Tonight has really opened my eyes to the issues we face.

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Park Lane Mark Twain said:
We need 3-4 players long term, the same as most teams when you look at a collective aspiration across the league to develop and imporove.

At the moment the biggest requirements are all defensive. Lloris is fine for the time being, Sanchez will be fine if we can get him a top partner, Aurier has room to grow but he's on limited time to prove that.

Personally if I had one signing to make I would bring in a DM above all else. Let's get Lo Celso ties down to his bargain £27.5m fee in January and let's go all out for Zakaria to add a bit of muscle in there.

We get through to the end of the season with Aurier, Foyth & KWP as right back options, Davies, Rose & Vertonghen as RB options and Sanchez, Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Foyth and Dier as our CB options and we review things then.

It's a huge shame Dier and Wanyama seem to have faded drastically. Over the Xmas period I say we give Winks & Ndombele time to find its feet but if I could make one signing in Jan I'd probably go for Denis Zakaria as I honestly think it would settle things down in that department a lot. The other positions, realistically we'd have to wait on I think.
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A good face value comparison to show why I think Zakaria could be an interesting fit. Also check out Ndidi if you get a moment, his numbers are insane!

Player Comparison | WhoScored.com

Compare player statistics from top leagues
www.whoscored.com www.whoscored.com

I compared Zakaria with Fabinho, Winks, Rodri as well as Ndidi.
 
Guido said:
The premise of not sticking with Poch is because it's easier to replace the Manager than the players.

My argument with sticking with Poch was that whoever came in would want to replace the players as well, so what's the point?

The thing is Mourinho has been hired to get this team going. Both the outward and then incoming announcements of the Managers reflected this within the statements from the Club. Then Jose has consistently followed up his first press conference with "he thinks this team is great". "The players are great" and that he "doesn't need to buy"!
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I don’t disagree with that. I was sad when Poch went but we have Mourinho like it or not. Personal view is that this squad is half suited to Mourinho, attacking players are generally fine but it’s clear we need 2-3 players at least and whether Mourinho was being honest I believe we have to sell and buy this jan and the summer quite a bit.

Levy probably took the view it’s cheaper to try Mourinho and the upside could be great but it’s also a big gamble.
 
Guido said:
Was a winner.

I'll call it as I see it mate.

Simply can't be upbeat following that shit we had to endure last night. If Poch gets it in the neck for that shit then so too can the worlds greatest winner of a Manager.

I've got no great expectations for this season, I should, therefore, be easily pleased. For me to feel upbeat I need to have something to hold onto, that's usually a team at a bare minimum is working hard. The next steps after that are to see encouraging passages of play. Even if we lose a game whilst displaying something I can get and understand what we were attempting to do then this is fine by me.

But if we play shit we should just call it what it is, shit. Can't see the point of dressing up a dog's dinner of a game any other way. Same as with his first three games and Poch's last this season. Just keeping it real, not getting seduced by the talk. Great that others are as the vibe has changed.
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Either you’re a serial winner (José)
Or a serial loser (Poch)

So you think that suddenly José will forget how to win and Poch will suddenly discover how to??

Righto 👍
 
GDG said:
Rather see Foyth or Skipp given a go there. Nothing about Tanganga screams DCM to me from the little I’ve seen of him.
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Seen a fair bit of him at Under 23 and I'm convinced he'd do a job. I'll be honest its Skipp I don't get, all the virtues of Harry Winks with a 360 Scott Parker turn thrown in. He is way to slow to make it at EPL level it's why I'd try a converted CB in Tanganga over him.
 
Shotgunofmichalebrow said:
Seen a fair bit of him at Under 23 and I'm convinced he'd do a job. I'll be honest its Skipp I don't get, all the virtues of Harry Winks with a 360 Scott Parker turn thrown in. He is way to slow to make it at EPL level it's why I'd try a converted CB in Tanganga over him.
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To me Foyth looks a proper top class footballer, great on the ball, defensively reads the game well, can pick a pass, quite mobile. All the tools to be a CB, full back or even DM. He just doesn’t have experience and is sometimes hot headed.
 
