Detroit Blues

It is hard to believe that since Danny Drinkwater left the club, he has started fewer matches than Matty James.

I do not think all fouls in the box (handball for example), should be awarded penalty kicks. The punishment far exceeds the crime, and it allows for arbitrary decisions by the referees to decide the outcome of the game.

I think you've built quite the straw man argument.

Couple things: Modern football styles heavily emphasize the use of overlapping runs to create numerical overloads. Defenders either have to follow chilwell, which opens úp space for another attacker (Barnes, Maddison, vardy) or leave him free to get to the byline. Remember how we struggled in possession with Fuchs and Simpson against teams that sat back? Remember mahrez getting double and triple teamed? That is what happens when you don't have fullbacks getting forward. You probably enjoy all the space our attacking players get in the final third, but never attribute it to players like chilwell. Crossing the ball is not what our team is built to do. If it was, Marc Albrighton would be in the starting XI. Vardy is not a target man, and when we swing crosses in, they are rarely effective. Chilwell is a prototypical fullback. He's young, hard working and extremely talented. There's a reason the big clubs want him. He can be taught to be a better defender. He can be taught to be more clinical with his end product. His value is only going to increase. Selling him for 50m now would be like using a Bitcoin to buy a pizza. At Liverpool/man city he'll be worth double. If all you're looking for in a fullback is to be a good defender and cross in the ball, I'm sorry mate but the game has evolved.

Yeah, Robert Huth was pretty good three years ago, do you think he'd still get in the squad today If you want to know if a player is Champions League quality, consider the offers they get from other clubs. Chilwell is being recruited by Manchester City and Liverpool. Christian Fuchs was going to leave and goto the MLS. Bit of a gap in quality, those two. I don't mean to denigrate Christian Fuchs. He is a club legend, and one of the better backups we got. But you think he can play the next 30 premier league games? You think he can provide overlapping runs to provide width in attack for 90 minutes? You think we'd end up accumulating as many points without Chilwell, as we do with him?

What other club with top 4 ambition would sell their first choice left back for a paltry fee (by modem standards) in January? Fuchs is a great backup, but he's not champions league quality. Any replacement of chilwell's quality would cost at least 30m, and they would need a few months to gel with the team and/or acclimate to the premier league. The money to be made based on finishing top 4, and qualifying for the champions league alone would surpass chilwell's transfer fee. If we sell, what message does that send the to players, Brendan Rodgers, and the premier league? To me it signals we are a selling club to the "big clubs," and we don't have ambitions to be in the top 4/6.

Why would we sell him, in the middle of the season, when we are attempting to finish in the top 4?

I know a lot of people dislike Tottenham, so this opinion might not be popular, but I get the feeling that Tottenham is the blueprint for what Brendan Rodgers hopes to build. Not long ago, Tottenham wouldn't have been viewed in the same light as Manchester United, Arsenal, etc. Over time, they brought together a squad of talented, young players that grew together, broke into the top four of the league table, and progressed in the Champions League. The reason they are mocked, and rightly so, is because they should have more trophies to show for it. Brendan Rodgers has expressed his admiration of Pochettino's success at Tottenham, and he has witnessed the negative aspects of managing a "big club" in his time at Liverpool. He left Celtic midseason because he saw what was possible at Leicester. We already have a squad of some of the most talented young players in the premier league, but we lacked a top class manager that could harness their potential. He could in theory, trade short term success at Leicester for a small step up to Tottenham (or a similar club), should a vacancy open. However, you'd have to ask why would he take over a club on the down swing (Tottenham, Manchester United, Arsenal, etc.) when he is on a team on the rise? If you take a job of a team on the downswing, it takes a lot for a manager to not get dragged down with it. The longer Brendan Rodgers stays at Leicester, the higher his stock will be. If he can build Leicester into a top 4/6 club in the premier league, he will start getting offers from the top clubs in Europe.

Too often we let these kind of teams hang around long enough to build confidence in themselves.

If there's one thing i've noticed in the four years i've been on FT, is that British people love Orlando

IMO, if Chilwell is healthy, he starts 100%. I know Fuchs has played really well. He's solid defensively, and even better than Chilwell in our own third. But what we are missing is Chilwell's ability to make overlapping runs down the left flank, and provide width in attack. Think of how much better Barnes will look when he can combine with Chilwell. Fuchs can whip in a cross, but he can't get up and downfield for the full 90 minutes. There's a reason Chilwell has a pricetag of well over 60M on him.

If there are cameras in the stadium, we have a chance at a stream.

It's 2019. If there are no cameras there, did the match ever really happen?

Yeah, the cups are a crapshoot until the later rounds. It's not until we end up drawing Man City in the quarterfinals, until ESPN will televise it.

4-4-2 diamond?