Antonio Conte - officially NOT the coach of THFC

[braineclipse]

Wasn’t really the point I was picking up on, and I agree with what you are saying. Was purely Billy’s reference to these players not being ones that ‘would make you sit up and take notice’.

We have people creaming themselves over Pedro Porro. They have signed some more skilful and talented players than that. Had we signed these players especially Nkunku, Fernandez and Mudryk everyone on here would be wetting themselves with excitement and saying what a great window we had - let’s not pretend otherwise…..

Some comments similar to those made by Billy would definitely have been timely in the past about players we've signed. Probably could be a good idea about current signings too, regardless of what their career with us will eventually end up looking like.

 

[Finney Is Back]

Disagree completely on this one

- Our away fans (the ones who back the team to the last) have started in on the Levy out brick (for a club that is in last 16 of CL & FA Cup and 5th in the league), ask them why? we are playing brick to watch football and the manager hasn't been backed (that is Conte's messaging landing, amazing the "brick to watch" lands on Levy)
- Look through this board, people are trying to convince me that Nick Pope, Dan Burns, a 31 year old Scharr, Botman and a 31 year old Tripps managed by Howe is somehow easily able to manage conceding 1 goal in the last 11, but we leak goals like a sieve because of the players we have not being good enough?

If Conte losses against City and comes back with his brick about needing years to compete, it's just creating a toxic environment (something we really don't need help with)

Pope, Trippier, Schar and Botman would all have been first choice players for Spurs in the first half of this season.

It is likely that we will lose against Emirates Marketing Project at the weekend, it is also likely that after losing to them Conte (or whoever takes charge for the game) will state that we need years to compete, that is because it is true. We have the 4th to 7th best team/squad in the league. Signing Pedro Porro on the final day of the window isn't suddenly going to have us challenging for the title. We need to sign 2 or 3 players as proper first team starters each summer and another 1 every January to be able to be thinking about winning the league after a few years of this being sustained. Over the last few years we have signed Romero, Bentancur, Kulusevski and now (perhaps) Porro to come in and likely be considered to be instant first choice players. Over four transfer windows that's probably about half as many as we need to be signing if we want to compete.

 

[braineclipse]

Pope, Trippier, Schar and Botman would all have been first choice players for Spurs in the first half of this season.

It is likely that we will lose against Emirates Marketing Project at the weekend, it is also likely that after losing to them Conte (or whoever takes charge for the game) will state that we need years to compete, that is because it is true. We have the 4th to 7th best team/squad in the league. Signing Pedro Porro on the final day of the window isn't suddenly going to have us challenging for the title. We need to sign 2 or 3 players as proper first team starters each summer and another 1 every January to be able to be thinking about winning the league after a few years of this being sustained. Over the last few years we have signed Romero, Bentancur, Kulusevski and now (perhaps) Porro to come in and likely be considered to be instant first choice players. Over four transfer windows that's probably about half as many as we need to be signing if we want to compete.

I mostly agree with this.

Question is if some of the younger players brought in mostly for the future or academy players can step up into some of those first team roles. That may accelerate the process.

Also first team players already here taking proper steps in the right direction could accelerate the process.

On the flip side players having age related decline, having their form drop off a cliff or similar may stall the process.

Title challengers next season, a lot of things would have to go very right for that to happen. But substantial improvement in that time frame should be the goal.

 

[Raziel]

Pope, Trippier, Schar and Botman would all have been first choice players for Spurs in the first half of this season.

It is likely that we will lose against Emirates Marketing Project at the weekend, it is also likely that after losing to them Conte (or whoever takes charge for the game) will state that we need years to compete, that is because it is true. We have the 4th to 7th best team/squad in the league. Signing Pedro Porro on the final day of the window isn't suddenly going to have us challenging for the title. We need to sign 2 or 3 players as proper first team starters each summer and another 1 every January to be able to be thinking about winning the league after a few years of this being sustained. Over the last few years we have signed Romero, Bentancur, Kulusevski and now (perhaps) Porro to come in and likely be considered to be instant first choice players. Over four transfer windows that's probably about half as many as we need to be signing if we want to compete.

