17 Sep 2016 16:03:22
Why is it every recent manager we have had everyone of them start Ivanovic at rb when clearly he his well past his sell by date in that position, he should no longer to me even be at the club how bad he has become. he is awful at every part of defending because he is not a technical good footballer to slow and clumsy.
Enough said on him now Oscar, he is another person who needs to go he has not kicked on from is first season with us in fact he has gone backwards he offers nothing to our midfield too weak and unaware of the opposition players around him, I know we had other poor performers last night but these pair are crap most games for us.
Conte has to see this now before it's to late get Dave at rb and get Alonso at lb and straighten our defence out to how it should be not players out of position and players not good enough to be in the team. Come on Antonio sort this problem out please its not hard to see is it.
18 Sep 2016 08:27:32
Agreed. To be honest I would consider not starting Hazard and even Courtois. We need to try something different. Keep playing the same team expecting the miracle is nonsense. In his post match interview Conte said they need to work harder. That's just rubbish. If he keeps playing the same team we will finish in the same place. So, I want to see Alonso, Luiz, cahill, Azpi, Moses replace Hazard, Oscar out.
18 Sep 2016 13:19:32
To be fair, up to now it couldve been argued that we had no better options at full back. I expect Alonso to play against Leicester on Tuesday and if he plays well hopefully we'll see him win a place in the first team.
18 Sep 2016 15:20:54
I've said it before and I'll say it again, letting Filipe Luis leave was criminal. Baba clearly wasn't ready so can't argue with sending him out on loan. I'm excited to see how Alonso will perform and if Conte plans to use him as a starter- I suspect he does. Hazard didn't do much against Liverpool but he definitely doesn't deserve to be dropped, I'd much rather see Willian move to the bench for Moses. I'm still struggling to see how Matic is starting for us whilst Cesc is on the bench.
From a completely different viewpoint, I'm still interested in seeing whether Conte will move to a 3 at the back as I feel that now suits us with the players we've got and will do even more so when Zouma is back from injury and Christensen is back from his loan in the summer. Batshuayi has to start getting more minutes as he's played very well at every opportunity he's had.
19 Sep 2016 07:09:14
Tbh I'm not sure playing 3 at the back even suits us. It usually requires Wingbacks that are as good offensively as they are defensively. Alonso from what I've read sounds like he's defensively solid but not particularly great going forward. Dave is certainly better going forward than Ivanovic but he isn't particularly great otherwise he'; be starting for Spain as he's certainly the best defensive RB they have.
Then the question is whether we play 5-3-2/ 3-5-2 or 5-2-3/ 3-4-3. If we play 5-3-2 we'll still likely have a midfield trio of Matic Kante and Oscar or potentially Fabregas Kante Oscar. With Costa and Batsman upfront. Which then means we have what should be our best player in Hazard on the bench.
If we play a 5-2-3, I'd imagine we'd go with Fabregas and Kante. With Hazard, Costa and Batsman up front, but that would likely see Batsman out wide in which case you might as well play Willian/ Pedro/ etc.
Either way I don't particularly see any benefit except that we may be more defensively solid. Neither formation particularly adds anything offensively.