Monaco - Post Match thread.

[nellyonthewing]

Oh shut up. He gave a free kick away 50 yards from goal.
Which we utterly pathetically decided to play high on, and make it a semi goalscoring chance

Stones was the reason we dominated for half an hour second half, he was magnificent bringing the ball out from the back

The manager and the senior players carry the can for this, they bottled it yet again. A new era awaits with this manager probably, but certainly with some of these younger players; with Stones captaining off the back of his dominance in the second half today.

Do give over.Stones fails to cut out cross Goal 1,Stones nowhere need player Goal 3.

 

[Neville Kneville]

By far and away our biggest issue and yes, we defended poorly tonight but had we scored the easy chances we missed yet again we are through.

This is absolutely true.

Pep has imo succeeded with some right fucking overrated characters in defence at both Barca & Bayern, reason being, they kill teams when they create at the other end.

We were better at the back under Mancini & arguably in Pellegrini's first season too, but if we finished like we are doing now, we would still be waiting for our first Premier League.

 

[MC ID]

I mean, for fucks sake did he forget he had subs?

The players though, they were the real villains of the piece and god I've gone from reluctantly accepting change is needed to actively enjoying the prospect of seeing some of these players through the door.

 

[Manchester_lalala]

One thing that seemed more obvious tonight, was that if Chelsea hadn’t have imploded under Mourinho, then we probably wouldn’t have been in the Champions League this season.

That’s how far we’ve slipped since 2014, and it also explains why Aguero and Silva now appear ponderous once you get to the knockout elite. Neither were bad, but they seem to drift on the periphery, whereas Sane looks lean and hungry, even when he's just made a mistake.

As for our sloppy defending from set pieces, it’s been camouflaged by a slightly misleading run of clean sheets. Sunderland and Middlesbrough should both have scored from free headers.

The future is bright, but the pressing demand is for two mobile full backs, and a younger, leaner, sharper version of Yaya.
We also need to sort the goalkeeper, because for all his limitations, we actually missed Bravo's quick distribution tonight

Need more aggression in this side. Young players give you that energy which makes a team look 10x better. Energetic full backs, a commanding centre back and a class centre mid is what we need. Anything other is an extra.

 

[chesterbells]

always seems that we need 20 goal occasions to score a goal and the opponent only needs one or two.

Think Pep agrees with you; he's alluded to it often enough in post match interviews this season

 

[johnmc]

I'm not sure we spent all that money on KDB for him to be a ball winning midfield player.

Have you ever seen Iniesta pull out of a challenge?

 

[slicky202]

KDB was also pulling out of 50-50's as well

Didnt notice that but I believe you, he's having a bad run at the moment

 

[prestonibbo_mcfc]

Becoming deja vu mate. Gets to March/April and we can't wait for the next season.

For some of us old uns, it used to be October. So there is progress ;-)

 

[Armaan]

Busy summer ahead for Pep. A lot of these players are past it now and it's showing

Past it now? It's been obvious to anyone with half a brain players like Clichy, Kolarov and Sagna were past it a year ago!

 

[madden150]

Once again made a good but not great team look like world beaters, hate to say it but I saw it coming. Poor team selection for starters and unbelievable that nothing has changed with that shockingly bad defence for 4-5 years. The comparison between wing backs was laughable. I could go on for days but as long as Pep is proud of them and he's so so happy who cares

 

[pudge]

theres a bit of a difference, its peps first season with a team that isn't really his. arsenal fail every year pretty much and have done for the last 10 years or so. criticize pep all we want, but there shouldnt be any comparison to wenger

It's not a generalisation of 'failure'

It's a comparison of reactions and double standards.

As was said, if that was Mourinho or Wenger or Conte or anyone else tonight. We'd all say "He should have played x, y and z. He also should have held back a bit etc. They had a two goal lead." Etc etc. And we'd all laugh at them.

When it's Pep... "It's not his fault, fuck off."

So it's not a comparison of their careers, I don't know where anyone got that from.