Don't agree and you are missing the point

- Pope, Tripps, Scharr, Burns would all be exposed in our system for exactly what they are (mid table PL players), their system protects them, our exposes ours.
- My point wasn't about competing at the top, it was showing that many teams are conceding less with inferior players (Villa and Everton ffs have conceded less than us)
- Conte has got 11 players in 1 summer, 2 jan windows, the failure for someone like Bissouma to still not be starting over PEH is on him (to your point of how many starters)

I don't disagree we aren't a challenging squad yet, what I do disagree on is

- Conte's system is making what we have worse, not better
- His failure to develop anyone is an unsustainable model (Skipp - worse, Spence - didn't try, Gil - didn't try, Bissouma - fudge knows, Sess - worse), basically if a player isn't a walk into first team on day 1, fudge it ..

And the highlight of that is not comparing us against Chelsea or City, it's comparing us against Brighton, Fulham, Saudi Sportswashing Machine who would swap their squads for ours in a heartbeat.

And honestly fudge Conte with that years brick, I'm not the biggest Poch fan but how the fudge did he manage to compete in 12 months? and Conte needs years?

 

[Finney Is Back]

I mostly agree with this.

Question is if some of the younger players brought in mostly for the future or academy players can step up into some of those first team roles. That may accelerate the process.

Also first team players already here taking proper steps in the right direction could accelerate the process.

On the flip side players having age related decline, having their form drop off a cliff or similar may stall the process.

Title challengers next season, a lot of things would have to go very right for that to happen. But substantial improvement in that time frame should be the goal.

Yes I agree with you. That is why it was galling that the recruitment structure at the club had been left to rot pre Paratici. Eyes had gone off the ball on so many things on the football side of the club and those things aren't instantly fixable.

Funnily enough I think with the team/squad we have right now we are actually perhaps only really a top class keeper, two top class CBs and (perhaps) a top class LWB away from having the squad to have a real crack at the big trophies. The problem is that I'm not sure I even see us bringing in 2 of those 4 players, probably not 3 of them and definitely not 4 of them. History tells us it's more likely that it will take another 3 windows for us to address that and by then we'll probably have lost Harry Kane and perhaps Sonny as well.

 

[Finney Is Back]

Don't agree and you are missing the point

- Pope, Tripps, Scharr, Burns would all be exposed in our system for exactly what they are (mid table PL players), their system protects them, our exposes ours.
- My point wasn't about competing at the top, it was showing that many teams are conceding less with inferior players (Villa and Everton ffs have conceded less than us)
- Conte has got 11 players in 1 summer, 2 jan windows, the failure for someone like Bissouma to still not be starting over PEH is on him (to your point of how many starters)

I don't disagree we aren't a challenging squad yet, what I do disagree on is

- Conte's system is making what we have worse, not better
- His failure to develop anyone is an unsustainable model (Skipp - worse, Spence - didn't try, Gil - didn't try, Bissouma - fudge knows, Sess - worse), basically if a player isn't a walk into first team on day 1, fudge it ..

And the highlight of that is not comparing us against Chelsea or City, it's comparing us against Brighton, Fulham, Saudi Sportswashing Machine who would swap their squads for ours in a heartbeat.

And honestly fudge Conte with that years brick, I'm not the biggest Poch fan but how the fudge did he manage to compete in 12 months? and Conte needs years?

Neither of Pope or Trippier are mid table PL players.... They are both very good players, as is Botman.... That's 3 or their back 5. Schar is also a good centre back who suffered with injuries the past few seasons but now seems to be over them. Slot Pope in instead of Lloris and Botman instead of Dier and we'd likely already be jumping above Man Utd and Saudi Sportswashing Machine in the table.

Skipp isn't 'worse' at all. He played for Conte last season and did well, he then got injured and is coming back into the team now having recovered from the injury.
Spence apparently hasn't been tried because he hasn't done enough in training to show that he is worth a place in the team.
Gil, he has been tried and overall doesn't look good enough to be playing for us, just as he wouldn't be playing for the other top 6 teams, the drop in level between Kulusevski and him is huge.
Bissouma - has played quite a few times and seemed to have a heavy touch and constantly seems to fail to track his direct opponents' forward runs. I suspect Conte is working on the latter in training, the first touch is more worrying to me, I really hope the club hasn't signed another player with a poor first touch, as they are hard to accommodate in any team.
Sessegnon played quite a bit of football last season and did well, this season he has looked poorer, perhaps because he's got a better partnership with Davies (who we need better than) than he has with Lenglet (who we also need better than).
The chairman at Spurs will sack the manager if he finishes outside of the Europa places, so the manager will struggle to give young and/or players not quite there time on the pitch to develop.

