This will be interesting to see how Conte handles the team when everyone becomes fit and over suspensions. 

For me it is a no-brainer - 

Christensen is the CB and Luiz moves into central midfield and 3-5-2 with Hazard and Morata up top.

The odd men out would probably be Cahill, Fabregas, Willian and Pedro becoming cameo players. 

Of course over the season with challenges on several fronts there will be changes yet imagine that midfield:

Bakayoko challenging the other sides midfield strong men from and running through teams.

Kante closing down and winning the ball high up the pitch

Luiz protecting the back three yet with additional ability to launch an attack or create an opportunity with his long rage passing.

Except Luiz is a better defender

Way better defender

49 minutes ago, Strider6003 said:

This will be interesting to see how Conte handles the team when everyone becomes fit and over suspensions. 

For me it is a no-brainer - 

Christensen is the CB and Luiz moves into central midfield and 3-5-2 with Hazard and Morata up top.

The odd men out would probably be Cahill, Fabregas, Willian and Pedro becoming cameo players. 

Of course over the season with challenges on several fronts there will be changes yet imagine that midfield:

Bakayoko challenging the other sides midfield strong men from and running through teams.

Kante closing down and winning the ball high up the pitch

Luiz protecting the back three yet with additional ability to launch an attack or create an opportunity with his long rage passing.

Just don’t think we have enough going forward against the bottom 14 in that formation. 

Will work well against teams taking us on, but organised teams sitting back and inviting pressure? Not sure we have enough. 

1 hour ago, Strider6003 said:

This will be interesting to see how Conte handles the team when everyone becomes fit and over suspensions. 

For me it is a no-brainer - 

Christensen is the CB and Luiz moves into central midfield and 3-5-2 with Hazard and Morata up top.

The odd men out would probably be Cahill, Fabregas, Willian and Pedro becoming cameo players. 

Of course over the season with challenges on several fronts there will be changes yet imagine that midfield:

Bakayoko challenging the other sides midfield strong men from and running through teams.

Kante closing down and winning the ball high up the pitch

Luiz protecting the back three yet with additional ability to launch an attack or create an opportunity with his long rage passing.

I don't think Luiz would be great as a permanent midfielder, because he's just not that great in tight spaces. He tends to dilly dally on the ball and carelessly lose it. His passing also is much better when he's afforded time and space. Also there's absolutely no reason for Fabregas not to play if we play 3 midfielders. You would really start with one centre back and two defensive midfielders in a three man midfield?

3 hours ago, coco said:

If anything I'm disappointed he hasn't been made captain yet. If he keeps this up it won't be too long, can see it happening.

Maybe vice captain. Surely our next captain has to be Dave  .

Edited September 24, 20178 yr by axman2526

1 minute ago, axman2526 said:

Maybe vice captain. Surely our next captain has to be Dave  .

He already is captain in all but official terms, with Cahill not being a nailed on starter every week. Dave will be captain but it limits us to using him in the center if we do, you cant have an effective RB as captain. So having Andreas as vice captain would be ideal so he can step in when needs must. 

3 hours ago, True Blue23 said:

I don't think Luiz would be great as a permanent midfielder, because he's just not that great in tight spaces. He tends to dilly dally on the ball and carelessly lose it. His passing also is much better when he's afforded time and space. Also there's absolutely no reason for Fabregas not to play if we play 3 midfielders. You would really start with one centre back and two defensive midfielders in a three man midfield?

Fair points yet given a choice I would not play Fabregas against City yet looks like we might due to limited options. Walker is going to have the beating of Alonso due to power and pace  which means that one of our midfield Baka or Kante will be pulled out wide leaving Fernandinho and Bruyne up against Fabregas and one other. Just hope Conte is awake at nights thinking this one through. We can beat City if we get the tactics right or get hammered if we get them wrong.

13 hours ago, coco said:

He already is captain in all but official terms, with Cahill not being a nailed on starter every week. Dave will be captain but it limits us to using him in the center if we do, you cant have an effective RB as captain. So having Andreas as vice captain would be ideal so he can step in when needs must. 

Going back a while but Steve Clarke was a great leader from rb.  It can sometimes work.

For me atm he is our most solid defender. Has to play. No way around it. If we don't play him he will want a move on January.

Honestly, watched him play today for the first proper time as we were defending a lot. He was class. He is a fine player. Pep even saw this and talked to him a bit after the game. 

How long does he have left on his deal? Rumour has it pep have an impromptu chat with him about joining city after the game.

12 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

 Rumour has it pep have an impromptu chat with him about joining city after the game.

Rumour must have damned good hearing to have heard what those few words were about.

Don't take much to make smoke these days. Don't even need fire.

