1 hour ago, didierforever said:

This is based on what?

I presume its based on his own opinion, same as you thinking it would make the team better was your opinion.

I agree with coco, having a midfield 3 of Matic/Kante and Fabregas would cause us problems rather than fix them, that would be a very congested area and leave us vulnerable elsewhere. If Fabregas is to play I expect it would be slightly ahead of Kante or Matic, not with. I wonder if we will see Fabregas alongside Mikel or Matic tonight as a test.

6 hours ago, Coxy15 said:

And so says Marouane Chamakh...

Good in the air to be fair!

If Fabregas is to start I can't imagine any scenario in which he's part of a two-man midfield, and certainly not partnered with Mikel. If Conte wants to maintain the same level of intensity and running from his midfield I can envision him at the back of a midfield three, or even a diamond depending on the opponent.

47 minutes ago, dkw said:

I presume its based on his own opinion, same as you thinking it would make the team better was your opinion.

I agree with coco, having a midfield 3 of Matic/Kante and Fabregas would cause us problems rather than fix them, that would be a very congested area and leave us vulnerable elsewhere. If Fabregas is to play I expect it would be slightly ahead of Kante or Matic, not with. I wonder if we will see Fabregas alongside Mikel or Matic tonight as a test.

I have to disagree. Cesc-Kante-Matic might have problems of their own, but the point is will they be better than Oscar-kante-matic. in my opinion, Yes. With matic and Kante, Oscar is almost redundant. As bad as matic is under pressure, Oscar truly showed his quality (or lack of it) under liverpool. 

We already know Cesc does not work in a 2 man mid. Having 2 DMs doing the bull work for him might be the perfect scenario for him to succeed. As for Oscar, its not as if he is making those Lampard-ish runs into the box or pulling off defences with his passing and positioning. 

If he is going to persist with only one striker then I think there is absolutely room for Cesc regardless of who else gets into the starting XI

Whatever the problem, it has been exposed now and needs addressing! Think we got away with it at the start. Conte needs to show his tactical awareness.

I didn't comment after the Liverpool game but this is what I have felt the whole season, win or loss notwithstanding.

I love the fact that we are beginning to coherently and imaginatively pass the ball around and retain possession. Our attacking play is better than it was at any point in Jose's second tenure. We are showing defensive frailties but I have no doubt that if we continue to play like this, the defence will settle in and we may have an excellent season.

it has just been a few games but it is a joy to watch the team play.

Conte has been fantastic so far.

1 hour ago, ashwin said:

I didn't comment after the Liverpool game but this is what I have felt the whole season, win or loss notwithstanding.

I love the fact that we are beginning to coherently and imaginatively pass the ball around and retain possession. Our attacking play is better than it was at any point in Jose's second tenure. We are showing defensive frailties but I have no doubt that if we continue to play like this, the defence will settle in and we may have an excellent season.

it has just been a few games but it is a joy to watch the team play.

Conte has been fantastic so far.

Not against Liverpool, nor here today. 

The third goal was class, though. 

 

11 hours ago, ashwin said:

I didn't comment after the Liverpool game but this is what I have felt the whole season, win or loss notwithstanding.

I love the fact that we are beginning to coherently and imaginatively pass the ball around and retain possession. Our attacking play is better than it was at any point in Jose's second tenure. We are showing defensive frailties but I have no doubt that if we continue to play like this, the defence will settle in and we may have an excellent season.

it has just been a few games but it is a joy to watch the team play.

Conte has been fantastic so far.

I think we must be watching different games. I was only able to catch the first 35 minutes last night, but we were awful quite frankly, and we were horrible against Liverpool too.

If we'd gone two goal down last season we'd probably have lost. 

Conte's doing something right even if it is to instil some more self belief and confidence in the players. 

I think we need to continue to overhaul the squad if we're to get better more consistent performances but I think Conte's done a good job so far. 

9 minutes ago, ForeverCarefree said:

If we'd gone two goal down last season we'd probably have lost. 

Conte's doing something right even if it is to instil some more self belief and confidence in the players. 

I think we need to continue to overhaul the squad if we're to get better more consistent performances but I think Conte's done a good job so far. 

A wide player, central midfielder and a defender maybe all we need to get to where we want to be.

