Jonty

Agreed, and there's no point trying to play like City when we have Jorginho, Kovacic and Willian as opposed to Fernandinho, KDB and Sterling. If we want to play this possession-heavy football we need players better suited to it, which means investment.

Probably because whenever he looks up he sees only Higuain in the box surrounded by 6 defenders, while the rest of our team stands around outside the box looking at him.

Some nice passing, perhaps we're being a bit tough on him when Kovacic and Barkley are creating very little also. Would be nice to see Sarri mix things up and have him playing in front of Kante and get him a little more involved, while giving us more defensive shape? There was a reason we didn't deploy Fabregas as a lone holding midfielder and paired him with someone like Matic, feels like this may be a similar situation. The issue just again comes back to Sarri's refusal to mix things up. Edit: Looks like Ernie and Just have made similar points above.

Not sure how he'd slot into that team, if we tried to shaft him onto the wing like Anelka you can only imagine the sulking.

From what I can tell his main positive contribution to the team is that we retain more possession (although this could just be Sarri's tactics vs the more pragmatic Conte/Mourinho). Even if we assume this is true, i'm struggling to really see the benefit, as we always had plenty of possession against lesser teams, and despite having more of the ball in the big games now we're getting torn apart defensively.

Am usually among the last to clamour for a change in manager, but i'm now unsure about Sarri. I'm willing to back him if he tries to change something up - particularly in the midfield which has been atrocious all season, in large part because whichever 2 of Jorginho/Kovacic/Barkley are on the field appear to contribute next to nothing offensively nor defensively. His refusal to try Kante in Jorginho's slot and put the latter on the bench is particularly disappointing in my view. I can sympathise that we've had no striking option until the last week or so, which is not his fault, and that the squad appears in serious need of overhaul. If Hazard stays (which I still think he will), he together with Kante, Kepa and our current starting back four are of sufficient quality to retain (yes I still have faith in our back line despite the last 2 away games, although Alonso may need to go). With Pulisic coming in, and CHO and RLC promoted to more regular minutes, our most urgent need is a striker and a top playmaking midfielder. If Hazard goes we'll also need a top replacement for him. The likes of Willian, Pedro, Giroud, Barkley and Jorginho (and Kovacic if we retain him) are decent bench options but none are good enough to start in my view. It may make more sense to offload a few and bring in some younger options with higher potential. Whether Sarri is the manager to oversee this rebuild or not is of less importance in my opinion, but with his more attacking style of play we really cannot get away with the lack of quality that a Conte or Mourinho could have perhaps patched over.

Amazing performance, can't remember us dominating a world-class side like that in Europe away from home for a long, long time.

A little concerned it seems the press are already trying to spin him into Torres 2.0, hopefully is fast out of the blocks once the season starts.

Kante, thought Pedro did most of our good work up top though.

The prospect of having 60 million quid burning a hole in our pocket and an attacking midfielder sized hole in our squad is tantalizing. So many world class players that could be brought in to play where Pedro currently is for that sum. Or alternatively if we can find a decent left wing back, that would also be nice.

Too soon

The only memorable part of his legacy is how he's somehow managed to shoehorn himself into being constantly compared with Lampard.

I still see City as our biggest threat for the title, so them dropping points even if it is against the Arse and the Dippers will help us come May.

Especially considering ol' whisky nose deemed him overpriced and chose to buy Kagawa instead.

I hope/think Ake or Kenedy may replace him within the next 12 months, unfortunately Felipe Luis would have been perfect as he was great going forward too, but oh well.

It's a shame he wasn't playing this role for the entire calendar year, it's probably cost him a Balon d'Or. Oh well, next year I suppose.

I don't think we really needed a midfielder who specialised in 50 yard hero cross field passes that rarely found their target, beating up DJs, diving in Champions League finals and slipping over.

Also known in German as a whale's vagina.

Luiz, a fantastic all around display of defence and leadership. HM for Costa, sublime touch for his goal, then absolutely twatted Gundogan to set up Hazard. He didn't really show up until the second half but once he did the game totally changed.

My personal favourite comment on the blue moon post match thread

Wonder what he'll do if we actually win the league, tear his clothes off and do a nude lap of the Bridge?

After that result I know how he feels.

Thought he was shocking for Willians goal, I think Diego scoring at his near post and having a couple of other shots at it might have forced him to hesitate diving to the far one for Willians' shot, which made him look a total mug.

I was pretty nervous with the Alonso trip on Navas, fortunately like everyone else on their team he hurled himself onto the floor and ruined any chance he had of winning the pen. Overall ref did a pretty good job, let the players get on with it.

Won't be feeling too ecstatic until I hear on how Luiz's knee is, but what a brilliant performance from top to bottom, and the players handled themselves with dignity and class while the Peptulent children spat the dummy. If City drop points over the next few games because of not having Aguero and Fernandinho then it will be even sweeter.