Lets hope nothing serious for leao.. musah oakfor and chiqueweze all onn

Probably just a precaution.

Mike down ? Next game is roma

Good result 4-1.. after subs it was clear that a full new attack is not used to eachother..

I think it was because he got a couple of knocks on the head.

Looked disoriented a bit there. If it was anything muscular he'd have come off immediately.

Game went to zzzzz after 4-1. Not a huge fan of this attitude.

What did you guys think wrt the second penalty? Another harsh call IMO.

PS: Pulisic and Reijnders are world class. Loftus great tonight as well.

Let's not nitpick. The pts were in the bag. If it was 2-1 and we were switching off and allowing Toro back in, I'd be p!ssed. But the game was done and we never really gave them any other chance after they scored their goal. Also, the heat, not to mention the humidity are still pretty high. We can't expect them to go full throttle all 90.

Also, the subs killed a lot of the flow. Chuk, Okafor, Musah all need time to get into the rhythm. It has to be hard coming on and not starting, especially when the game was already done by then and we had taken our foot off the pedal.

For me the only thing that p!ssed me off today was the goal we conceded. Should have been a clean sheet. The lapses in concentration need to be smacked out of them.


Re the pen. Imo, it was one. Just like the first one. The 2nd was even more clear cut considering the dangerous play which could have seriously injured Leao

Maybe I'm a nitpicking *******, but I didn't see this incredible game last night. If you go on YouTube you will see people exalting our performance as outstanding. Football champagne is what they're saying.

We certainly deserved to win and that goes without saying, but we lack consistency. In the first 25 minutes we were half asleep, and after we scored the 4th in the 65th minute we went AWOL. So we played, what, 40-45 minutes of decent football?

Yes, you can argue that after the game went 4-1 there was no point in spending more energies, and I can understand that, but it's too early in the game to be thinking like that. We always have this tendency that we give up after we're leading by more than one goal, and personally I don't like it.

It's still too early in the season and there's much room for improvement though. The quality is all there.

PS: Chukwueze right now looks like the clone of Messias. He had 30 minutes of time yesterday to show something, yet he was incredibly underwhelming. Hopefully it's just a matter of fitness. We need another Leao on that right wing.

I really don't take the twitter/youtube reactionary comments all that seriously. I said you're nitpicking because I thought it was an overall positive performance and once the game was killed off there was absolutely no point in keeping the tempo high. It's not like we gave them chances to get back into it. For me that's what going AWOL would be. But that is not what we did. We killed the pace of the game and shut out Toro from being dangerous. For me that is just a professional performance.

I think overall there was a lot more positive than negative. And this is coming from someone who after the pre-season was really pessimistic. I think there's still so much room for improvement, but there is a major difference from how we're playing now compared to any point during last season.


Okafor and Musah were pretty flat as well. I think it's just hard for new players to come on in these situations where we're basically just running the clock down so there wasn't really any impetus to keep going for a 5th. I think all of them will need time. Chuk and Musah especially didn't get a full pre-season with the team. I'm excited to see what both can do from the start but with Pulisic and Loftus playing so well I don't think Pioli will rock the boat just yet, especially with Roma and Inter coming up

Despite our apparent disagreement in previous days, whatever we were debating, we did agree game management isn't good, and we need to be ruthless.

Well in this one we were a bit flat, in all honesty, and were gifted a penalty or two. The scoreline flattered us, and then around 65 minutes, gifted another pen, we just stopped playing.

Sure, 4-1 up, why waste energy. But these are world class athletes - we didn't need to game manage in this one any more than the Bologna match. If you can score 8, go for it!

I'm encouraged by what I am seeing - we are looking clinical, but we need to keep it up for 90 minutes rather than the complacency we've shown in the opening two.

We're top of the league which is lovely, and we've comfortably beaten two good sides to do it, but I really hope we're not this lazy when the top sides come to town because they'll punish it.

Leao btw is having a great season already - his stats are great, and as you guys say, if he can fine tune his errors and clean up his passing, he could be one of the world's best players.