That may take till next Summer though.

hopefully people have calmed a little since the liverpool game.

my observations from that (and yesterday) is that it is still clear that

a) the players haven't fully assimilated how he wants us to play (conte teams are not designed to be reactive to that extent- think about how aggressive italy were early on against belgium and spain this summer, and that is with a poorer front 6 than ours). we were stationed so deep and had so little of the ball. there was almost no combination or pattern play and the whole thing was antithetical to his style. the one plus is that we aren't conceding goals as a result of a bad defensive structure, but then we are due to persistent individual errors.

and

b) our players are still suffering from last season. conte had talked about it before the liverpool game on a number of occasions which I always found weird- surely you'd want to ignore it. but I guess we know why now- he looks them in the eye and probably sees fear. this is going to be probably a bigger thing to deal with than I, and maybe a lot of us, first thought. I must admit I thought it would be a done deal that we'd be past that brittleness, but the first 30 minutes on friday showed how reluctant we were to come out and meet liverpool in the middle of the pitch once they had started well.

 

before cahill gave the ball away for the second goal ivanovic had done so at least 3 times. you could see a very clear collective lack of composure with the ball from every defensive player bar david luiz and to a lesser extent kante. I don't think it is a coincidence that they weren't at the club last season.

 

on luiz he was poor last night along with cahill (and azpilicueta. AND alonso), but he was good for most of the liverpool game (bar the moment he ran into midfield in the second half and liverpool messed up a 4 vs 3 counter attack from which we were lucky not to be punished). he's been good with the ball in both games but we haven't seen him carry the ball forward yet and I wonder if that is by instruction? possibly not, maybe more a result of playing against 3 and then 2 narrow forwards so there is not enough space for him to do it. what is clear though is that neither he or cahill or ivanovic are organisers- JT really needs to be a first choice when he returns, whoever he is to play alongside. so far I don't think he looks a better player than he was, but nor does he look worse either.

 

ivanovic and matic- big steps back for both of these. ivanovic we all know- his legs are gone and they won't come back. the lack of composure, or leadership against liverpool was extremely disturbing though, without that he would have literally nothing to offer us. I think matic started the season with little flickers of recovery but these bigger games will tell us if he can come back. on the evidence of this, he won't be at the club next season.

as for conte- no real question marks about his selection from the start given they had been good up til then, but his subs came much too late to have any real effect IMO. I'm sure he's well aware of what he has to do, and a defeat isn't a bad thing in the long run if it helps him to form solid ideas about these players. I won't say it is a transitional year because it isn't- we have real targets, but I think it is clear watching us and watching city (under the supposed fraud manager with 1000 career trophies) that we aren't seriously in a title race.

Edited September 21, 20169 yr by g3.7

1 hour ago, g3.7 said:

 

you could see a very clear collective lack of composure with the ball from every defensive player bar david luiz and to a lesser extent kante. I don't think it is a coincidence that they weren't at the club last season.

It's a very valid point. The systemic lack of composure amongst a lot of our players is really baffling. Where has it come from ? 

 

50 minutes ago, coco said:

It's a very valid point. The systemic lack of composure amongst a lot of our players is really baffling. Where has it come from ? 

I think (like G4 said) that our players are too scared of making mistakes. This is something Jose appears to have drilled into the collective Psyche of our team. Of course, a few players like Cahill do not have the technical ability to keep the ball under pressure like Luiz, or spray accurate diagonals to the flanks like JT or Luiz again. We have seen 18 months of fear, 18 months that have destroyed every player's confidence in his own technical ability. I don't dislike Jose at all, but this is the legacy he has left.

This is why it is great to see a passing game developing so quickly. I thought it would take a few months for Conte to get things going but we are zipping quick passes about for the most part just 3 matches into the season. We might wonder what makes our play any different from an inferior version of City's passing game. IMO, something we are clearly doing different is that we are playing a nice combination of balls over the top and along the ground, and we seem to be focusing on frequently changing flanks with balls over the top. We have probably already created more chances than the entire first half of last season.

Let's give Liverpool some credit for the first half hour of that game. They have had more than a year to learn Klopp's ways and they blew us away with quick, incisive passing and frantic pressing. We came back nicely I felt, and even when we were under the cosh, we weren't terrible. We will improve greatly and naturally as the team becomes more confident surely. I feel that I have no cause to worry as long as we concede due to individual errors. The probability of these will reduce with every game, as they get to know each other and Conte's system better.

