Given half the team are knackered after City and Spurs, here's how I'd go for Fulham Keeper Willy Won't hurt Kepa to sit on the bench again and understand what life outside the top echelon is like. He might get to meet some others close to his age who will be our stars of the future. Right Back Zappacosta . Dave needs a rest ,simple as. CD Christensen Rudi has been immense last 2 games, but doesn't give the great passes that Luiz does and deserves a break. Ampadu MUST be used as a sub. CD Luiz In good form ,and maybe our most creative attacker. With bugger all coming from. midfield to the 3 attackers, we really need his vision and skill. Left Back Alonso Came good after a rest. He and Emerson are now equal in my mind and need to share the load. Midfield 2 Kante & Georghino Never a better time to see if they can add the missing ingredient to midfield by playing as a pair, with 3rd midfielder in front. Screaming out to be tried. Midfield RLC Kovacic was great against Spurs, nothing more to prove. RLC has more power, m more ,skill and we need to test him with proper game time. Left attack Hazard No brainer Right attack CHO Pedro take a bow and a rest. Ditto Willian. Striker Higuan, with a more balanced and creative midfield feeding him. Like to see Sarri continue loosening his rigid mindset, and against Fulham, who are in dire straits having fired Ranieri, never a better time to try another tweak and play 4- 2- 1- 3 . Realistically, expect to see same line up as for Spurs. Oh well................
Fair enough. Pedro really should start for his massive effort, although CHO needs these kind of game to get cracking while Pedro doesn't. Kante is on another level, and in my opinion ,is more important in the long run than Hazard, who just won't commit.I think Hazard needs to get Real out of his system, and judging by their situation, one season should do it. Why don't we loan him for a season? We could get any number of needed players and Hazard experience the Real meltdown, then come back. !!!!!!!!!
Lets be honest, there's not going to be a formation change. I expect same team as spurs with maybe Kepa in goal and Barkley coming in. Lot to be said about not messing with a winning team too much.
It’ll be great seeing Pedro and Kante rip into Fulham with Hudson Odoi and RLC as well. Less Sarri Ball and more attack minded football is what I want to see.
Over to Sarri and his weird selections .No Pedro, no Luiz, no Alonso after all 3 were outstanding v Spuds, in comes the always underwhelming Barkley, back comes Kepa, one match too soon. and wouldn't you know it, we struggle to beat Fulham. On the bench sit CHO and RLC, 2 of only maybe 5 players we have with any flair or skill or power. It is not easy to like Sarri, but he is clawing out results by the skin of his teeth.
Two steps forward, City and Spurs, one step backwards Fulham. What to make of that mess? First half we looked good, though hopeless defending again for Fulham goal. Higuain scored with a terrific strike only a class striker could manage, and Jorghino with a very well struck goal from a perfect Hazard feed. Then all 3 disappeared. We ran Fulham around for 35 mins, Higuain missed an easier goal than he scored, then another, yet everyone looked pretty good bar Hazard who was out of sorts. Jorghino looked involved for a while until Fulhams' non stop play had Kepa making 2 or 3 outstanding saves and we were lucky to keep the lead. Second half was back to the hopeless play of 3 weeks ago. Jorghino faded and Fulham players waltzed past him, Barkley showed again he is a great athlete with no football intelligence, Willian was ineffective, Hazard went missing, Higuain was not sighted and players in front of Jorghino were muddled and starved of any service. Kante kept running, Jorghino was replaced with...........you guessed it, Kovacic, Hazard went off, Pedro finally came on and hooray, Barkley off for RLC at least 90 mins too late. So. Apart from occasional flashes of class, Higuain looks to be struggling with this midfield, Jorghino is simply too slow and too feeble for 90 mins of PL, Barkley is the "almost" man, Christensen still makes blunders, Kovacic is a handy player, but no controller of the midfield. All of them are competent, none are great. That's our big problem , the engine room is devoid of either durability, flair, or power apart from Kante, and RLC who never starts. Willian is not consistent, CHO never plays and Sarri never pick his best 11. Good news, 3 more points , Kepa looked brilliant apart from a dropped ball howler, Emerson was excellent, Dave back in better form and Rudi consistent.
I think ultimately it's a good win. Fulham fighting for their lives, new manager, at home against their biggest rival, of course there was going to be a performance from them and they didn't make it easy for us. We've now drawn with city over 2 hours, beat spurs and beat Fulham away in a week. We are right back in the mix for top 4. So all in all, I feel a lot more positive than I did after the United game.
Good win for us . Nervy defending at the end and although i liked what rlc was doing going forward i thought he was a bit lazy getting back into defensive position especially since we were 2 1 up. It was nervy watching us defend late on and how we were matched in numbers in defence from some simple long balls. Thought christensen was defensively quite sound and defended pretty well when left 1 on 1 a few times.
Happy with result,but we do make life hard for ourselves.We were lucky near the end of the game. CHO looked well pissed off on the bench,fear we're going to lose him.
Can't sell that sort of potential imo unless there's some sort of guaranteed buy back deal.Should be getting game time every match.
Agreed except hes off in a year and a half time and hes not even getting ten minutes here and there. No way is he signing a new contract
Going to be interesting if that FIFA transfer ban actually happens. We could easily lose Hazard, RLC, CHO, Kante (PSG making big effort to get him ) and Christensen with no replacements. Then there's Ampadu, who is allegedly over us as well. Won't be surprised if those on high instruct Sarri to use these players before they are totally pissed off. We live in interesting times
I agree to an extent but if we lose players and can't buy players then clearly some of the fringe players will be promoted. Don't think Kante is going anywhere. Hazard and CHO are the main concerns of course though we have a replacement lined up sitting on Dortmund's bench for 1 of them. RLC should probably angle for a move. I think he's a good player but I'm not convinced he is at the required level tactically or ability wise. Ampadu and CHO are the 2 I feel are the best prospects but they are young and far from the finished article so can't expect to be playing every week.
