most fluent in the first third of the match. don't see oscar having a future in that position, certainly not in that system anyway. meanwhile- loftus cheek as a striker! weird. guess he has some of the qualities a target man has but he's not exactly a player with a natural instinct for goals. we're also seeing that first time pass from a wide player to the target man who in turn lays it off to a runner. that was a feature of his italy team. interesting to note already how much of the play starts in the flanks and ends in the middle. wonder if that will change when fabregas and hazard are back in the team. I still don't see a space for the former and the latter at the moment could only be viewed as a forward rather than a wide man in this 442.

amazing how punctuation can change a sentence. I think it is much more likely he calls him "a special player who plays for one of the best clubs in the world "rather than a special player as he plays for one of the best clubs in the world". i.e. it is almost certainly a nothing comment.

operating in a similar position is not analogous to having similar strengths and weaknesses. for example, milner operated in a similar position to nasri at man city- that does not make them similar players. willian operates in a similar position to salah. that does not make them similar players. beckham operated in a similar position to giggs. that does not make them similar players. fabregas operates in a similar position to lampard. that does not make them similar players. ivanovic operates in a similar position to juliano belletti. that does not make them similar players. if you need more examples then there are literally hundreds of them. in any case, you are trying to say kenedy couldn't play as a wingback because he's an attacking player and defending isn't his strongest area. as I've explained above, you've done a terrible, terrible job of articulating that point, but I understand it nonetheless. the problem is, kenedy has had two european cup winning managers in his one season at chelsea and BOTH of them played him as a leftback. and he received encouraging reviews in that position. talking about kenedy as a wingback or fullback isn't totally hypothetical therefore, whereas it would be with hazard. this is why your comparison is completely ill fitting and arbitrary. furthermore he's still young enough and early enough in his development as a professional footballer to be moulded into a fullback or a wingback. there are loads of examples of players changing their position at similar points in their careers.

sounds like a reason not to play hazard at wingback then. which I don't believe anyone is suggesting.

and we've missed a player like him ever since. the rumours aren't going away. which makes me think conte wants to play two up front. I can see that too. I think he;d be a liability on the left of a 442 and I think conte wouldn't want fabregas in the middle of a 442- especially if hazard is in that midfield four as well. so what is conte's first 11 looking like at the moment? at the moment I can only see a 352 and despite my misgivings over azpilcueta as an attacking player I think he and willian will be wingbacks. looking at italy he's been happy to use right footers as the left wingback- indeed one of the key patterns that side uses is for the left wingback to receive the ball from defence or midfield and play a first time inswinging pass on the ground or in the air to the target striker, who then plays a first time pass to a midfield runner or his strike partner. of our current defenders I think only ivanovic suits playing in a back 3 (in the way barzagli has been used) as he is capable of splitting very wide to the right (owed to his experience at rightback). so lots of work will need to be done there. I'm not sure what his plan is for fabregas, but I imagine he will be relying on him. similarly oscar is probably the only player in the squad capable of doing the giacherrini role of shuttling between central midfield and moving into the left channel. in summary I don't know. seems like a 352 / 3511 with a lot of horses for courses rather than a defined first 11 at the moment.

Hopefully this tournament has taught you something about being patient rather than making a judgement too early?

Unlike the ake loan I an confortable with this. He's potentially a great wingback but he is still extremely raw. I don't want us to discard him after just one year and realistically I don't see him being a first choice for us. It makes some sense.

I don't rate him nearly as highly as some of you, but last season he has shown us clearly he can "do a job". There is no doubt about what he can offer us: a competent squad player in s number of positions. Clearly he can't be a wingback and the type of fullback he is doesn't suit a conte back four imo. But he could be a left sided central defender or a midfield player. If conte doesn't want him I have no problem with that at all. But in that case, sell him! I know we'll get a loan fee but I don't think it is in anyones interest to keep him on loan.

costa could either be the lead striker in the way he has been for us, or he could be the hard running, occupy the second central defender, go into the channels type player he was for falcao, and for much of his early career. he isn't eidur gudjohnson, but he can be effective that way. and conte isn't adverse to playing his forwards in that style either.

we're already halfway there.

Sweden's conservatism exposed the Italians lack of creative quality today. They were very sloppy additionally so even the worked patterns weren't coming off. Also thought it was interesting that by playing long to two big forwards it kept Italy in a defensive shape (5 defenders rather than 4 forwards) for much of the game and that is something content will need to deal with more in England.

look at how high up the wingbacks are for italy in the first half. two central defenders in the opposing half. the belgium back four are basically playing 1v1 with hazard and de bruyne having the problem of either following them (leaving 2 against 4 italian defensive players including de rossi) or keeping their shape. then the two holding players look very flat and are being drawn outwards by the italian midfielders (both on the outside of them) allowing direct passes from the defending players to the strikers. belgium look like they are in a very prescriptive 4231 and it certainly didn't look like wilmots had taken into account how italy would set up. I thought maybe we'd see long balls to fellaini given a) lukaku was struggling to hold it up, and b) fellaini was directly against de rossi, but I can only recall one instance of it.

he's so far below the quality of the pool of players available to him. I'm amazed he's still there- belgium have been together for years as a group and still play off-the-cuff football hoping for individual moments of quality to see them through. compare that to italy tonight for example and it should be clear how unacceptable that has to be.

for the reason I gave, yes. I think he's better than those players you mentioned- he's much less of a straight lines player and I think is generally a smarter footballer. but I agree his end product needs a lot of work. the russians had a very slow back four and after sterling went off they were emboldened to step up the pitch. the cross we conceded from would not have been an issue if it was aimed at one target on the edge of our box. so I'm disappointed from a tactical point of view rather than based on his individual performance. when he came off we needed to have one of rashford, sturridge or (preferably given the situation) vardy on the pitch to make slutsky feel less secure in moving his team 30 yards up the field.

good performance in spells, unfortunately it also underlined that our defence cannot be trusted. disappointed with sterling going off as well, he was keeping the russians 30 yards deeper simply by being on the field. we needed vardy on once he went off. I'm not too down though- that team is good enough to win the group. when we face better teams we'll have a problem incorporating alli and rooney into the midfield, though both played well tonight.

just to be clear- that line was a reference to fergie's famous hubristic defence of veron. it was very clever.

Huge fan of Oscar, but it did look like was on the way out and was used very little last season. I'd be more than happy for him to stay but he does need to find more consistency and he'll probably have to to that starting the season on the bench so it is going to be a bit of an uphill task. Anyway youse are f**king idiots he's a great f**king player.

Villas-boas. Pfft. That guy is responsible for one of the greatest peices of historical revisionism I've ever seen. If he was even half as good at management he would still be our manager.