These are the 11 players Conte has got by the way:
Forster £free. Signing made sense to free up an overseas spot but he's a bottom 5 (at best) PL keeper.
Perisic £free. Signing made sense for Conte's preferred formation. However he hasn't really offered much going forward and is a poor defender IMO.
Spence £15m. A signing for the future
Bissouma £30m. Even though we were all pleased with this signing he hasn't looked good. First touch looks terrible and he fails to track opponents runs regularly
Udogie £15m. A signing for the future. Not here yet and we won't know whether he is good enough until next season at the earliest.
Richarlison £55m. A signing that made sense as cover for both CF and LWF though we've not seen the best of him yet. IMO is a significant tep down from both Kane and Son at their best, which is a bit of a worry.
Lenglet 0 (loan). A freebie to improve our numbers at the back. Has been OK to boost numbers but don't think he is what want long term at CB
Bentancur £15m. A great signing and fantastic value for money
Kulusevski £35m. A great signing and fantastic value for money
Porro £38m. We don't yet know but he is a rare signing of an actual likely 'first choice player'.
Danjuma 0 (loan). A very strange signing due to us being quite stacked in that position, though I do think he is a good player suited to the PL. I wonder whether we have signed him with an eye on Harry Kane leaving in the summer and Richarlison being earmarked as Kane's replacement as our striker playing through the middle?

So while 11 players have been brought in, there are only two up to now who would come in, replace a current first team player and immediately improve the team. Perhaps that will now be three depending on how Porro gets on but I'd rather wait and see instead of assuming. Considering we scraped into 4th place last season a long, long way behind the winners and that was with those 2 new first choice players you can see why we've not really kicked on again (especially as many of our rivals have strengthened themselves at least as well as we have).

How did Poch do it? He did it because he was brilliant.... A fact lost on a bunch of macarons on here who wanted him sacked when he had a dip after 4 seasons in a row of overachieving versus resources provided to him. Brilliant managers are very, very rare and we jettisoned the one that we were lucky enough to get.

If you want us to be like Brighton or Fulham or Saudi Sportswashing Machine and have the club develop players then you probably need to argue for a change of chairman to ensure that we are a club who will pay the money to have the best recruitment teams and afford their manager some patience to allow them to develop the good young players while missing out on European football. If is the entertainment value of the football you're concerned about, then again - you probably need to look at the chairman as somebody who doesn't employ three negative football managers in a row.

 

[Lilbaz]

Neither of Pope or Trippier are mid table PL players.... They are both very good players, as is Botman.... That's 3 or their back 5. Schar is also a good centre back who suffered with injuries the past few seasons but now seems to be over them. Slot Pope in instead of Lloris and Botman instead of Dier and we'd likely already be jumping above Man Utd and Saudi Sportswashing Machine in the table.

Skipp isn't 'worse' at all. He played for Conte last season and did well, he then got injured and is coming back into the team now having recovered from the injury.
Spence apparently hasn't been tried because he hasn't done enough in training to show that he is worth a place in the team.
Gil, he has been tried and overall doesn't look good enough to be playing for us, just as he wouldn't be playing for the other top 6 teams, the drop in level between Kulusevski and him is huge.
Bissouma - has played quite a few times and seemed to have a heavy touch and constantly seems to fail to track his direct opponents' forward runs. I suspect Conte is working on the latter in training, the first touch is more worrying to me, I really hope the club hasn't signed another player with a poor first touch, as they are hard to accommodate in any team.
Sessegnon played quite a bit of football last season and did well, this season he has looked poorer, perhaps because he's got a better partnership with Davies (who we need better than) than he has with Lenglet (who we also need better than).
The chairman at Spurs will sack the manager if he finishes outside of the Europa places, so the manager will struggle to give young and/or players not quite there time on the pitch to develop.