I did think watching the game how Christensen is such a Pep player. I don't think many of us would swap him now for stones. That said I think he'll find himself on the bench with Luiz back in the side. Luiz still has the edge in terms of distribution. Long term I am sure he will take over. Wouldn't mind seeing him alongside Luiz to see how that looks sometime but so far Conte seems to want him in the middle, and he looks bloody good there. First season as long as he's getting regular games I think he'll be happy, no need to necessarily be nailed down first choice for every game at his age.

I don't think he can be left out anymore, he's been too good. Him, Azpilicueta, Rudiger and Morata are our most in form players right now.

Absolutely fantastic reading of the game. I'd argue he's our most naturally talented defender in the squad right now. 

Really quality defender, he should stay in the starting lineup in my opinion. The more experience he gets, then he improves more. 

I'd give azpi a rest and use him and rudiger in the first team next game. 

Absolutely solid yesterday. He will get games as we will need to rotate so I have no concerns there.

9 hours ago, mickydroysleftpeg said:

I did think watching the game how Christensen is such a Pep player. I don't think many of us would swap him now for stones. That said I think he'll find himself on the bench with Luiz back in the side. Luiz still has the edge in terms of distribution. Long term I am sure he will take over. Wouldn't mind seeing him alongside Luiz to see how that looks sometime but so far Conte seems to want him in the middle, and he looks bloody good there. First season as long as he's getting regular games I think he'll be happy, no need to necessarily be nailed down first choice for every game at his age.

Going to disagree with that Mickey. Think he looks better than Luiz and Cahill. By some margin on his performances to date. What especially impressed me yesterday was his innate awareness of what was happening around him and his ability to position himself to cover. A better passer than Cahill, a better defensive brain than Luiz. Get him in the team.

 

Despite us conceding the initiative to City, I felt our defence was very assured and dealt very well with almost everything thrown at them.

Christensen was absolutely fantastic and so was Rudiger. Not sure I'd get rid of Luiz for him yet, but I think he should start alongside Luiz. Which of Rudiger/Azpi gets left out though? Tough decisions!

 

28 minutes ago, Samdwich said:

Despite us conceding the initiative to City, I felt our defence was very assured and dealt very well with almost everything thrown at them.

Christensen was absolutely fantastic and so was Rudiger. Not sure I'd get rid of Luiz for him yet, but I think he should start alongside Luiz. Which of Rudiger/Azpi gets left out though? Tough decisions!

 

We could go super defensive and play them all!

 

Cahill

Christensen 

Luiz

 

Azpi

Baka

Kante

Cesc

Rudiger 

36 minutes ago, Samdwich said:

Despite us conceding the initiative to City, I felt our defence was very assured and dealt very well with almost everything thrown at them.

Christensen was absolutely fantastic and so was Rudiger. Not sure I'd get rid of Luiz for him yet, but I think he should start alongside Luiz. Which of Rudiger/Azpi gets left out though? Tough decisions!

 

I don't necessarily think Azpilicueta or Rudiger have to be left out. I feel like Alonso should be left out. He's been good for us and he's played above what i thought he was capable of, be he has struggled of late, he seem's to be getting beaten by his man a lot more than he was last season. Most of the attacking from opposition teams seem to come down our left, they obviously see Alonso's pace as a weakness. I personally think Azpilicueta would do better there. The only reason Azpilicueta was moved to CB in the first place is because we didn't have enough cover there or the players we did have didn't have the qualities needed to play the position. We now have Luiz, Christensen and Rudiger who are all good enough to play that role. Azpilicueta has shown that he is a great left back, and going forward he has been excellent of late too. I don't see why he can't give us more than Alonso does.

I also think moving Luiz into Azpilicueta's position would be good too. He's been very good in the middle of the CB's, but we want to make the most of his ball playing abilities too, with Christensen in the team, we can now do that. Move Luiz to the right of the 3 CB's, play Christensen in the middle and Rudiger on the left. Put Azpilicueta at LWB and let Moses and Zappacosta fight for RWB. I think this would give us a perfect balance in defence and would make moving the ball out of defence into the midfield a lot easier.

Edited October 1, 20178 yr by Scott Harris

I think what Azpilicueta offers going foward is good for a CB in this system, but not enough for a WB. He can put a great cross in, but doesn't have the ability to drive into the box and provide a goal threat as Alonso does. He's undoubtedly better defensively but considering our setup, I think Alonso's attributes give us a better balance between attack and defence as a whole.

Because we have a pretty defensive midfield and two forwards, the wingbacks need to get close to them and support them and that just isn't Cesar's game.

Again once, i was impressed by Christensen, i think that Conte must think about do play more often this player, mostly he can make us better