Next 5 Games til next international break

sammsky1

Pochettino's #1 fan
Joined
Feb 10, 2008
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London
PL Sat 24th Oct: vs Chelsea (H)
CL Wed 28th Oct: vs Leipzig (H)
PL Sun 1st Nov vs Arsenal (H)
CL Wed 4th Nov vs Istanbul (A)
PL Sat 7th Nov vs Everton (A)

2 games down in our intense schedule, all vs top teams. Good to see that we are at home for next 3 games too. The games are relentless, every 3 or 4 days.

Everton wouldn't be considered as a top tier team but their start means they must be feared.

One immediate issue is when do Bruno and Rashford get rested, as they cant play 7 straight games.

Will be very interesting to see how Ole rotates his squad.
 
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We should be getting a minimum 6 points in the league and 4 in the CL games.

All those games are winnable but we'll probably slip up in a couple.

How many penalties will we get? I'm saying 3.
 
Smores said:
We should be getting a minimum 6 points in the league and 4 in the CL games.

All those games are winnable but we'll probably slip up in a couple.
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After the confidence gained from last 2 games, I feel like we will score in all these games, and will be very difficult for any of those teams to beat us.
 
I wonder if we might see Pogba starting both games v Chelsea and Arsenal, though in different roles in both games? i.e. Pogba's passing from deep v Chelsea, and as the 10 v Arsenal, to give Bruno a rest?
 
We've yet to pick up a single point at home this season, we absolutely need to build up momentum in the next 3 games.

WDDWL would be my (quite depressing) prediction.
 
Friendly reminder that the last time we beat PSG, we lost 8 of the next 12 games to finish the season.
 
Bar Istanbul all those teams press high and Everton and Chelsea try and control the midfield. So we should just play the exact same system - 3-5-2 with 2 of Fred/McTominay/Matic. Or if its a 4-3-3 then still 2 defensive midfielders. Then when/if we have the game under control we can bring on Pogba/VDB etc. I said this in our best midfield thread. Control the game first. Then make changes. We are very good at sitting deep and countering so why change. When the easier games come and we build up a few more wins and confidence then we can start thinking about trying to get 4-3-3 to work with 2 attacking midfielders Pogba + Fernandes or VDB. Because in general it has not been working.
 
UpWithRivers said:
Bar Istanbul all those teams press high and Everton and Chelsea try and control the midfield. So we should just play the exact same system - 3-5-2 with 2 of Fred/McTominay/Matic. Or if its a 4-3-3 then still 2 defensive midfielders. Then when/if we have the game under control we can bring on Pogba/VDB etc. I said this in our best midfield thread. Control the game first. Then make changes. We are very good at sitting deep and countering so why change. When the easier games come and we build up a few more wins and confidence then we can start thinking about trying to get 4-3-3 to work with 2 attacking midfielders Pogba + Fernandes or VDB. Because in general it has not been working.
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I wouldn't mind that, as it would drill the team into perfecting this tactical strategy and embed it within our toolkit.
 
Obviously its unlikely but 5 wins here would put us in an outstanding position this early in the season.
 
I don’t think we’ll see Rashford or Bruno getting a rest until the game in Turkey. Especially with Martial out for two more Premier League games. Rashford worries me. Ole refused to even sub him when we were 3-1 up against Newcastle, he took off Mata instead.

Matic is surely going to come back in against Chelsea. McTominay and Fred must absolutely shattered after the PSG game.
 
Dan_F said:
I don’t think we’ll see Rashford or Bruno getting a rest until the game in Turkey. Especially with Martial out for two more Premier League games. Rashford worries me. Ole refused to even sub him when we were 3-1 up against Newcastle, he took off Mata instead.

Matic is surely going to come back in against Chelsea. McTominay and Fred must absolutely shattered after the PSG game.
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Fred and McT ran the most KM (12.8 and 12.6) out of all 22 players!
 
We need to improve our home form badly to get through this run, something clearly isn't working.
 
Shark said:
We need to improve our home form badly to get through this run, something clearly isn't working.
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I think it was simply crazy and unmanageable circumstances.

we were simply not match fit vs Palace (nothing we could do about that) and we wouldn’t have lost 6-1 to spurs with 11 men.

We may lose against Chelsea but it won’t be the shitshow we’ve seen so far.
 
Our win against PSG gives us some buffer to rest some players against Leipzig/Istanbul. 2-3 key players each games maybe. It means each games we will start 8-9 first choices.
 
sammsky1 said:
I think it was simply crazy and unmanageable circumstances.

we were simply not match fit vs Palace (nothing we could do about that) and we wouldn’t have lost 6-1 to spurs with 11 men.

We may lose against Chelsea but it won’t be the shitshow we’ve seen so far.
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And in that case we'll still be without a single point at home. We may lose but something isn't right if we're conceding silly two or three goals against a Chelsea side that just drew 0-0 to Sevilla. I expect us to at least see some of the compactness we seen vs PSG and Newcastle.
 
oh god there's another international break soon, i'd forgotten :(
 
I hope we stick 3-5-2 for the next 6 games
We look very solid playing this system and the system is perfect for our counter-attacking football
 
Luckily, we have a much bigger squad consisting of only playing players. Here comes vdB, surprisingly, Axel, we have Telles now, also Cavani is more than a potent replacement for Martial. We have depth, the transfer window was underrated.
 
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