These are the 11 players Conte has got by the way:
Forster £free. Signing made sense to free up an overseas spot but he's a bottom 5 (at best) PL keeper.
Perisic £free. Signing made sense for Conte's preferred formation. However he hasn't really offered much going forward and is a poor defender IMO.
Spence £15m. A signing for the future
Bissouma £30m. Even though we were all pleased with this signing he hasn't looked good. First touch looks terrible and he fails to track opponents runs regularly
Udogie £15m. A signing for the future. Not here yet and we won't know whether he is good enough until next season at the earliest.
Richarlison £55m. A signing that made sense as cover for both CF and LWF though we've not seen the best of him yet. IMO is a significant tep down from both Kane and Son at their best, which is a bit of a worry.
Lenglet 0 (loan). A freebie to improve our numbers at the back. Has been OK to boost numbers but don't think he is what want long term at CB
Bentancur £15m. A great signing and fantastic value for money
Kulusevski £35m. A great signing and fantastic value for money
Porro £38m. We don't yet know but he is a rare signing of an actual likely 'first choice player'.
Danjuma 0 (loan). A very strange signing due to us being quite stacked in that position, though I do think he is a good player suited to the PL. I wonder whether we have signed him with an eye on Harry Kane leaving in the summer and Richarlison being earmarked as Kane's replacement as our striker playing through the middle?

So while 11 players have been brought in, there are only two up to now who would come in, replace a current first team player and immediately improve the team. Perhaps that will now be three depending on how Porro gets on but I'd rather wait and see instead of assuming.

How did Poch do it? He did it because he was brilliant.... A fact lost on a bunch of macarons on here who wanted him sacked when he had a dip after 4 seasons in a row of overachieving versus resources provided to him. Brilliant managers are very, very rare and we jettisoned the one that we were lucky enough to get.

If you want us to be like Brighton or Fulham or Saudi Sportswashing Machine and have the club develop players then you probably need to argue for a change of chairman to ensure that we are a club who will pay the money to have the best recruitment teams and afford their manager some patience to allow them to develop the good young players while missing out on European football.

Do you listen to contes press conferences? He's said all along what the plan was. First it was to improve the level of the squad. That was done. Now the plan is to add 1 or 2 quality additions each window.
Now you may disagree with the plan and think it too slow and that's fair enough. But it is the plan the club are working to.

 

[Finney Is Back]

Do you listen to contes press conferences? He's said all along what the plan was. First it was to improve the level of the squad. That was done. Now the plan is to add 1 or 2 quality additions each window.
Now you may disagree with the plan and think it too slow and that's fair enough. But it is the plan the club are working to.

I'm simply responding to Raziel who is questioning why Conte needs years to put together a team that can challenge for the big trophies. It is because building the squad and then getting a first team comparable to the best in the PL WILL take years with the plan that the club are working to.

 

[DubSpur]

A fact lost on a bunch of macarons on here who wanted him sacked when he had a dip after 4 seasons in a row of overachieving versus resources provided to him.

Calling people macarons that don't agree with your point of view... classy and a great way to have debate...

 

[Raziel]

Neither of Pope or Trippier are mid table PL players.... They are both very good players, as is Botman.... That's 3 or their back 5. Schar is also a good centre back who suffered with injuries the past few seasons but now seems to be over them. Slot Pope in instead of Lloris and Botman instead of Dier and we'd likely already be jumping above Man Utd and Saudi Sportswashing Machine in the table.

Skipp isn't 'worse' at all. He played for Conte last season and did well, he then got injured and is coming back into the team now having recovered from the injury.
Spence apparently hasn't been tried because he hasn't done enough in training to show that he is worth a place in the team.
Gil, he has been tried and overall doesn't look good enough to be playing for us, just as he wouldn't be playing for the other top 6 teams, the drop in level between Kulusevski and him is huge.
Bissouma - has played quite a few times and seemed to have a heavy touch and constantly seems to fail to track his direct opponents' forward runs. I suspect Conte is working on the latter in training, the first touch is more worrying to me, I really hope the club hasn't signed another player with a poor first touch, as they are hard to accommodate in any team.
Sessegnon played quite a bit of football last season and did well, this season he has looked poorer, perhaps because he's got a better partnership with Davies (who we need better than) than he has with Lenglet (who we also need better than).
The chairman at Spurs will sack the manager if he finishes outside of the Europa places, so the manager will struggle to give young and/or players not quite there time on the pitch to develop.

