any idea how they have got on in pre season? not that it makes any difference to season just an indicator. spurs rely on 3 players for me, kane eriksen and son. they seem clueless without them 3.
how do you know? we have brought new players that could have solved half this problem. who have spurs brought? also keita and sturridge seem to have a good understanding.
Arsenal: 1. GK. bought leno - this should be an upgrade but he has to settle. its positive for them. 2. RB: Bellarin. should be brillinat but isn't. Emry has to get far more form him. 3. LB: they have 2. monreal and Kolasinac 4. RCB: Papastathopoulos? lets see how that works out 5. LCB: Koscielny. 6. no 6 Torreira. new also. young player but who Erme wanted? we will see how that goes. 7. CM Ramsay or Xhaka? 8. CM Mkhitaryan can he play with ozil in same team?? 9 ST: Aubameyang. should be good 10: forward: Ozil. no 10 whatever... lazy but highly paid 11. ST: Lacazette. decent but wenge runder used It really depends on formation chosen and how emre can get them working together. bags of talent in the team there but a few gaps too. their home form was good but away form was awful so Emre has to give them back bone and fight. .............. spurs: Lloris trippier aurier sanches (or alderweireld if they dont sell) Vertonghen Dier wanyama/sissoko/winks Eriksen alli Kane son/lamela/moura I dunno about spurs slipping up. they do have the stadium thing to get used to again and they do have a big world cup hangover to deal with too and of course theres just no replacing kane or eriksen at all for them if injuries come but they have a solid team and their level is well known and understood Utd? **** knows. dunno whats going on. Cheslea? **** knows. i can' even say who's going to be sold there or not. its only after august 9th that it should become clear but even then the threat of real and hazard is present. Courtois?? Azpi excellent Alonso prob best LB Rudiger LCB Who will play RCB. Christensen is unimpressive. CMs kante and jorginho i presume as a pair of DMS. ACM? fabregas? front 3? hazard morata willian.. all rumoured to go. I just feel cheslea need to get things sorts quickly now and then they are a proper team. The vultures are circling though. my view is LFC have done decent work but I simply don't see how we are ahead of any of these particularly when we are going in to bed down two CMs and a GK. the speed of that and how good the forwards remain is our key to success. Optimism is high and justifiable so.
Arsenal are a bit unknown, i think they have talented players but it just became stale and old under Wenger. Agree they are probably a bit unbalanced depending on how hard the players work and i think they have a lack of width. Again under Emergy, they might be a harder working side as Wenger just let them slack off. Spurs i don't think will challenge. They have a really good first 11, and reckon Moura might have a big year if he gets chances. They look a bit soft in the centre of Wanyama and Dembele are as reported injured and crocked. I think they'll have a hangover, a new stadium and half their players aren't back yet so another slow start for them. Chelsea - no idea. Looking forward to Sarri but he reckons it will take him half a year to implement his style so out of the running. The defence should be solid (I hope Emerson starts ahead of Alonso in a back 4) but i'm a bit worried that none of our CBs are real "leaders" except for Luiz who is known for a brain fart or 2. Up front i think we'll be alright if my homie Pedro plays but we seriously need a decent striker. Giroud is good but if we're not hoofing it anymore, i'm not sure how good he'll be under sarri. Morata could be decent but he's had a mental meltdown for a year now and he's looking worse than ever. Batshauyi is deadly in the box but outside of it is about as useful as Benteke. Hopefully our saving grace will be the midfield with jorginho and Kante Looking forward to our team playing attacking footie though
We really HAVE to expect top 4. After what's been spent and where we were last year... Anything outside of top 4 would be unacceptable. Quite frankly, it would be unexpected for us to win too. I think 3rd should be the expected target. 4th would be disappointing but acceptable. 2nd would be a good year. A good year would probably end: City Liverpool Spurs Arsenal or United or Chelsea
If you don't get top 4 it'd definitely be unacceptable. I would argue it's not that unexpected if you won it. Most people expect you to be the main challengers against City. If you look at your team, man for man you boys are pretty strong and have strengthened all your weak positions with big buys who are expected to do well
I don't know anything at all about your manager Bobby other than I think I saw a headline saying he's a chain smoker I've seen several pictures of him now though and he's the least likely looking football manager I've ever seen. Can't judge a book by it's cover so how good at his job is he?
i didn't know much about him except that he had napoli playing well. Guardian did a really good article on him, he's basically a chain smoking, tactical but likes attractive technical footie like guardiola. He had to work his way up and started off his career as a part time coach/banker. Got a few small clubs playing well and promoted, got Empoli to Serie A and did really well with them (like Howe or Dyche) but he was about 50 or something, napoli took a chance and he improved them from Rafas 5th to finish 2nd, 3rd, 2nd with bags of goals, not many goals conceded and most points for 2nd place. Unfortunately he came up against the machine of Juventus. Also doesn't take the Europy cup seriously
see.... 4th is not an aim. You've.put down 2nd. that's fair enough but an actual title challenge would be great
So not your typical manager then. You've strayed quite a way from your usual manager profile, risky but at the same time could be a breath of fresh air for the league. Always good to see new faces
we have strayed in a good way if he plays attacking footie. His mantra is have fun rather than contes work work work. He needs time to implement his philosophy though as it's very different to how we've historically played (one touch footie, its always been hoof to drogba/costa/morata (what a mistake) or get the ball to hazard (except for in contes first year) and generally being a powerful athletic team The only thing i'm wary of is that sarri knows it will take time (he told the napoli chairman he would lose the first 7 games) and you have seen it tooks Klopp a season and even pep a season to implement their styles properly. Roman is known for having an itchy trigger finger so i await our fates.
Personally right now i expect Chelsea to be outside of top 4 but it is a difficult season to predict due to transfer window changes and WC.
I think it'll be like on of those fairground horse games where the 6 runners bounce along each going to the lead before one or two zoom away at the end. I really can't predict who's going to get a flyer or who might fall away around christmas etc. Its going to be a long season. We do know we have reasons to be optimistic and have a reasonable confidence that we will be quite fun to watch with the front 3 we have. How high we finish is quite likely to hing on midfield as it is on anything else. I HOPE we see that our first games give us a great chance to get a flyer and from the look of things the team should be sharp from the off. we will see.
Adam Lallana leads absentees as four players miss Liverpool friendly against Napoli Grujic, Ings and Matip will also not feature against Serie A side in Dublin https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/spo...ws/adam-lallana-leads-absentees-four-14987955
As others have said a lot will depend on if the players are up for it. The bigger the egos, the less likely they will be prepared for massive change imo. Will they go along with 'having fun' if they're not winning? As with every other team, not just Chelsea, the players need first to buy into the manager, then his methods.
