December is a busy month, after Everton we have Wolves, West Ham and Arsenal.

Hopefully Arteta is still at the helm for Arsenal though Wolves always give us a touch match and West Ham normally play out of their skins against us.

At the moment I don't see us losing yet this season has been anything but predictable.

 

2 hours ago, Slojo said:

I'm still fully preparing for that bad patch where things will inevitably turn sour and we start dropping points. Don't get me wrong, I expect we'll finish top 4 this season, I would say comfortably but you look at the ridiculous luck United are getting and are still somehow only 3 points behind with a game in hand. Last season things were going great until that West Ham game and December we really struggled, obviously at the moment we can treat this month as November given the COVID situation. 

The major difference this time is, is that we are solid at the back. Last season you could tell things were eventually going to start dropping, the defence was piss poor, constantly letting goals in nonstop. I remember we were waiting for Rudiger's return so that he can rally the troops, he turned out to be the worst of the lot and an absolute liability. Then on top of that you had Kepa, no doubt one of the worst signings in football history when it comes to flops. 

Now it's a lot different! December is going to be hard, no Ziyech is a right pain in the balls, I expect us to drop some points here and there. You've got West Ham coming up and no doubt those c**ts will probably prove to be Franks official bogey team as they somehow beat us twice last season. And I have no doubt that we'll play Arsenal just as they're starting to find their feet, that happened last season. Just be prepared for that period, it's going to be tight, lots of tight fixtures and hard games. 

The main factor for us having a strong season will be fitness. I don't think we'll challenge for the title, so I'm not going to even start thinking about it until another 10 games or so. But if we can keep all of our key players fit, we're in for a good season. Because we have the quality, going forward we are brilliant, that's something Frank has never had trouble with since coming here. But what happens if Chilwell is out for a month? Oh great, we've got Emerson at left back, a complete liability and offers nothing going forward. It's situations like that which will determine our success big time. It might sound pretty obvious, but it's not, this time it really is just about keeping players fit and we will do well. 

Come the end of the season I think we'll be in the market for another DM (Declan Rice probably) to compete with Kante and offer rotation, a new LB to rotate with Chilwell and probably a new defender. I don't think we will need to sign anyone in January fingers crossed. 

We can maybe look for a good LB competition for Chilwell or promote a highly rated one from the academy.

I think Emerson is fine but not Azpi-level backup good. 

Maybe sell one of Rudiger or Christensen and have Tomori as 4th choice CB. 

3 hours ago, Valerie said:

Is that based on points won?

Just a sheer number of wins.

2 hours ago, Slojo said:

I don't think we will need to sign anyone in January fingers crossed. 

Yeah we don't need anyone now, but we need to hunt down a world class center back to replace Silva within the next 18 months, we should always be looking for his replacement, we probably have 3 transfer windows to find someone. 

49 minutes ago, coco said:

Yeah we don't need anyone now, but we need to hunt down a world class center back to replace Silva within the next 18 months, we should always be looking for his replacement, we probably have 3 transfer windows to find someone. 

January just isn't the right time to do it, it's far too inflated. 

1 hour ago, Deino said:

I think Emerson is fine but not Azpi-level backup good

We say this but every time he gets a full 90 minutes or so in the Premier League that tune changes instantly. Even in the Sevilla game I noticed he just let Navas, a 35 year old player, who is probably the most one dimensional player there is, go straight past him and whip a cross in. 

His defending is just piss poor, you could forgive it if he offered an attacking threat but his attacking threat is very meh. He just isn't reliable, and that right there is the key issue, both him and Alonso have to go. 

2 hours ago, Slojo said:

January just isn't the right time to do it, it's far too inflated. 

David Alaba wouldn't be expensive in January. Would cover LB and play as CB.

We can then decide whether to sign Declan Rice in the summer.  

15 minutes ago, bisright1 said:

David Alaba wouldn't be expensive in January. Would cover LB and play as CB.

We can then decide whether to sign Declan Rice in the summer.  

That's a good shout tbf, if the perfect offer arises, then sure. 

9 hours ago, bisright1 said:

David Alaba wouldn't be expensive in January. Would cover LB and play as CB.

We can then decide whether to sign Declan Rice in the summer.  

I highly doubt Alaba who is in his prime wants to be a backup option for us. 

4 hours ago, Deino said:

I highly doubt Alaba who is in his prime wants to be a backup option for us. 

He'd be a starting CB and cover LB. I didn't say he'd be a backup

The main need in January is finding a back up keeper, if Mendy goes down even for a month our hopes of the title are flushed down the toilet.

1 minute ago, Argo said:

The main need in January is finding a back up keeper, if Mendy goes down even for a month our hopes of the title are flushed down the toilet.

Amazing how we paid 70 million for a keeper who isn't even capable of being a good backup... 
 

6 hours ago, bisright1 said:

He'd be a starting CB and cover LB. I didn't say he'd be a backup

My bad. But would you really play him as a starting CB though given that we have the better version of him in Silva and the better goalscoring threat of Zouma? 

5 minutes ago, Deino said:

My bad. But would you really play him as a starting CB though given that we have the better version of him in Silva and the better goalscoring threat of Zouma? 

I would be rotating those 3 and Chilwell in games so that each of them is playing 60/70% of matches in the second half of the season. Next year Alaba would be a starter with Zouma and Silva would rotate in for Zouma on some games. 

