Just now, Valerie said:

Oooohh, someone called Armando Broja is bound to be brilliant! Slap a squad number on him and send him on!

George Nunn for me.

13 minutes ago, Munkworth said:

George Nunn for me.

Hmmm, not the best name for a striker.

How many goals has he scored this season? Erm.............................Nunn!

Just now, Nibs said:

Hmmm, not the best name for a striker.

How many goals has he scored this season? Erm.............................Nunn!

Lol.

Willian has a lot of names, is one of those Nunn as well? Might explain his quality, or lack there of, corner kick ratio.

7 minutes ago, Munkworth said:

George Nunn for me.

All 3 including brown for me if Tammy is out. 1 starts 2 on bench. Send a message to Giroud and Batman they need to do better.

5 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

Lol.

Willian has a lot of names, is one of those Nunn as well? Might explain his quality, or lack there of, corner kick ratio.

I’m sure NeverBeatsTheFirstMan could actually be in there somewhere. 

1 hour ago, the special one said:

Can't argue against Pulisic's stats and my point wasn't meant to be a slight on him - to me we just looked a much more cohesive unit when Mount was playing at LW? Individual player stats mean nothing to me if the team isn't winning.

mount has played left wing 4 times. Lille, Norwich, sheff united, and liverpool.  2W 1L 1D. 

When we have been on this run, Mount has played centrally. Pulisic came into the team at the expense of Hudson odoi, who was playing left wing.

Selective memory i think. 

p.s. Great goal from grealish today mate. 

Testing time for Frank. Lost our last two in the league, and Aton Villa next, which will be hard. Then there was the lucky draw at Valencia in midweek, in which we were incredibly naive. Set-pieces remain a massive problem, which is unforgivable this far into the season. Players are starting to lose form, Willian for instance, Jorginho hasn't been great recently, Tomori's form has dipped, as has Mount's. This is where the real work starts for Frank. A win would be very welcome indeed.

3 hours ago, axman2526 said:

Anyone know our best academy strikers?

Armando Broja. Only 18 but tall, powerful and is scoring goals 10 goals in 9 games. 

2 hours ago, big blue said:

mount has played left wing 4 times. Lille, Norwich, sheff united, and liverpool.  2W 1L 1D. 

When we have been on this run, Mount has played centrally. Pulisic came into the team at the expense of Hudson odoi, who was playing left wing.

Selective memory i think. 

p.s. Great goal from grealish today mate. 

Fair enough re Pulisic - definitely selective memory, thanks for clarifying. Perhaps our winning run with CHO in the team skewed my judgement. Point stands re Emerson;

Alonso - 8W 1D 2L
Emerson - 3W 3D 4L

 

 

Edited December 1, 20196 yr by the special one

1 hour ago, Gentian said:

Armando Broja. Only 18 but tall, powerful and is scoring goals 10 goals in 9 games. 

Toldya.

42 minutes ago, the special one said:

Fair enough re Pulisic - definitely selective memory, thanks for clarifying. Perhaps our winning run with CHO in the team skewed my judgement. Point stands re Emerson;

Alonso - 8W 1D 2L
Emerson - 3W 3D 4L

 

 

If you look at the stats Alonso is better than Emerson and Chilwell, but if you watch him play...he isn't that ideal.

1 hour ago, Gentian said:

Armando Broja. Only 18 but tall, powerful and is scoring goals 10 goals in 9 games. 

Can he not play, gotta be better than what we’ve got at the moment.

2 hours ago, Gentian said:

Armando Broja. Only 18 but tall, powerful and is scoring goals 10 goals in 9 games. 

Thank you

39 minutes ago, Kev56 said:

Can he not play, gotta be better than what we’ve got at the moment.

This exactly this.

34 minutes ago, Kev56 said:

Can he not play, gotta be better than what we’ve got at the moment.

Imagine how Michy and Giroud would feel though. Lampard has to be careful not to rock the boat too much with the elder members of the squad, we have seen in the past what they can do. I think one of the reasons Lampard got rid off Luiz is that he was a huge influence in the dressing room for good or bad in Conte's case. 

7 minutes ago, Gentian said:

Imagine how Michy and Giroud would feel though. Lampard has to be careful not to rock the boat too much with the elder members of the squad, we have seen in the past what they can do. I think one of the reasons Lampard got rid off Luiz is that he was a huge influence in the dressing room for good or bad in Conte's case. 

Who cares how they feel? Giroud is on his way, if not in Jan then at the end of the season. Batman probably feels snubbed already since Lamps benched him and chose a winger rather than him to try and get a point yesterday. If that is not an indicator your time is up I do not know what is.

We have heard the term "dead wood" used a lot on here. Lamps started the clear out when Luiz went, he has hardly been a rip roaring success at Arsenal right?

Lamps needs to continue that job and two of the top names on that list are Giroud and Batman, along with Pedro and a few others.