Tomo said:
I don’t disagree with that. I was sad when Poch went but we have Mourinho like it or not. Personal view is that this squad is half suited to Mourinho, attacking players are generally fine but it’s clear we need 2-3 players at least and whether Mourinho was being honest I believe we have to sell and buy this jan and the summer quite a bit.

Levy probably took the view it’s cheaper to try Mourinho and the upside could be great but it’s also a big gamble.
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Taking sentiment out of the equation altogether and going word for word from the mouths of the Club and the new manager.
1. Poch was sacked for results and the Club felt the squad was "talented" enough but needed to "re-energize"
2. Jose appointed Club make specific in their statement that they belive he can re-energize the squad
3. Jose's first interview he states "The quality in both the squad and the academy excites me. Working with these players is what has attracted me.” Jose is now on record following every interview and pre and post-match conf that he "loves the players" and he "doesn't need to spend".

If anyone is expecting reinforcements in Jan I think they will be totally disappointed, the best buys made in Jan tend to be those that are tee'd up for the following season. There is hardly any activity in the Jan window. For me, a successful Jan is selling the likes of Rose, Wanyama and whoever else is deemed a wantaway.
 
Tomo said:
To me Foyth looks a proper top class footballer, great on the ball, defensively reads the game well, can pick a pass, quite mobile. All the tools to be a CB, full back or even DM. He just doesn’t have experience and is sometimes hot headed.
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I get you but his tendency to dive in scares me a bit. If he can learn to stay on his feet then defo try him as DM can't be worse that what we have seen.
 
I’m looking on the bright side , if we are out of contention for top 4 we can go all out for the CL and I reckon woth Jose we can beat any team over 2 Legs
 
GDG said:
Afternoon guys,

First post here so please be gentle with me!

The composition of our squad clearly has some fundamental balance issues, particularly in the midfield area.

I hope we never see Winks and Sissoko together in a MF 2 again. Can anyone actually remember a game against a half decent team we dominated CM with those 2 starting There? Neither are naturally defensive so don’t provide a shield in front of a pretty average back 4. Neither are attacking, unable to join the attack and make chances / get into goal scoring positions. Most importantly, neither are particularly comfortable transitioning the ball from defence to midfield either. I’m delighted that Jose has stopped us overplaying at the back, but on the flip side we have to be able to play out sometimes too and that requires MF players who can take the ball to feet in tight situations and transition to attack. It can’t all be long ball like it was last night. That CM partnership does not and will never work.

I wonder whether we have the players to play 2 in CM and control the game in these big evenings. Prime Wanyama and Dembele provided such balance but we don’t have that anymore.

Perhaps we should be looking to play Dier, GLC and Ndombele in there and drop Moura. Problem again is that leaves Alli out wide where it’s been shown he is less effective.

It looks to me that the transfer activity in the summer was done so with playing a diamond MF in mind. GLC and Ndombele either side of a deep lying MF. We won’t ever play a diamond again so we need to find a combination that works.

Moussa spent the whole evening yesterday playing on our right helping Serge with Rashford (badly), if he’s going to do that we might as well stick him right wing instead of Moura and provide extra bodies in the middle.

Last night just didn’t work, we were really poor.

Having said that it’s Jose’s 4th game so let’s not overreact. There’s work to do for sure though.
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FFS !!!!!!!!

Another 3 letter user name that I can guarantee I'll get confused with

Col_McCafferty Col_McCafferty
GGK
MVP MVP
And now GDG















Only joking mate, welcome to the forum.
 
Bazali said:
Either you’re a serial winner (José)
Or a serial loser (Poch)

So you think that suddenly José will forget how to win and Poch will suddenly discover how to??

Righto 👍
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It’s not that simple though. 3 years ago the same was true and not one person on this forum would have swapped Poch for Jose.

We all know what we’re getting with Jose. Cup success seems likely, but we have to accept that comes at the expense of youth production and probably means when he leaves (a 3/4 year cycle should history tell anything) he leaves a bit of a mess.

Personally I’m ok with the expected rollercoaster but I’m not sure how anyone can not accept scepticism.
 
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