But unfortunately this is not FIFA and Alaba will end up going somewhere like Juventus on a lot more money than we would pay....but one can dream 😆

Not sure I like the idea of Alaba as CB in the premier league. It works for Bayern in a league you dominate and have the majority of the possession but in the premier league I would see him as the weak leak and be pumping the ball up to the striker all game knowing you would win the majority of them. That's just my opinion.

1 hour ago, Slojo said:

Amazing how we paid 70 million for a keeper who isn't even capable of being a good backup... 
 

Tell you what, I'm so grateful we as a club are willing to hold our hands up and admit mistakes relietevely quickly. When you see our rivals constantly stick with managers who aren't good enough because of "stability" and players that aren't good enough because of price tag really puts it in perspective how sharp we are.

Apart from Torres, I don't think we've ever held onto a flop for too long.

27 minutes ago, Argo said:

Tell you what, I'm so grateful we as a club are willing to hold our hands up and admit mistakes relietevely quickly. When you see our rivals constantly stick with managers who aren't good enough because of "stability" and players that aren't good enough because of price tag really puts it in perspective how sharp we are.

Apart from Torres, I don't think we've ever held onto a flop for too long.

Tbf we did stick it out with Kepa for 2 seasons. But I think United might make the same mistake with Maguire, that 80 million pound fridge just isn't good enough, it could take them some time to admit they got nabbed and just cut their losses. 

2 hours ago, Slojo said:

Tbf we did stick it out with Kepa for 2 seasons. But I think United might make the same mistake with Maguire, that 80 million pound fridge just isn't good enough, it could take them some time to admit they got nabbed and just cut their losses. 

The first season Kepa's true ability was partially hidden due to our tactics and for the conceded goals he got a pass since that was his first season and because our backline used to sometimes really go missing. Maybe a factor was also his age, he got the benefit of a doubt since he was a young keeper but Lampard over the span of the last season did play Willy over Kepa in hope to improve our defense.

On 09/12/2020 at 19:12, Argo said:

Tell you what, I'm so grateful we as a club are willing to hold our hands up and admit mistakes relietevely quickly. When you see our rivals constantly stick with managers who aren't good enough because of "stability" and players that aren't good enough because of price tag really puts it in perspective how sharp we are.

Apart from Torres, I don't think we've ever held onto a flop for too long.

For as bad as Torres was, his issue was that his positioning was terrible. He helped us to quite a bit of trophies that I don't think you can call him a flop. 

17 minutes ago, Deino said:

For as bad as Torres was, his issue was that his positioning was terrible. He helped us to quite a bit of trophies that I don't think you can call him a flop. 

He contributed to the team effort when it mattered, for that alone i'll always be grateful. A massive flop apart from that.

We're having a f**king nightmare here already. 

Ziyech and CHO out, and Pulisic picked up a knock... GREAT. It's because of stuff like this why I can't entertain the idea of us challenging for titles, we can't stop picking up injuries. 

5 hours ago, Slojo said:

We're having a f**king nightmare here already. 

Ziyech and CHO out, and Pulisic picked up a knock... GREAT. It's because of stuff like this why I can't entertain the idea of us challenging for titles, we can't stop picking up injuries. 

It’s because we have a lot of injury prone players, that’s how I see it. Ziyech and Pulisic certainly are injury prone, CHO I don’t think he is but hey bad luck. I think we need to sign a winger in January, I would have taken Pedro or Willian now for depth.

 

33 minutes ago, dansubrosa said:

It’s because we have a lot of injury prone players, that’s how I see it. Ziyech and Pulisic certainly are injury prone, CHO I don’t think he is but hey bad luck. I think we need to sign a winger in January, I would have taken Pedro or Willian now for depth.

 

I don't know, it's been bad for a while now. RLC out for a year, Kante's injury record last season was atrocious, as was Rudigers. This season is a little better surpisingly but even then we are still picking up injuries. It's very frustrating... 

Kai and Werner on the wings with no one to bring on the bench seriously limits our attack, if we don't get going we're in for a long game. And even if Pulisic does play, it also means he's going to be rushed back, a knock is a knock, it's never good to hear. It's always the same process, gets injured, ween him back in, picks up a knock again. 

12 hours ago, Deino said:

For as bad as Torres was, his issue was that his positioning was terrible. He helped us to quite a bit of trophies that I don't think you can call him a flop. 

Couldn't disagree more, the only thing i credit him for is the Europa run, other than that he held us back as a football club for the entire time he was here.

7 hours ago, Argo said:

Couldn't disagree more, the only thing i credit him for is the Europa run, other than that he held us back as a football club for the entire time he was here.

I get annoyed with the revisionism when it comes to Torres, he was highly frustrating. I remember when Mourinho finally came in and we said "It's time for Torres to turn it around now, he can do it" he couldn't. Had an amazing, and I mean amazing game against Manchester City though, but other than that, nope. And then when it came to January when we were thinking about selling him and getting a new striker in, he starts playing well and scores 3 goals that month, all in separate games. Once January ends, back to normal again. We could've won the league that year if we had a competent striker up front. Because at one point during February we were at the top of the league, it was very close between the top 4 teams at the time. 

All we lacked that season was a good forward to get us over the finish line, but we had Torres, Eto'o and Demba Ba... 

Edited December 11, 20205 yr by Slojo