I will if my computer lets me. It's been a dick for the past 6 weeks, so I'm not hopeful


Luis officially gone. Meh.

I think so if I haven't fallen asleep by the time it kicks off. Hoping to see Traore get some playing time.

Yes, I've changed my mind, I'm going to watch it. Put on a movie and hope I don't fall asleep before kick-off. I can always go in a bit later tomorrow.
Messi and Neymar aren't playing, which is a pity. I would have liked to see how we coped against their fantastic attacking trio.

Will be our first look at Kenedy tonight….

Courtois, Ivanovic (c), Zouma, Cahill, Azpilicueta, Fabregas, Matic, Kenedy, Oscar, Hazard, Costa

Fabulous goal by Hazard !

Kenedy's first few touches have looked promising. I expected him to go out on loan, but he looks very confident and assured.

Great game.........Costa should have made it 2. Courtois having a blinder.

Hazard, what a goal!!

Really was a great goal from Hazard. Oscar unlucky too with the free-kick. Entertaining game so far.


Yes, he looks the part. Seems to have good strength and work rate with some nice touches as you say.

We always look better when we press from our midfield - something we lacked in the first half against PSG due to the Matic/Mikel combo.

Yes, very good first half. It could have been 3-2 or even 3-3. Great free kick from Oscar that hit the bar and Costa would usually slot those chances away. But they've had their chances as well, Courtois was the busiest keeper.
We are defending very deep, but I suppose it's easier said than done to change that. Everyone looking sharp and fit though, that's the main thing.

Oh dear Dave, I can head the ball better than that. Still, he probably only makes a couple of mistakes every season, and that's one out of the way. Great attempt by Zouma to keep it out, that guy is some athlete.

Didn't realise the Kenedy deal had been finalized.

Couldn't watch the match anyway Will have to check out Hazard's goal elsewhere.

The fun of penalties again.

Hazard's goal

https://streamable.com/p5l8

Yes ! We are the penalty kings.

Comfortable shoot-out win. Was a decent game, worth staying up for.

I think we have been ok in pre season, the players are almost where they need to be for the season by the looks of things.

Hopefully Costa going off was just a precaution, it would be a blow if we lose him with yet another hamstring problem so fingers crossed on that one.

Moses has looked very impressive during pre season. I would start him against Arsenal because i feel he looks more ready than any of our other RW players right now. He has put in some dangerous crosses and got himself a goal too. The guy looks up for the fight.

His positioning during the Hazzard goal was good as well. He put himself in a good place for a shot if Eden passed or the keeper spilled the ball etc.

Thanks


Probably a waste of time of time asking, but has Falcao done anything yet?

With the cost of the new stadium, i'm wondering if we're going to be entering a period where we'll be happy to 'do an Arsenal?
The great UTD and Liverpool teams always looked to stregthen and shift out those past their best, and we've done neither during this off season.
Nobody will be able to blame Jose if we get a few injuries and things go tits up. Our strength in depth is wafer thin and i can see the first 11 being knackered again by Xmas and we'll see another load of desperately close games with scrappy performances.
If we win the title again this season with this squad, i think it will be Jose's best title to date.

Don't think we will do a Arsenal at all. Arsenal would not pay big money no matter what. IMO what we will do is spend big if there is value in it. There is no point in spending money for the sake of it or "it maybe" working out. If a player comes available who offers value for money and is as sure improvement on what we have as you can get in transfers then I don't see us not going for the player.

At the moment I can see very little value in the transfer market. Plenty of maybes and potential yes but not a single one where I would say "Yea I put money on that signing paying off" like I would have with Costa,Matic and Cesc, To me those signings was stone cold certainties to come off. The only one I can currently see value in is Stone but that's only because he will retain value due to him being English and being a defender. Any other transfer and its "lets keep our fingers crossed and hope it works out", We have to be smarter then that now

Yes, at this moment in time it's not easy picking/finding the right players at the right price.
There's a lot of over priced players who are much of s muchness. Having said that, we reall should be moving on the likes of Mikel. Surely one of our highly rated youth players would be better value in the squad than that useless lump.

But we have a contract with Mikel,

It easy to say move him on but what do you do? Put a gun to his head and force him to go? Didn't we do that to get him to come to us over Utd?

Not put him in the squad? So we are paying someone a fortune to do nothing? That is awful business. We cannot look at value as only what they bring "on the pitch" any more. We have to look at many factors.

He is a senior player who has served us very well over the years and been important to some of are biggest achievement's, Would we as fans be happy if we did that to Lamp's,JT,Cech,Drog etc?

We have to deal with the cards we have. None of this buying a new pack every time we don't like what we have been dealt.

I think Pedro and Schneiderlin would have been good, safe additions to our squad. But Pedro doesn't appear to be very enthusiastic about a move, and Shneiderlin will be get more starts for United.
I'm still not keen on the idea of paying £30m+ for Stones, but I get your point about him retaining value. Fortunately, Zouma seems to be improving with every game. It's now debatable whether he shouldn't be a starter, terrific performance last night in my opinion.

Like Dixon, I'm worried about Ramires and Mikel as our back-up in the DM pivot. If anything happens to Matic, that combination makes us considerably weaker. Either can be useful to bring on later in a game. Ramires for his energy, pace and general nuisance value, Mikel for sitting in front of the back four and closing down games. But we really needed a quality alternative to Matic.
Of course we now urgently need to sign a LB. It seems shortsighted to have let Luis go without having a definite replacement already lined up ?

Too early to make much of a judgement on him as he's only made two sub appearances, the last of which was very brief. Looked quite sharp and sprightly against PSG although didn't have any clearcut chances. He scored two very well taken penalties in the shoot-outs though.


Useless lump is a bit harsh although I'm no fan of Mikel as a player either. I've said it before but I'd sooner see Ake play over him, who I think would do a better job given the chance.

When Mikkel came on in the past two seasons in the second half to sure up the score, it inevitably led to the opposition scoring.

He was awful and a liability.

I'd be happy if he never played for us again