These are the 11 players Conte has got by the way:
Forster £free. Signing made sense to free up an overseas spot but he's a bottom 5 (at best) PL keeper.
Perisic £free. Signing made sense for Conte's preferred formation. However he hasn't really offered much going forward and is a poor defender IMO.
Spence £15m. A signing for the future
Bissouma £30m. Even though we were all pleased with this signing he hasn't looked good. First touch looks terrible and he fails to track opponents runs regularly
Udogie £15m. A signing for the future. Not here yet and we won't know whether he is good enough until next season at the earliest.
Richarlison £55m. A signing that made sense as cover for both CF and LWF though we've not seen the best of him yet. IMO is a significant tep down from both Kane and Son at their best, which is a bit of a worry.
Lenglet 0 (loan). A freebie to improve our numbers at the back. Has been OK to boost numbers but don't think he is what want long term at CB
Bentancur £15m. A great signing and fantastic value for money
Kulusevski £35m. A great signing and fantastic value for money
Porro £38m. We don't yet know but he is a rare signing of an actual likely 'first choice player'.
Danjuma 0 (loan). A very strange signing due to us being quite stacked in that position, though I do think he is a good player suited to the PL. I wonder whether we have signed him with an eye on Harry Kane leaving in the summer and Richarlison being earmarked as Kane's replacement as our striker playing through the middle?

So while 11 players have been brought in, there are only two up to now who would come in, replace a current first team player and immediately improve the team. Perhaps that will now be three depending on how Porro gets on but I'd rather wait and see instead of assuming. Considering we scraped into 4th place last season a long, long way behind the winners and that was with those 2 new first choice players you can see why we've not really kicked on again (especially as many of our rivals have strengthened themselves at least as well as we have).

How did Poch do it? He did it because he was brilliant.... A fact lost on a bunch of macarons on here who wanted him sacked when he had a dip after 4 seasons in a row of overachieving versus resources provided to him. Brilliant managers are very, very rare and we jettisoned the one that we were lucky enough to get.

If you want us to be like Brighton or Fulham or Saudi Sportswashing Machine and have the club develop players then you probably need to argue for a change of chairman to ensure that we are a club who will pay the money to have the best recruitment teams and afford their manager some patience to allow them to develop the good young players while missing out on European football. If is the entertainment value of the football you're concerned about, then again - you probably need to look at the chairman as somebody who doesn't employ three negative football managers in a row.

Again, you miss the point

A defense of Pope, Trippier, Scharr, Botman, Burns is not better than ours man for man (see your attempt to put Botman & Pope into our lineup), yet as a unit they are outperforming ours considerably, hence it's not the players, it's the system/coach. And quite honestly if you can't concede less goals than this season's Everton? well you figure

Skipp was on the list for loan, the only reason he's still here is Conte wants a warm body, he's very unlikely to see play time

Perisic, Bissouma & Richarlison are 100% Conte signings, they are exactly the signings we wouldn't make otherwise, yet he (Despite all his bs about "we can't afford to make mistakes like the club did in the past") hasn't got enough out of any of them. And Porro is also 100% him, and even more risky because he's a very expensive player for his position and unless we happen to pull another manager playing a WB model (rare these days), he could be someone we don't need in six months, so again the pressure on Conte is to make it work.

Poch wasn't some genius (shown by his time at PSG), right man, right place, right time (but that's an argument done to death), Howe, ETH and others have shown you don't need 18 months to make an impact.

I don't want us to be like any specific club, what I'm saying is
- Conte is constantly moaning about what he doesn't have (and in my opinion it's affecting the team) instead of concentrating on what he does
- He's not improving the players, something I don't think we can afford in the long run
- Conte's ability to deflect is crazy, you (and others here) are constantly arguing that he is absolutely correct that he can't be expected to have his team defend better than West Ham & Everton and he's going to need years to fix it ..

 

[Lilbaz]

Again, you miss the point

A defense of Pope, Trippier, Scharr, Botman, Burns is not better than ours man for man (see your attempt to put Botman & Pope into our lineup), yet as a unit they are outperforming ours considerably, hence it's not the players, it's the system/coach. And quite honestly if you can't concede less goals than this season's Everton? well you figure

Skipp was on the list for loan, the only reason he's still here is Conte wants a warm body, he's very unlikely to see play time

Perisic, Bissouma & Richarlison are 100% Conte signings, they are exactly the signings we wouldn't make otherwise, yet he (Despite all his bs about "we can't afford to make mistakes like the club did in the past") hasn't got enough out of any of them. And Porro is also 100% him, and even more risky because he's a very expensive player for his position and unless we happen to pull another manager playing a WB model (rare these days), he could be someone we don't need in six months, so again the pressure on Conte is to make it work.

Poch wasn't some genius (shown by his time at PSG), right man, right place, right time (but that's an argument done to death), Howe, ETH and others have shown you don't need 18 months to make an impact.

