A glimmer of good news on the injury front, Moussa Sissoko is now expected to return towards the end of March. Son has returned to Korea for surgery, so it is looking more likely that he is done for the season. They will be without Kante, Pulisic and Hudson-Odoi.
Sissoko wont be back for the 2nd leg of the CL tie, right? How much of an impact do you believe he would have had.
In relation to this game.. definitely a game Spurs can win even with their injuries and shoot them into the top 4.
I don't think he will be back. As for impact, if he is played in the right position (right side of the midfield), he can be effective with his energy and pace. Certainly their midfielders would not have been as comfortable with Mousa prowling about.
One for the optimists: we have won a whopping 1 of our last 33 games at Stamford Bridge. In the same period, teams like Bournemouth, Sunderland and Southampton have all won multiple games at the Bridge.
ouch.. 2 goals down already. I miss Son and Kane. The whole defense need to be sort out. Every single match it seem like a goal is conceeded. Perhaps I like Jose so I'm bias. But this team all the problems already exist back when Pooch was in charge. Now Jose have to clean up this mess. oh well, that what he get pay for.
This is a squad whose sum of the parts is greater than the team as a whole. Individually, there are some quality players on this squad but collectively, there's no chemistry between them. Every player out there is waiting for someone else to do something special. I think Levy understands that you can't win this way. That's likely why he refused to go over budget to buy Piatek or Jose. Regardless of what happens for the rest of this season, the squad will be rebuilt and so to take money out of that budget for a short term band-aid didn't make sense to him. So if the club is tacitly admitting that they don't care about results anymore, why should the players?
I think thats a mistake to assume the club doesnt care about results anymore. There is plenty of financial incentive to do well in the CL. There is plenty of incentive to do well in the PL and get that CL spot. No CL spot means its less likely top players will come to your club.. its how things work in Europe... and again, the financial reward is worth getting results. I definitely think its a big stretch to suggest the club doesnt care about results.
sounds like we were shite again today. missed it as I had to work, and not terribly upset about that, in retrospect. it's very difficult to envision this ending well.
Mourinho is such a poor coach. Terrible team selection and tactics. I mean Dele on the bench and Vertonghen in defense? Shocking. And then waiting till the 78th minute to bring on Dele. Embarrassing. For the 3rd time now he was schooled by a neophyte manager in Frank Lampard. The Not-So-Special-One is being paid 15 million pound a year to win the "big" games. So far in games against Manchester United, Chelsea (twice), Liverpool, Manchester City and Leipzig, his record is won 1, lost 5. Mourinho is the parrot in the Monty Python Dead Parrot sketch.
I believe they care, It's one thing to want to win and another to know how to win. Daniel Levy is not the man who can take us to the next level. Not backing our best manager in a generation, letting Eriksen's contract run down and making a panic hire in Mourinho are among the colossal blunders that have set the club back when we should be heading in the other direction.
If the club cares then the transfer budget for next summer has to be biggest in club history. That Chelsea team that just kicked our ass is going to get even better with Ziyech and maybe a couple of City players if CAS upholds their UCL ban. Everton will be better and they might still finish ahead of us. Sheffield United and Wolves will be better if they get that UCL money to spend. Man United and Arsenal will both be motivated.
It's not just about the budget, it is about buying the right players and getting deals over the line without the constant brinkmanship that has cost Levy in the past. Case in point, in the past couple of years, we had agreed fees with Fulham for Mousa Dembele and with Villa for Grealish, but Levy bottled both those transfers by trying to change the terms and beating down the fee. Think about how much better we would be with those 2 players in our team. Think about this: Mourinho is getting paid 15 million pound a year, Pochettino 12.5 mil and Levy earns 6 million. Well over 33 million pounds to be level on points with a promoted side.
In defence of Sheffield and Wolves, where they're at in the stage of squad building is ahead of where we are. What they have is the culmination of years of recruitment and gelling together and they're playing like the best is yet to come. Whereas we're still trying to demolish the old squad so we can rebuild. Most of the players here act like the Champions League Final was the pinnacle of their time here and it's time to move on.
No, because it was reviewed by a match official (the incompetent VAR David Coote) and determined not to be serious foul play, it cannot be reviewed (yes that is the PL logic). Really, the only positive to come out of the game, because that would have been 3 games for Gio and even more Mourinho moaning in the press. The bizarre thing about the incident was that Coote later apologized to Chelsea that he had made a mistake. Who understands VAR? Robertson, Cantwell, Sterling and Capoue should all have been sent off for challenges against our players, if you apply the standard that was applied to Son in his VAR sending off for the so-called 'violent play' versus Rudiger. The PL match officials are just incompetent, there was a reason no English refs were selected for the last World Cup.
True, bit it also comes down to coaching. Sheffield United's squad is nowhere near ours in quality, but they are playing better football in attack and defense and are a million times better to watch.
Sure, but he is also using the tools another man put in the shed. Dont get me wrong, i think Jose has really been stubborn and stuck in his ways, which simply dont work in todays game.. but.. untill he is given a transfer window or two and gets the team he wants in there, it is unfair to judge him.
He is using the tools poorly, and some of the tools he has barely used or refuses to use. He had several windows at Man U, and wasted millions of pounds for players he left on the bench. When my club is paying its manager 15 million pound a year, I don't expect to see a 5-4-1 formation in a big game - the last team I saw use that formation was Greece at Euro 2008. I'm afraid Jose is past it, he refuses to evolve to the modern game, Like Brad Pitt's character said in Moneyball: "Adapt or die".