Bit of a weird one this. Firstly well done to Sarri for giving kids a chance, though play was disjointed because of it. Of the kids, Hudson Odoi looked pretty good and got better as game went on. RLC was pretty ordinary,Christensen looked fine, and kept things simple, Ampadu looked the best but made one howler. Despite this he looked a class above the other kids to be honest. Barkley was ordinary as well, and Fabregas pretty poor. Subsequently the entire midfield misfired all match. Willian was the best of a disappointing lot, and led by example. Emerson and Zappa hardly stood tall and Morata was invisible until he got injured. Pointless game played in a lack lustre fashion, more like a friendly with little aggression from either side. 2 fab goals from Willian and Giroud, and a great strike by their guy.
Maybe a blessing in disguise. Hope the injury is not career threatening, but if we're down to 1 striker for any length of time , maybe we bring back Michy or Tammy and stop making stop gap buys which have rarely worked for us. Please no more January panic buys, our kids have shown they are the future.
Since no one seems interested in giving an opinion, I'll say this. Sarri said if Ampadu was playing in the 1st eleven "it would be easier". Of COURSE IT ****ING WOULD . That's why he needs the opportunity. Playing him in a team with 10 changes gives him little hope of impressing, and gives Sarri no hope of judging him properly. But that's what all our kids get. Praise, criticism, "not ready yet" blah, blah. No experience, but no possibility of getting any with Sarri. I'd bet you plenty on this. Christensen for Luiz or Rudiger, for a few consecutive games, would be right back to the impressive player now devoid of confidence and ready to **** off. Ampadu , with regular game time in our starting 11, would be a serious embarrassment to RLC, Luiz, Rudiger, Barkley and/or Kante. He's that good. In defence OR midfield. This kid is dynamite and Sarri should be shot for not giving him an extended chance in the 1st team. Sarri rightly fight agesism for the over 30's, but promotes it for the under 20s'. Numbing hypocrisy. Players should be judged solely on ability and performance, never age. Barkley has again descended into mediocrity after a short spell of good form, and is as hopeless as Morata. He will NEVER be Chelsea standard. Get rid of. CHO needs game time. He's got everything we need, except game time. Sarri needs to grow a pair and look at what is right in front of his eyes.
Yes not one to want players injured but this guy has been more than useless and I'm not sure why sarri persists with him. Now giroud or hazard gets to start up top and i am more than happy with that. As cp says blessing in disguise
Not sure about barkley being rubbish. Since his injury he has barely played at all. Admittedly in his cameos he hasnt stood out. I would be more than happy for ampadu but he looks a bit small for cb. I would give him jorginhos spot and let fab go in jan. As for cho he blatantly isnt ahead of willian or pedro or hazard. Sure he will develop into it but what is your priority? Challenging for the lwague/top 4 or blooding our youngsters fully?
To be brutally honest, top 4 is best we can get. However, if we keep playing the Moratas, never improving Willians and Pedros, out of form Hazards, found out Jorginhos, then we are deluding ourselves. Pretty much all of them need upgrading for us to really challenge, though Jorghino needs more time to toughen up to PL standards. Hazard needs to be sold, he is not working as he should in Sarri' master plan, rarely looks like the world class player we are paying 300Gs a week for, plus he's a persistent whinger who's played Chelsea for fools, while not performing. Take the money for him and laugh. CHO is a ready made replacement. We bring in dopes like Zappacosta , but ignore talent like Ampadu. In 1 year CHO will be a superstar IF IF IF he gets to play and learn. Ampadu is already better than Cahill, better than Christensen almost as good as Luiz, but he's only 18 and "needs to be better in defence and reading games" What a load of garbage. He's simply better at defending than Cahill and Christensen and can only get better by PLAYING. How old is Mbappe ????????? " Is PSG "waiting until he learns to defend better and read the game"? Not a ****ing chance. They know they have a stonking player, and they play him !! In less than half a season he has doubled his worth to the team. So why do we have this idiotic set against young players? Ask Roman and Maria. They are almost invisible now though they still pull all the strings. Barkley simply isn't good enough, never was, never will be. Fabregas needs to go, he has done all he can for us and has no more to give. Ampadu can play in Midfield. He's better than Barkley and might become better than Fabregas, but he's got GUTS. End of rant. Oh except forget "Target man" strikers get a Gerd Muller type poacher.