I don't want us to be like any specific club, what I'm saying is
- Conte is constantly moaning about what he doesn't have (and in my opinion it's affecting the team) instead of concentrating on what he does
- He's not improving the players, something I don't think we can afford in the long run
- Conte's ability to deflect is crazy, you (and others here) are constantly arguing that he is absolutely correct that he can't be expected to have his team defend better than West Ham & Everton and he's going to need years to fix it ..

We should be doing better this season. Lloris and son have totally lost form. We've also had a lot of injuries to some key players. Yet we are 3 points off top 4 and Saudi Sportswashing Machine (who have had no europe) in 3rd.

The years is to be challenging for the title. Although i'm sure conte will think we can make a push next season. I still think we'll get top 4 this season.

 

[DubSpur]

Again, you miss the point

A defense of Pope, Trippier, Scharr, Botman, Burns is not better than ours man for man (see your attempt to put Botman & Pope into our lineup), yet as a unit they are outperforming ours considerably, hence it's not the players, it's the system/coach. And quite honestly if you can't concede less goals than this season's Everton? well you figure

Skipp was on the list for loan, the only reason he's still here is Conte wants a warm body, he's very unlikely to see play time

Perisic, Bissouma & Richarlison are 100% Conte signings, they are exactly the signings we wouldn't make otherwise, yet he (Despite all his bs about "we can't afford to make mistakes like the club did in the past") hasn't got enough out of any of them. And Porro is also 100% him, and even more risky because he's a very expensive player for his position and unless we happen to pull another manager playing a WB model (rare these days), he could be someone we don't need in six months, so again the pressure on Conte is to make it work.

Poch wasn't some genius (shown by his time at PSG), right man, right place, right time (but that's an argument done to death), Howe, ETH and others have shown you don't need 18 months to make an impact.

I don't want us to be like any specific club, what I'm saying is
- Conte is constantly moaning about what he doesn't have (and in my opinion it's affecting the team) instead of concentrating on what he does
- He's not improving the players, something I don't think we can afford in the long run
- Conte's ability to deflect is crazy, you (and others here) are constantly arguing that he is absolutely correct that he can't be expected to have his team defend better than West Ham & Everton and he's going to need years to fix it ..

He doesn't need years to fix, or shouldn't anyway, a decent keeper should be enough.

 

[Finney Is Back]

Again, you miss the point

A defense of Pope, Trippier, Scharr, Botman, Burns is not better than ours man for man (see your attempt to put Botman & Pope into our lineup), yet as a unit they are outperforming ours considerably, hence it's not the players, it's the system/coach. And quite honestly if you can't concede less goals than this season's Everton? well you figure

Skipp was on the list for loan, the only reason he's still here is Conte wants a warm body, he's very unlikely to see play time

Perisic, Bissouma & Richarlison are 100% Conte signings, they are exactly the signings we wouldn't make otherwise, yet he (Despite all his bs about "we can't afford to make mistakes like the club did in the past") hasn't got enough out of any of them. And Porro is also 100% him, and even more risky because he's a very expensive player for his position and unless we happen to pull another manager playing a WB model (rare these days), he could be someone we don't need in six months, so again the pressure on Conte is to make it work.

Poch wasn't some genius (shown by his time at PSG), right man, right place, right time (but that's an argument done to death), Howe, ETH and others have shown you don't need 18 months to make an impact.

I don't want us to be like any specific club, what I'm saying is
- Conte is constantly moaning about what he doesn't have (and in my opinion it's affecting the team) instead of concentrating on what he does
- He's not improving the players, something I don't think we can afford in the long run
- Conte's ability to deflect is crazy, you (and others here) are constantly arguing that he is absolutely correct that he can't be expected to have his team defend better than West Ham & Everton and he's going to need years to fix it ..

A defence of Pope, Trippier, Scharr, Botman and Burns probably is better than ours man for man. We only have Romero who clearly gets into their team at the back.

'Skipp was on the list for loan'? What does that even mean. If he was on the list for loan then why wasn't he actually loaned out? Is he not good enough for another team to want him? Or perhaps (more likely) was he not actually on the list for loan at all? Which of the two options was it?

I've talked about all three of Perisic, Bissouma and Richarlison in my previous post. Bissouma doesn't yet get in on merit ahead of Hojbjerg or Bentancur. I will say though that Bissouma has looked a little better in his last few appearances, maybe Conte's coaching is having an effect? Richarlison unfortunately isn't close in ability to Kane or Son at the top of their game IMO (though I do think he should've been playing ahead of Son this season). Perisic, well he has been given opportunities but looked poor in the PL other than with his dead ball delivery, maybe like many overseas players it is taking him time to adjust the pace of the PL?