Matic looks like a completely different player already, and so does Oscar. Give this team and Conte some time and they will surely come good. We have an excellent squad in need of good training and coaching.

 

3 hours ago, Kentonio said:

I think we must be watching different games. I was only able to catch the first 35 minutes last night, but we were awful quite frankly, and we were horrible against Liverpool too.

Please watch the rest of the game.

I feel that we were decent in the first 35 minutes barring individual mistakes, but it is frankly a little ridiculous to judge our performance based on less than 1/3rd of the match, especially given that we scored 4 goals when you weren't watching.

6 minutes ago, ashwin said:

Please watch the rest of the game.

I feel that we were decent in the first 35 minutes barring individual mistakes, but it is frankly a little ridiculous to judge our performance based on less than 1/3rd of the match, especially given that we scored 4 goals when you weren't watching.

I was basing us mostly on the previous 5-6 games where we haven't looked particularly great either with a few exceptions.

Still early days of course and hopefully it'll all click together.

Edited September 21, 20169 yr by Kentonio

26 minutes ago, Kentonio said:

I was basing us mostly on the previous 5-6 games where we haven't looked particularly great either with a few exceptions.

Still early days of course and hopefully it'll all click together.

Fair enough. I clearly viewed all the games this season completely differently

Just now, ashwin said:

Fair enough. I clearly viewed all the games this season completely differently

To be fair I still have happy/sad memories of how we looked in that first half season when we won the title last, and occasionally get giddy when we show flashes of that again. I still don't know where that went wrong.

2 minutes ago, Kentonio said:

To be fair I still have happy/sad memories of how we looked in that first half season when we won the title last, and occasionally get giddy when we show flashes of that again. I still don't know where that went wrong.

Jose became afraid of losing what we had after that half season. And then of failing in the next season. And that is now ingrained in the team's bones!

I still think we set up too worried about what the other team will do more than what we ourselves can do!

 

Matic-Kante-Oscar lacks so much going forward for me, you could probably throw Willian in there as well.

 

im surprised to see so many people still backing Matic. It's been over 12 months he's been well below par, the old Matic is gone and I don't think he'll be coming back now.

 

I'd love to see us try a midfield of Chalobah, Kante & Fabregas. That would give us energy & creativity in the centre of the park.

 

There's no point in us setting up to stop the other team because we're just defensively not good enough to do it (even without Fabregas in the team). We should go out to blow teams away and score goals. 

I don't think any of the other teams have as defensive a set up as us IMO.

Conte has inherited a squad on a par with 5th to 10th place (table dont lie, last season 10th) but being paid wages at the level of a top 2 team

a couple of decent signings were made in the last window, then 'panic buys' in the last few days, unfortunately in an area of the squad that needed thoughtful signings that would add some steel at the back, not what the team got though imo

Cahill & especially Ivan are done as starters, they were last season so more fool the board, ironically they were also prepared to let JT walk, omg imagine if he wasn't injured waiting to return but playing in China

Conte is atop coach but he aint a water into wine merchant, just like the old manager's new club, where they have chucked far more money at the problem than Roman has, and there's still a 'hangover' up there like at the Bridge

 

I like Conte, hes obviously got something a bit 'special' but a new country, new league, plus a few 'broken' and 'worn out' players to boot, we all need to lower our expectations and give the man time

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

20 minutes ago, General said:

Conte has inherited a squad on a par with 5th to 10th place (table dont lie, last season 10th)

Just because they finished 10th doesn't make them 10th place quality. They were league winners the season prior so they are definitely superior to what they displayed last season. Even this season.

Edited September 21, 20169 yr by Stim

6 hours ago, g3.7 said:

hopefully people have calmed a little since the liverpool game.

my observations from that (and yesterday) is that it is still clear that

a) the players haven't fully assimilated how he wants us to play (conte teams are not designed to be reactive to that extent- think about how aggressive italy were early on against belgium and spain this summer, and that is with a poorer front 6 than ours). we were stationed so deep and had so little of the ball. there was almost no combination or pattern play and the whole thing was antithetical to his style. the one plus is that we aren't conceding goals as a result of a bad defensive structure, but then we are due to persistent individual errors.