We need to buy Callum Wilson in January, or if not, in the summer. We need to meet our homegrown quota, and he looks a decent lad.
Yep he does. But is he better than Michy ? He will have to play a VERY restricted role under Sarri. Is that his game?? Not that I can see. Again we are not looking for the player for our system, only strikers on their record. Call me a NO vote for Callum Wilson, and look harder elsewhere.
Wow . That is long. I can see why zappa was bought, ampadu is great but he's not a rb. We don't have any rbs up and coming or not. We deffo need to give hudson more minutes but apart from messi no youngster (world class ones) have ever just walked into a first 11. Hell mbappe for MONACO had his minutes managed at first but came in because he was killing it. Of course psg are going to play him, they spent 150m on him. I know we want our youth to do well but who in our academy has made the step up (away from us). A big fat zilch. Not saying they couldnt have and maybe we ruined them/stunted their development but none of our players who have left have become world beaters. Of the ones ww have bought in its only kdb and salah (maybe sturridge for a year or two) salah who have gone onto be top 6 worthy and even then salah was equivalent to a zappacosta type signing and wasnt a youth player
I think it's unbelievably harsh to criticise Hazard's attitude to be honest. He's a model pro. If he gets his dream move and goes in the summer, so be it.
I half agree with CP and I half dont. On the one hand, he is right, we do have something against playing youth, and it is irritating as hell and we will never develop decent talent if we keep foisting our young'uns off to Vitesse Arnheim then letting them rot in the reserves until a low level PL team or Championship team inevitably take them off our hands, which has happened on so many occassions. Give them game time ffs or they will never get better!! Where we dont agree is on how good our youth currently are. They have potential, yes, but I do not think Ampadu is half as good as CP thinks he is, currently. I think dumping all our senior players and slotting in a bunch of untested youth would be extremely reckless and risky!
The issue I have is that although the youngsters we let go aren’t world beaters, they are good enough to be part of the squad. Is Nathaniel Chalobah or Jack Cork for example any worse off than 30M Danny Drinkwater? Is Ola Aina any worse than Zappacosta who is essentially there to play in the Europa League or Leage cup. We waste so much money on buying players to increase our squad depth but the ones who we sign are no better than what we have in our youth team. Bertrand Traore is another good example, he’d surely have a role in this team. If we get rid of them cause we feel they aren’t good enough then fair enough but let’s not buy bang average players to replace them with.
Agreed. We have spaffed some money. I don't think zappas that bad but agree 18m was too much for someone we arent playing, just never really had a proper run in the side. End products hit and miss but i like his directness. Defendings iffy. Cant comment on aina, we never get to see him play. Wheres he gone to? Drinkwater waste of time. Every man and his dog knew he wasnt good enough and hes old. Should have kept traore as a squad forward but im guessing he wanted off. Same with ake. Same with caballero. Prefer that youth keeper we have. Michy was a waste as we were never going to play him, bakayoko too (although i appreciate the gamble)
I thought Charlie Musondah looked a great prospect.Anyone know where he is? Thought he was at Celtic.
As always you get your point across. Hazard is a model pro as you say, but he is not in the kind of form we should expect at 300big ones a week, and he never stops stirring and moaning. At 28, he is hardly going to improve out of sight, and if he is so fixated on Real Madrid,stop the stirring and go there. Seems to me they need him more than we do, as they look like a Club imploding. This was a bigger than normal rant by me, and again I'm not suggesting we fill the team with kids, just use the ones in the squad better and more often. It is not sensible to play 10 new players and expect any of them to improve. Putting one in with the first team for a couple of consecutive games would seem more appropriate.
What is this mess? Hazard has been brilliant with a small drop in form Zappa is a RB, Ampadu is not. He has played a few games and now he is better than Fabregas as a regista? Get a grip mate
I am not sure where he has been stirring and moaning, at all. The papers have been churning out the usual gossip ****e for the last 2-3 seasons. See Pogba for stirring and moaning, mourinho too for that matter. I expect Hazard to leave in the summer, but I have no ill will as to how he has conducted himself at all, he has given us 5 years of great service and we will make a **** load of cash upon his sale.