Porro will be able to play as a right back for most managers even in a 4-4-2 where many managers still play with at least one very attacking full back even when not employing wingbacks.

I think Conte is moaning about what he doesn't have because he doesn't want the height of the club's ambition to be scraping into the last CL qualification spot (as I think both you and I know is pretty much the height of our ambition). I would say that Conte has improved several players, I think all of Romero, Kulusevski, Bentancur, Hojbjerg and Royal have improved. Even Dier (who I don't rate but I know some do) has improved under Conte I think, probably Davies as well.
The game is about both attacking and defending, picking up points is what counts. We may have conceded more goals that West Ham and Everton but we're well above both in the table. If we had better centre backs and a better keeper then I think we'd immediately have a far better defensive record but, alas, we haven't invested in those positions.

Poch was a genius. I don't expect I'll see another manager achieve 4 CL qualifications in a row with the 17th biggest transfer budget and 6th biggest wage budget in the rest of my lifetime for us or any other club. I still think it's absolutely laughable that some people were happy for him to be replaced by Mourinho and I'll take a dim view of that until the day I die I expect.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

He doesn't need years to fix, or shouldn't anyway, a decent keeper should be enough.

Yep
Pope hasnt thrown it in his own net and doesn’t get beat at his near post all the time
But his kicking is as bad

 

[thfcsteff]

Neith

How did Poch do it? He did it because he was brilliant.... A fact lost on a bunch of macarons on here who wanted him sacked when he had a dip after 4 seasons in a row of overachieving versus resources provided to him. Brilliant managers are very, very rare and we jettisoned the one that we were lucky enough to get.

.

As you know, I agree re: Poch. For me, the biggest mistake our fanbase made in wanting him out for the dinosaur, was that Poch had achieved the impossible dream of building a CL Final side on a shoestring budget AND uniting the club in all directions. When he was ignored in 2018 and marginalized somewhat, it was a catastrophic error I knew we’d pay for deeply.

I personally have a lot of time for Antonio, albeit he was never going to be the ideal fit with us due to the way we conduct our football business (that - BTW - was an observation, not necessarily an opinion). Here’s hoping he can pull rabbits from hats in these next few months. What happens beyond that I wouldn’t begin to guess. This season we’ve had death, fraud scandals and gall bladder removals; only a fool would try to guess what Spring brings!

 

[Gutter Boy]

Interesting watching England rugby team in their first game of a post-handbrake coach era. Such a difference in approach, energy and that hugely effected the atmosphere. Ultimately it didn't quite gell (not unexpected, they've only beaten scotland 1 of the last 6), but a decent first step in the right direction. Hopefully this will become a transformation much like McCullums with the cricket side.

 

[Gazza Dazzla]

Interesting watching England rugby team in their first game of a post-handbrake coach era. Such a difference in approach, energy and that hugely effected the atmosphere. Ultimately it didn't quite gell (not unexpected, they've only beaten scotland 1 of the last 6), but a decent first step in the right direction. Hopefully this will become a transformation much like McCullums with the cricket side.

What rugby game did you watch?!

 

[Baleforce]

Interesting watching England rugby team in their first game of a post-handbrake coach era. Such a difference in approach, energy and that hugely effected the atmosphere. Ultimately it didn't quite gell (not unexpected, they've only beaten scotland 1 of the last 6), but a decent first step in the right direction. Hopefully this will become a transformation much like McCullums with the cricket side.

nope

 

[Bedfordspurs]

As you know, I agree re: Poch. For me, the biggest mistake our fanbase made in wanting him out for the dinosaur, was that Poch had achieved the impossible dream of building a CL Final side on a shoestring budget AND uniting the club in all directions. When he was ignored in 2018 and marginalized somewhat, it was a catastrophic error I knew we’d pay for deeply.

I personally have a lot of time for Antonio, albeit he was never going to be the ideal fit with us due to the way we conduct our football business (that - BTW - was an observation, not necessarily an opinion). Here’s hoping he can pull rabbits from hats in these next few months. What happens beyond that I wouldn’t begin to guess. This season we’ve had death, fraud scandals and gall bladder removals; only a fool would try to guess what Spring brings!

Winning the cup

 

[Gutter Boy]

What rugby game did you watch?!

The baseline was the turgid as fudge autumn internationals, so its direction of travel from them