and

b) our players are still suffering from last season. conte had talked about it before the liverpool game on a number of occasions which I always found weird- surely you'd want to ignore it. but I guess we know why now- he looks them in the eye and probably sees fear. this is going to be probably a bigger thing to deal with than I, and maybe a lot of us, first thought. I must admit I thought it would be a done deal that we'd be past that brittleness, but the first 30 minutes on friday showed how reluctant we were to come out and meet liverpool in the middle of the pitch once they had started well.

as for conte- no real question marks about his selection from the start given they had been good up til then, but his subs came much too late to have any real effect IMO. I'm sure he's well aware of what he has to do, and a defeat isn't a bad thing in the long run if it helps him to form solid ideas about these players. I won't say it is a transitional year because it isn't- we have real targets, but I think it is clear watching us and watching city (under the supposed fraud manager with 1000 career trophies) that we aren't seriously in a title race.

I think Conte does have options and they have been made all the more attractive by three performances in particular last night. Cesc has thrown the gauntlet down at Oscar’s feet, Moses has definitely edged ahead of Willian in the battle for the right wing berth and Chalobah has made the most of his debut, looking very composed and assured. Therefore, taking all this into consideration and subject to JT‘s fitness (agreed he is irreplaceable) my starting line-up (Plan A) against the Arse (4-1-4-1 formation) would be:- Azpi, Cahill, JT, Alonso, Kante, Moses, Luiz, Cesc, Hazard, Costa. However, Conte has a stated preference for playing Geezer at the back, so more likely is JT partnering him and a choice made between Matic and Chalobah to give extra bite in the middle of the park. It is possible that Nathaniel and RLC will fight for this selfsame spot in the future, with a switch into a 3-5-2 formation more easily made in this present set-up by including one of them in the above-named side, again at Gary Cahill’s expense, in this my (Plan B) team :- Azpi, JT, Luiz, Moses, Chalobah/RLC, Kante, Cesc, Alonso, Hazard, Costa. Ironically, the dilemma for Conte, should he makes this adventurous selection, is that we can’t keep a clean sheet to save our lives and a right-sided pairing taken from Azpi/Moses/Willian, or a left-sided one taken from Alonso/Aina/Hazard isn’t exactly going to make us more defensively secure, just incredibly offensive. 

Perhaps it has to be done, though, especially if you want to see [as I do] Batshuayi (not Hazard as in the above line-up) becoming the second striker. Something [someone] has to give to even get close to achieving these objectives and as Edin shouldn’t be sacrificed, the best I can come up with is (Plan C):- Azpi, JT,Luiz, Alonso, Kante, Cesc, Moses, Chalobah, Hazard, Costa. And yes indeed, it is our old friend the 4-2-3-1 formation, but based purely on my perception of the present form of players and the flexibility of the system. Naturally, the fear is that a holding two of Kante/Cesc would not be strong enough to cope in the normal course of events but, as Fergie used to say of another north London club ‘Lads, it’s Arsenal’ next up and they will play their own game regardless of the size and physicality of the players in these positions. In short [as both players are] I think we are better served giving as good as we get going forward on the break, with Cesc or Geezer providing the Route One long ball over the top to Diego - like him, it‘s not pretty, over-elaborate, pass, pass, pass, rocket science, but we should leave all that to the Emirates experts anyway.  

So there you have three plans put forward for consideration, though none of them are likely to see the light of day until more points are gathered in and we are as supremely confident as Pep Guardiola’s squad must be at the moment. Still, you live in hope and a rewarding run of games for Victor Moses, a recall for Cesc, plus a promising debut for Chalobah, are definite steps in the right direction.     
 

28 minutes ago, General said:

Conte has inherited a squad on a par with 5th to 10th place (table dont lie, last season 10th) but being paid wages at the level of a top 2 team

This is ridiculous.. Our best XI are arguably on par with city and only city are ahead of us in term of the quality of the squad depth.. We're definitely a top 2 team.. it's up to the manager whether he can get the best out of the players, don't make it sound when it's bad, it's down to the players but when it's good, the manager gets the credit..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If we'd gone two goal down last season we'd probably have lost. 

Conte's doing something right even if it is to instil some more self belief and confidence in the players. 

I think we need to continue to overhaul the squad if we're to get better more consistent performances but I think Conte's done a good job so far. 

Last season best result from last night would of been 3/4-1 defeat this season we have a different sense of belief more attacking freedom we absolutely need to fix the back 4 but it's a slow project and everyone needs to understand this