Just now, andy said:

Pointless friendlies are still nice to win, but team without a doubt in holiday mode, it is nice to see what level we need to be at.

 

If you think this is bad just think what they would do to Arsenal :-) ........ oh wait, they did ! in a competitive match  :-)

 

 

 

 

They drew 1-1 with Arsenal, and Arsenal won on penalties earlier in the pre-season. 

Getting a spanking here.

Just now, Scott Harris said:

I agree. Players in teams like Bayern Munich don't panic when closed down quickly and will play through the small gaps. In the Champions League i think we will need to be very careful with that. Closing players down is a strength, but it can also become a weakness if you 2 or 3 players are taking out of the game from one simple pass.

I remember reading/watching something years ago about how Pep set his Barca team up to press from the front, and they have very specific instructions on when to press and how the team should close down. I think it was something like you get close to them as quickly as possible and just narrow the angles, and if they have any kind of heavy/misplaced touch which means the ball isn't in absolute control, you rush them to cause them panic. I'll have to see if i can find it later.

Bayern started training 1st of the month versus Chelsea 10th. Their players really look up for it. Hope we get another goal in the second half and put some pressure on them. Otherwise I hope to see Morata. We have probably already lost this game but it is not that important.

No more injuries please. Pedro is a bad loss.

1 minute ago, Spiller86 said:

 

 

Classic. Pre-season match and already Cahill is being scapegoated. 

He's been no worse than others. Noone has played well. The midfield two in particular is well off the pace.

Be interested to see Morata come on in a front two and another midfielder coming in to make a three.

The midfield is swamped with Bayern players and our creativity is solely dependent on Cesc. It's not like people like to scapegoat Cahill but all 3 goals came from his side and for 2 of them he is directly in front of the shooter. Bayern is purposely targeting that side of the field.

5 minutes ago, Spiller86 said:

 

 

Classic. Pre-season match and already Cahill is being scapegoated. 

He's been no worse than others. Noone has played well. The midfield two in particular is well off the pace.

Be interested to see Morata come on in a front two and another midfielder coming in to make a three.

Think you'll find I've wanted Cahill benched for a while...even more so now we've got Rudiger and Christensen available...

Re-watching that 3rd goal, it was truely awful defending. Cahill and CHristensen back tracked for so long, Muller had about 4-5 seconds to decide what to do.

scary to think that bayern still don't have vidal, neuer, robben, thiago, alaba in the team. we don't have pedro, hazard, luiz, and i suppose you could add morata and bakayoko to that mix rather than costa and matic. 

Edited July 25, 20178 yr by enigma

On the plus side I really like our new kit. Circa 1970s

Just now, Zeta said:

Re-watching that 3rd goal, it was truely awful defending. Cahill and CHristensen back tracked for so long, Muller had about 4-5 seconds to decide what to do.

One needed to track Lewandowski's run and the other should have got closer to Muller. Both backing off just invited Muller to shoot.

Boga looked good, would be happy going into the season with him if need be until Pedro and Hazard return. 

 

Fitness seems to be the difference and we all know that won't be an issue for us once Conte gets the players working. There is a reason we had the best fitness in the country last year. I would still like to see a 3-5-2 against these kind of teams but with Bakayoko and Matic missing we don't really have the personnel currently.  

scary to think that bayern still don't have vidal, neuer, robben, thiago, alaba in the team 

We don't have Luiz, Hazard, Bakayoko, Morata...

We really miss Pedro's running in behind and movement. Willian is a good dribbler but he likes to beat a man to kickstart his dribbles. 

I hope Conte has a solution to counter teams playing 4-3-3

3 minutes ago, Zeta said:

Re-watching that 3rd goal, it was truely awful defending. Cahill and CHristensen back tracked for so long, Muller had about 4-5 seconds to decide what to do.

Christensen was going to go in on Muller but then Gary came to stop Muller first and backed off, Christensen had to cover the other attacker running in behind.

Edited July 25, 20178 yr by Deino

3 minutes ago, enigma said:

scary to think that bayern still don't have vidal, neuer, robben, thiago, alaba in the team 

Yeah but we lost Kenedy...

Boga has bags of energy and good determination to go forward however his first touch is not very good. It is imperative to have a perfect first touch almost all the time at this level.

Watch the difference when they press the ball to how we do. They are going as a teamand making it very hard. We are going as individuals and getting picked apart.

3 minutes ago, evissy said:

Boga has bags of energy and good determination to go forward however his first touch is not very good. It is imperative to have a perfect first touch almost all the time at this level.

disagree, to be a good dribbler you have to have a great touch. 

Courtois is struggling with his kicking today.

hard to wqatch this. 7 mins gone in second half. Dont think we have made 3 passes.

1 minute ago, Scott Harris said:

Courtois is struggling with his kicking today.

He's struggling with football today.

disagree, to be a good dribbler you have to have a great touch. 

His first touch has let him down today 3-4 times.

41 minutes ago, DonAntonio said:

@OhForAGreavsie you still sure about sanches being crap and unimpressive and we shouldn't buy him as a backup? 

Never once said he was crap. 

Nothing he ca do today can change the fact that he was not impressive at Euro 2016. What's done is done.

Has he shown world class potential today? Only if you are determined to see what you want to see in my opinion. What has he done so far today that moral footballers could not also have done? He is doing relatively ordinary things and here you are ready to praise him to the max.

Cesc is way to slow to be playing against decent teams like Bayern. They are literally just bypassing him like he isn't there.

Alonso showing that he can't deal with a pacy player again. It's just too easy to knock it past him and run.

Courtois didn't even move then.  Completely flat footed and could have easily been 4-1.