Barrettinator

So the same rubbish they had every other team wearing at the Euros and currently have majority of their club sides wearing? Highly disappointing to say the least.

Wenger? Barca? Absolutely no chance of that happening.

Luiz is able to do what he does because of Kante's effectiveness in front of him, among other things. Kante over Luiz for me. Costa has also been a bit inconsistent over the past 5 games or so. But he's scored in his last two (counting the FA Cup match) so I hope he's about to pick up his form again.

Learning to shoot more isn't necessarily the same thing as shooting every time. As it stands, he probably takes 3 shots out of every 10 openings. It wouldn't hurt for him to increase it to 5 or 6. I don't know if those figures are accurate, I'm just taking a good guess but you get what I mean.

They're the Daily Mail of Italy. Nothing to see here.

You'll find absolutely no one calling that performance "rubbish". Come off it.

Absolutely not. Learning to shoot more when there's an opening takes nothing away from his overall game. It adds to it. Especially when he's in and around the box. No one is saying he needs to shoot as much as Ronaldo. Just shoot a little more. He has the technique and so he's pretty accurate with his shots when he does shoot, much more than most players at his level. Which is why it's frustrating when he doesn't. Believe it or not but we'll need him to do a bit more of that if we want to win the CL.

Yeah if only he could really, really turn into Messi.

Lad's getting a half sleeve tattoo soon, apparently.

Would love to get a 2-0 over them.

Not bad. The ones in the OP are extremely hideous.

Martial is still a great talent. Rashford's level I think is not higher than playing for Everton at best. But Martial could still turn out to be a world class player. He should play for someone like Tuchel or Allegri. Jose seems to hate the lad.

No right thinking Arsenal fan should want him to stay (although as a Chelsea fan, I'd love it if he stayed 5 more years). And as soon as he's gone, they need to change the way the club is run in certain areas. They need to hire a good director of football and what not. There are good managers out there they can get. The Allegri rumors are starting to gain some steam although per John Cross, Wenger has already been offered a new contract and it all depends on whether or not he wants to stay now. There's also Thomas Tuchel at Dortmund. There's Sampaoli as well. There are good managers Arsenal can get if they decide to grow a pair and give Wenger the boot but if they want to continue in mediocrity, I'm all for it. Hope we can poach Sanchez off them in the summer.

I'm certain we aren't getting Lukaku and that's that tbh. This is also all on the assumption that Costa leaves....which is very likely just a mirage.

This too. Shearer mentioned a stat on MOTD about Lukaku having only scored 3 goals in his last 30 games against top 4 (or was it top 6?) sides. Surprise, surprise, those teams have the best defenders. Again, he's still only 23 and he could very well develop those qualities with the right manager and the right amount of work and patience put in but we don't have that time. Not for a striker. If we were mid table, sure, we'd have time for that. You can't even sleepwalk your way into top 4 these days. There's little margin for error. No time for slow development.

For every foreign player who's come into this league and flopped, there's 50 more home grown ones who came through the academy ranks of (insert English club) and have been even worse. So I don't see why "EPL proven" is a thing.

Oh and about Costa's touch, it left a lot to be desired when he first got here but it has gotten a lot better especially this season. His link up play with Hazard and Pedro/Willian has been really crucial to our attack. Some of the passes he's been making this season and the control, you'd never have imagined him making them in 14/15. That's someone who's clearly been working on that part of his game. I understand Lukaku is young but facts are facts. We really do not have the time to exercise patience and groom a striker into being lethal. Not if we want to win the CL (which I assume we all want). This is also why Batshuayi can't lead our line in the event that Costa does leave (which again I doubt is going to happen).

We need to drop this "EPL proven" shtick. More often than not, it's bollocks. Players come in from other leagues and take this league by storm all the time. Hazard wasn't "EPL proven" when he came here. Neither was Costa or Sanchez or Aguero or Ibrahimovic. A great player is a great player. There are other things that contribute to a player being sh*t in this league rather than it just being oh so physical or whatever other thing you might want to say is exclusive to the league. Hell, Mata was said to be a poor man's Silva (not saying he's been as good as Silva still) and too frail for this league by some when we signed him. Yet he's had a very successful spell. Let's drop that narrative. It was somewhat valid 10 years ago. Not anymore. Also, no chance we spend 60m to get Lukaku and no chance Everton lets him go for less so that's that (thankfully). Neither Costa nor Lukaku is Drogba in the air but that header before Alonso's goal today, you'd never see Lukaku do that. Better to spend that money on Sanchez. He's well worth it. I don't even think it's a foregone conclusion that Costa leaves anyway. Reckon he's still got another 2 seasons at least with us. A Hazard-Costa-Sanchez front 3 could win us the CL.

Any chance we get Sanchez in the summer?

What? That is flagrantly wrong! Lukaku's first touch is one of the worst of any striker in the league. It's been terrible for years and he still hasn't worked on it. Lets him down at the most crucial moments too. He's also not nearly as good as Costa in the air despite being just as big if not bigger than Costa physically. Also, he's an extremely streaky player. He'd score a hat trick in one game, one goal in the next and then go the next 8 games without getting a peep of goal. I bet he doesn't score more than 1 goal in his next 7 after the 4 he's just scored against Bournemouth. If we're looking to be title contenders and CL contenders, he's really NOT who we should be going after. We can't afford to have such a player go missing for so many games in a row. He's found his level and that's Everton. Leave him there. Unless Conte is going to work some magic on him like he did with Luiz, Lukaku is a terrible choice.

You have to wonder where Christensen who's right footed will play. I don't see Azpi getting dropped. Conte has a real problem to solve with selection soon (even though it's a good problem).

Milner a wing back? He's a slow CM who's been playing as a make shift LB. Wing back? No chance. He'll get ripped to shreds by Moses. They can't play a 3-4-3 or 3-5-2. They simply do not have the personnel. And Spurs even when they did had to play an absolutely perfect game to beat us and we still could have gotten something from that match.

No reason we shouldn't win this. Liverpool are down at the moment, we need to go in and kick them in the teeth. When they play Spurs they can begin to look for their motivation, not against us. I'd predict a crazy scoreline but I don't really care. I just want the 3 points. Very crucial because I'm sure we'll beat Arsenal at the weekend.

Jose has won 7 of 10 finals apparently. I don't even remember him losing any finals. Must have been at Madrid against Barca or something. I think United have got this but as has been pointed out, Southampton can't be underestimated. They just may win it.

All good mate. I'm sure the boys will make you feel better with 3 points today.