Dr. Gonzo

You literally called us bitter in the last post. But you're right, Pogba is a good player - he's just being asked to do too much in a midfield that's not suited to him looking as good as he should look. You can see at Juve and France he's got quality. So it's not hard to see what's gone wrong for him at United.

I bet Pogba would look better in a side with better attacking options and where he's not the only person who's creating chances, like Scholes did. The evidence for that is there with his time at Juve and France. I'm not surprised he wants out of Man United, they're holding him back. He should get a move out ASAP, for the good of his career. Should never have made that money move from Juve and instead he'd be playing in Italy, winning titles, and playing alongside Cristiano Ronaldo. Probably one of the worst career decisions made by a player in a long time.

I respect all opinions, even wrong ones

I predict it’ll be the new Lampard v Gerrard boring & pointless debate

That’ll never happen, there’s people that watch maybe a fraction of the season but get most of their football knowledge from FIFA and they’re usually quite vocal about their football opinions even if they’re shit opinions

Holy fuck, ban that fucking moron from our matches for life. Stupid fucking cunt like that dumb shithead kid with a beachball that should have been shot into the fucking sun

Twitter won't do shit about racism. Racism whips up a frenzy of activity on twitter from racist idiots looking to join in on the "fun" of being cunts to people anonymously on the internet. Then there'll be a headline about the terrible shit that's being said on twitter and... the twitter board of directors probably high fives that they've gotten twitter to show up in the news again. All publicity is good publicity and all that. It's the same reason they don't do anything about bots and fake users, despite all the negative coverage about that.

Kante is one of the best box to box midfielders in Europe, I’m not surprised he made a massive impact. I think most sides would look much better with him in the midfield. He’s an absolute beast. I also thought Pulisic and Pedro both looked very good. When Pedro is in form like that, I love watching him play because you can see him just reading the play so well. Although I don’t enjoy it as much when it’s against us and he’s causing problems for us. Where Chelsea’s problems lie, imo, are at the back. Mostly at CB, where Zouma (who looked quite good at Everton last season) just looks like a mistake waiting to happen. And Christensen is a kid, he’s a good kid but it’s a position where experience matters and sometimes he’ll show naivity. And they’ve also got problems at the striker situation, but they’ve also got a kid they’re developing. But if Giroud or Tammy were better finishers and their good chances were at least on target, there’s a good chance that’d have ended with a FT result in Chelsea’s favour. That might be a bit harsh because Giroud scored, but he also spurned good chances. And Tammy missed a sitter after winning that (non) penalty (also that was the moment where I lost all faith in VAR, although I think the summer should have taught me that - but that’s besides the point). But there was plenty to be encouraged with for Chelsea. Yeah, there are obvious issues - but there’s a lot of positives about the current squad and a long season to work out those issues. Looks like Chelsea have a bit of an easier run after starting with 2 matches against our top 6. I think they’ll pick up plenty of points

6 cops shot in Philadelphia

Skrtel's joined Atalanta. He's also got hair now. TIL Skrtel could grow hair this whole time

Looks like it. We've got some pretty fragile midfielders tbh, with him, the Ox, and Lallana.

Robertson was the one who played Teemu Pukki onside btw

It's probably 6-8 weeks, unless it was a pretty severe tear. But Klopp doesn't want to put a timetable on and just wants to let him recover at whatever pace, rather than putting pressure on him to return. Which is fair enough, we don't want to put him out when he's not fully healed and have a more severe repeat of this. It's a long season, we need him for as much of it as possible. It's a bit mental that Adrian is now in the position he's in after a summer not attached to a club until days before the window shut, and he's got big shoes (gloves) to fill... we know he's not as good as Alisson - he knows it too. We just have to keep working as a unit and doing the best we can in this bad situation and hope that he does a good job while also hoping that Alisson is ready to go ASAP. I've seen Adrian have good games against us, I've also seen him get utterly rocked by us - he seems like a keeper that's capable of good moments and capable of moments of madness... which we're a bit used to. I hope the crowd gets behind them, he got a good reception for just hopping in, the squad are now trying to big him up. If he's full of confidence and can fill in for a... month or two admirably that won't fuck us up too badly. I'm just relieved it's not an Achilles issue, which'd keep him out for the whole season. It's shit, but it could have been much worse. And we've seen also with Sane, who walked off the pitch against us when he'd torn his ACL... it can be a lot worse, even when it doesn't seem too bad initially because the player feels strong enough to walk.

I'm two episodes into Years and Years - depressing as fuuuuuck so far

Pop would probably mean his Achilles. And he’d probably miss the season. As he’s expected to be 4-8 weeks it’s probably a calf tear.

This is pretty decent news, all things considered: If it's a grade 2 tear, apparently the average time out is 4-6 weeks. It's obviously not ideal, because he's a phenomenal keeper. But it's better than losing him for several months.

If that were true there'd be no such thing as vocal coaches, mate

I can't either, but it's nice

He's probably at least still better than your backup keeper.

Not even De Gea?

I got to work from home today because the office is being fumigated and as a result, I've been working with a guitar on my lap all day. And I've FINALLY figured out how to make the 6505+ sound good at low volumes - pretty easy fix too. Just put the pre-gain knob waaaay higher than I normally would and keep the volume a bit lower than I normally would and all of a sudden I'm getting the tone I wanted. Very fucking happy with this news.

I think Woodward should have been sacked years ago, and probably around the time they sacked Mourinho would have been a smart time to finally cut ties with him... but if United don't finish in the top 4 this season, surely he should be sacked? Granted, I'm not sure I want him to be sacked. His lack of planning has ushered in a great banter era.

We did the same thing with Salah and we're looking to get Virgil on a new deal as well. Gotta keep your superstars on long deals. Makes transfers away less likely and keeps their value nice and high.

Well I like the sound of Zouma not fitting in with the way they like to play out of the back and looking like a liability... so while I don't want to wish anyone injury or a slow recovery from injury - it'd be nice if that's a bit too early for Rudiger's injury timetable for him to make it out onto the pitch. Because liabilities at the back against our high press are a fantastic mix for us. Rudiger's a good player though, I think he's underrated, and he should be first choice for Chelsea over both Zouma and the Danish lad that sometimes looks fantastic and sometimes looks shite.