Agree with you that central midfield is a problem. Gundigan unreliable, Yaya 34 and Fernandinho 32 coming to an end, Fernando and Delph are just not ever going to be good enough against the best sides. No bite in midfield today or leadership, we got bullied. In summer we need four quality youthful fullbacks, two central midfield all rounders and a striker IMOOne 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
No I don't, but Guardiola has probably list of targets for Txiki to get.After the hundreds of millions they've thrown at the defence previously, do you think they'll get it right this summer?
I think it's coming to an end unfortunately. Tonight has highlighted it for me.
He can still get 30 a season in this team & be a matchwinner, but he's lost that half a yard which would have got him 3 goals tonight & imo he is no longer the best we can do in that position.
We had a big change in football quality when Pellegrini won the league and cup double - that was at the very least the equal to what Pep produces - and he did it without the quality at Peps disposal , we failed to improve the squad and have done it again .Pellegrinis team have outscored Peps City and if I'm not proven wrong have conceded less per game aswell ?
Think we are all a bit misty eyed about Pep to be honest , he's got time on his side but this season has been bang average for me , not having this revolutionary stuff to be honest.
?? 3 games, I'm pretty sure you won't be saying that in 3 yearsSterling has been shite for the last three games. He's not good enough
Three good chances wasted by passing to Serg in a worse position due team mates not having the bottle to finish themselves. Silva was clean through and stopped, and Sterling had a great chance and fed Serg with a hospital bobble ball.
I agree totally, I still support pep and like most on here look at things with blue tinted glasses, however when you take them off this season has been massively disappointing, pep has to take some flak along with the players and recruitment, we have too many out of contract in the summer players that don't give a shit what happens this year, I hate to admit it but Conte has shown pep up with looking at his squad and playing to their strengths, chealsea dont have better defenders than us they are just not hung out to dry with a playing style that requires world class talent, we are by no means guaranteed a CL place next year and could lose the next 3 games with how we play against the top 6, any other manager would be crucified for being in this position with what we've spentThat's 100% down to Pep. Dropping one of the most in form players and playing one of the least. Then with 15 minutes to go we take the lead and he doesn't bring Yaya on for Kev??? Gutted because that was just awful. Second half was decent until they scored 3rd but then we completely lost it. Ref couldn't wait to blow up at end and didn't even give us the full added time.
Season over now. I can't see players getting up for Liverpool so we could be in trouble now.
Fuck off