5 hours ago, Valerie said:

Oooohh, someone called Armando Broja is bound to be brilliant! Slap a squad number on him and send him on!

He could be English for all we know, despite his exotic name (ie. Jadon Sancho)

I say we definitely go for the Brazilian out of that lot.

 

 

 

 

(Charlie Brown.)

6 hours ago, GhostOfDembaBa said:

He could be English for all we know, despite his exotic name (ie. Jadon Sancho)

I say we definitely go for the Brazilian out of that lot.

 

 

 

 

(Charlie Brown.)

I wasn't referring to any nationality he may have, just that it's a name that has goals, success, and legendary status practically guaranteed 😁

Charlie Brown is too Peanuts, he'll get his kite in a twist.

Edited December 2, 20196 yr by Valerie

I'm sure Lampard learnt a lot from Saturdat, rotation is fine in theory but with the team we have, extra cautions must be taken. With Abrahm the proven scorer out, we were serverly weaken going into the game, and gamble with Pedro on Willian just made the task so much more difficult. Not saying Willian would have won us the game, but he's a level above the aging Pedro, and usually in that goal situation Willian would have tracked the fullback and at least made it more difficult. The DM issue from last year resurfaced, sure we loved the energy and the few goals of Kante going forward, but we are missing that shield in front of the back four, with fullbacks pushing up so high we literally had 2 defenders in front of GK.

I reckon December will be a tough month for us, still got that must win CL game, so there are games we could take easily.

December is starting to look like the most important month this season, if we win the big games against Lille and Spurs (Arsenal is a big game as well but I'm not too stressed about them, we play them again the next month) the team will have the confidence for the rest of the season. And that is really needed because we really should go to the next round in the CL and show Spurs they don't really belong in the top 4, specially with Jose being there.

 

Yep, December is a massive month it looks, a real test for Lampard. 

We always said we would have our tough periods this season eventually, looks like it's came. LDL in our last 3, lets get back to winning ways, a win against Villa is massive at the moment, particularly for momentum. I thought Villa were really good against United when watching them play, they're no pushovers, they'll come here with a lot of confidence. And Graelish was a player who I always thought was overrated years back, but the last couple of years he looks quality, really turned himself around, he's one to watch out for and Reece James needs to be on top form like he was vs Zaha. 

The last week has put into perspective just how important Tammy and Tomori have become, atleast until we can get in the market and get Rudiger back respectively.

For the talk about Tammy being mainly a scorer his goalscoring record since Wolves has actually been quite average so the fact no one's really noticed just goes to show how well his game has developed. I actually forgot how much of a nightmare our striker situation has been but I got a reminder on Saturday.

Tomori while he has been a bit sloppy at times our open space defending is so much better when he's playing, Valencia was the worst game of open play defending since United/Leicester incidentally before he came in the team. 

1 minute ago, Argo said:

Tomori while he has been a bit sloppy at times our open space defending is so much better when he's playing, Valencia was the worst game of open play defending since United/Leicester incidentally before he came in the team. 

 

West Ham scored because of a Tomori error. Tomori let a drop kick from the keeper bounce and that led to all sorts of problems. Antonio was up against him all game for those drop kicks, and Tomori hardly won a header against him. Antonio was backing into him and taking control of the situation. Tomori is a good prospect but there's definitely weaknesses there other teams can exploit, and he doesn't look too comfortable on the ball.

 

He needs a few games out in my opinion. Rudiger can't come back quick enough.

1 minute ago, Davey Baby said:

 

West Ham scored because of a Tomori error. Tomori let a drop kick from the keeper bounce and that led to all sorts of problems. Antonio was up against him all game for those drop kicks, and Tomori hardly won a header against him. Antonio was backing into him and taking control of the situation. Tomori is a good prospect but there's definitely weaknesses there other teams can exploit, and he doesn't look too comfortable on the ball.

 

He needs a few games out in my opinion. Rudiger can't come back quick enough.

I agree he still has a lot of developing to do but when he's on despite some errors we don't seem to see the sheer amount of space and systematic chaos we saw in Valencia and at home to Leicester.

While that probably says just as much about the chaotic nature of the Zouma and Christensen partnership as it does about him, it still means he's an important player back there by default until Toni returns.

The frightening thing about the Rudiger situation is that we don't know if he'll be instantly injured again as soon as he plays, we want him back as soon as possible but we'll probably have no choice but to rush him back in the side. 

I still say we stick with the Tomori and Zouma partnership though, it's been our best bet so far. 

Really good night for Frank. A potentially tricky game and at half-time I feared the worst but we came out second-half with real purpose and got what we deserved. We showed good fight, spirt and resolve, and we held our nerve. Crucially, we looked quite solid. He got all the big decisions right. Tomori, Jorginho and Emerson all dropped, and rightly so. Drop points tonight and confidence becomes an issue. A very important win in my book.