He's already Serie A's prize asset.

But why would you keep pushing to score 8 at that point Danny?

I get what you guys are saying. But the scoreline in both games dictated how we approached the rest of the game. Both games were closed out. So expanding unnecessary energies, in that humid heat would make absolutely no sense.

Yes these are top athletes. But we have a 50+ game season ahead of us. If the 3 points are in the bag, then that is all that matters. And once again, it's not like we switched off and proceeded to get pushed into our own area and defended by the skin of our teeth. Both Bologna and Torino were kept quiet, even after we took our foot off the gas.

And as we saw against Juve for example, we played 2 teams which are notoriously difficult for the big teams, because they are both organized and are properly coached.




Re the top sides. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that out of all the top teams in the league. I'm only worried about Inter. That is not to say that we'll steamroll all the other sides, but all have so far flattered to deceive. Even Napoli have looked average to me. Obviously we're going to drop points against some of these, but I think we've shown so far that we have taken a step forward compared to last season.

Next Friday against Roma will be the first test. But I think we have it.

Inter will be the true test of how far we can go. Because the defense and the overall defensive shape and how the midfield covers the defensive line are my biggest question mark. especially when we have no true DM

Because if we get used to 'taking our foot off the gas' to game manage against 70% of Serie A teams, it will cost us when we do the same thing v Napoli. You can talk about who's impressive or who isn't, but there's a distinct gulf between Cagliari and Juve. One you can game manage against, one you can't.

And if you're used to complacency against Cagaliari, how will you have the fitness to keep pushing when a better side has you far more under pressure?

You're right that 40 games of 1-0 every week wins you the title, but it doesn't work out that way.

I am assuming goal difference is regarded as a point in Italy, because it is elsewhere. Neck and neck on points means it goes to goal difference. And that's where ruthlessness really counts. GD is worth a point in itself.

If this isn't the case in Serie A, fair enough, but it will still help to be ruthless when it comes to facing the top teams.

I agree with Danny. We really like taking the back seat when we think the result is at hand. Forget the last game, but against Bologna for example we decided to "manage the result" in the second half instead of trying to push for a third goal. And Bologna had two clear scoring opportunities that might have changed entirely the course of the game. This is not because Bologna overwhelmed us, but because we let them do it. And I don't like it.

We need to be a bit more consistent even when we're leading. It doesn't mean we attack gung-ho as if we need to score another goal at all cost, but at least keep the tempo high and not let the opponent get the upper hand in the control of the game.

I agree with you to an extent. I absolutely hate when we sit on a result. And you do risk dropping points using that strategy.

But my point in this case is, we were not winning by 1-0. Or even 2-0 like against Bologna. The game was essentially dead after the 4-1. And like I said, it's a long season, with lots of games ahead of us. Why risk anything? Also, I do think we still controlled the game. Toro really had no chances other then the stupid goal we conceded. That makes me much more angry than taking our foot off the gas at 4-1. Because the score then was 1-0, we were still in set-piece defensive shape and everyone seemingly switched off and stood still. Which is what we saw countless times last season.

Aside from the goal, I don't remember Mike making a single save during the entire game. That shows that we had control over proceedings. Now whether we were pushing for more goals or simply game managing doesn't matter to me. It actually makes me happy that we managed to slow the game down, on our terms. Because you know last season we would have just conceded territory to them and f@cked up eventually. That shows me that we've grown.


Also, you simply cannot compare a top of the table clash against an Inter or Juve vs a game against a Cagliari or Genoa. I'd argue that it is much easier to relax and lose focus against those types of teams than in big games. Hence why we have a very good record against top 6 sides while being absolutely sh!t last season against bottom ones


The Bologna performance was slightly more patchy. But look how good Bologna looked vs Juve and compare that to how we dominated them for large periods. The performances will keep improving the more we play. Against Toro we gave them nothing once the game was done at 4-1,that is the key.

Group of death (IMG:style_emoticons/default/blink.gif)

PSG
Dortmund
Milan
Newcastle