The theory is that we just flipped our form into winning only home games and home games only from now on. Sell everyone and play the youth and win or otherwise sell even more and play even more youth till it's working!

Ah boll*cks another sh*t team at the Bridge.

James is likely going to miss this ain't he?

Which likely means dave to rb and our back luck charm Emerson in. So we get to play with 10 men from the start. Great.

Easy game, unless Arsenal suddenly figured out how to defend with10 and bore the sh1t out of us. Arsenal has similar problems like us, and they will be missing their most reliable striker, so 3 points there to be taken if we are serious about this.

Assuming James is out I'd go with

Kepa (only because we probably have to)

Emerson, Rudiger, Christensen, Azpilicueta.

Kante

Kovacic and Barkley

Willian, Tammy, Pedro

Kepa

Azpi-Christensen-Rudiger-Emerson

Kovacic-Jorginho

Kante

CHO-Tammy-Willian

Probs what I would go with, I'm guessing James is going to be out unfortunately. 

Kepa

 

Lamptey

Christensen

Tomori

Maatsen

 

Jorginho 

Kovacic

 

Anjorin

Barkely 

CHO

 

Abraham

Anjorin, why not

Drop Kepa. Yes Willy is sh*t but enough is enough. If you're not performing you should be out of the side. Kepa is having a wretched season.

 

Christensen should be dropped. No doubt about it. He's just not good enough and never will be. He has zero personality. He never imposes himself on a game. He always tries to just get through it. We need personality and leadership. I would go with Zouma. He's the best of a bad bunch, only because he can compete in the air, and we are pathetically vulnerable at set pieces and crosses in general.

 

Our midfield three should consist of Barkley, Kovacic and One Other.

 

Tammy, Willian and Callum up front.

2 hours ago, Valerie said:

Anjorin, why not

That's the spirit Val

 

11 minutes ago, Davey Baby said:

Drop Kepa. Yes Willy is sh*t but enough is enough. If you're not performing you should be out of the side. Kepa is having a wretched season.

 

Christensen should be dropped. No doubt about it. He's just not good enough and never will be. He has zero personality. He never imposes himself on a game. He always tries to just get through it. We need personality and leadership. I would go with Zouma. He's the best of a bad bunch, only because he can compete in the air, and we are pathetically vulnerable at set pieces and crosses in general.

 

Our midfield three should consist of Barkley, Kovacic and One Other.

 

Tammy, Willian and Callum up front.

For me Tomori is best of the "bad bunch", with Rudiger the worst as the other 3 can, at least half the time, play a simple pass.

Kepa (reluctantly)

Lamptey Christensen Rudiger Azpi (anything to avoid emerson)

Jorginho Kovacic

Barkley

CHO Abraham Willian 

25 minutes ago, axman2526 said:

For me Tomori is best of the "bad bunch", with Rudiger the worst as the other 3 can, at least half the time, play a simple pass.

 

For me it's all about our inability to deal with crosses. Yes Kepa has a lot to answer for there but I'd go for the two who are best in the air. Other teams now know all you have to do is lob it into our box.

32 minutes ago, Davey Baby said:

 

For me it's all about our inability to deal with crosses. Yes Kepa has a lot to answer for there but I'd go for the two who are best in the air. Other teams now know all you have to do is lob it into our box.

That is fair Davey. I don't see any of the 4 being good enough in the air to help with that as all 4 of them have been suspect during this season.

I believe the problem in defending balls lobbed in to our box is a team thing rather than just the defenders though. When you look at us at our best defending those we had Drogba, Ballack, Essien and JT who were dominate in the air plus Lamps being brilliant at defending the near post and other like Ricky or Cahill contributing too.

Now we have Tammy, who is really poor in the air, not one of our midfielders offer anything in the air. Maybe RLC but he is not about. So no Drogba, no Ballack, No Essien. Leaving it all on the defenders who are not fit to shine JTs shoes. Not even half as good as Cahill nor Ricky.

Is too much for poor players to deal with when their team mates are even worse at defending (not to mention attacking) set plays than they are.

10 chelsea corners no chances created. 1 Newcastle corner leads to a goal...yup.

Just beat this mob Chelsea.

Please !

Last game against them we started with 1 formation and then changed it and won the game. I still don't know what formation is our best one, I thought it was 4231 but it could be 433.

Kepa

Lamptey Tomori Rudiger Azpilicueta

Kante  Jorginho Barkley

CHO Abraham Willian

Subs if we are leading: Barkley/Kovacic CHO/Mount
Subs if we are losing: Barkley/Mount Jorginho/Kovacic

With James injured, someone really needs to step up. We look like we have 0 depth in the squad right now. No real striker to replace Tammy, no winger to replace Willian, no left back.

Edited January 19, 20206 yr by Gol15

14 hours ago, Gol15 said:

Last game against them we started with 1 formation and then changed it and won the game. I still don't know what formation is our best one, I thought it was 4231 but it could be 433.

Kepa

Lamptey Tomori Rudiger Azpilicueta

Kante  Jorginho Barkley

CHO Abraham Willian

Subs if we are leading: Barkley/Kovacic CHO/Mount
Subs if we are losing: Barkley/Mount Jorginho/Kovacic

With James injured, someone really needs to step up. We look like we have 0 depth in the squad right now. No real striker to replace Tammy, no winger to replace Willian, no left back.

Arsenal don't have Aubameyang available and we have Lamptey who looks a decent right back prospect.

Agree the midfield will likely be tinkered with.

I would prefer Jorgy, Kovacic and Mount with Barkley the expected sub if we struggle.

 

Thankfully Alonso is fit. We should sell Emerson this month if the opportunity presents itself. I know James injury isn't as bad as feared but we should protect him so we don't have a Rashford situation..

 

                    Kepa

Azpi.   Zouma    Tomori.  Alonso

          Kovacic.    Jorginho

Willian       Barkley.        Mount

              Abraham 

Kepa

Azpilicueta

Zouma

Rudiger

Emerson

 

Kante

Jorgi

Kova

 

Willian

Tammy

CHO

If James and Alonso are fit maybe consider playing 5 at the back with James/Alonso as wing backs?

27 minutes ago, forbzy said:

If James and Alonso are fit maybe consider playing 5 at the back with James/Alonso as wing backs?

Not for me. If we are to ever play a back three again it has to be with Reece RCB and Lamptey at wingback.

Nerves already  kicking in for this one...

Go 2-1 us .

Take any win mind you.

6 hours ago, Strider6003 said:

Arsenal don't have Aubameyang available and we have Lamptey who looks a decent right back prospect.

Agree the midfield will likely be tinkered with.

I would prefer Jorgy, Kovacic and Mount with Barkley the expected sub if we struggle.

It seems that Alonso and James are not injured? IMO Barkley is in good form and from the recent few games he deserves a start over Mount that has played a lot, I wouldn't drop Kante, we won 3:0 and had 70% possession without Kovacic.

3 hours ago, The Don Antonio said:

Thankfully Alonso is fit. We should sell Emerson this month if the opportunity presents itself. I know James injury isn't as bad as feared but we should protect him so we don't have a Rashford situation..

 

                    Kepa

Azpi.   Zouma    Tomori.  Alonso

          Kovacic.    Jorginho

Willian       Barkley.        Mount

              Abraham 

That might work also.