I understand the thinking that we need cover for Phillips, but we have Koch, Struijk and Llorente who can cover there. Even if he's 75% fit, he's going to play, so having a specialist DM as cover may not be that beneficial, as they're not likely to even get minutes off the bench. Where we're really lacking, is cover for Klich, apart from Shackleton, we don't have anyone.

Cuisance has been playing regularly for Marseille, but I'm not sure he's been playing well.

We're linked with a loan move to for a young Barcelona midfielder who looks superb.

His name Puig or something? Seen that quite widely reported. It would be a signing in line with Ortas strategy so wouldn’t be surprised. He’s very well thought of and only one year left on his deal I believe, not sure of his best position though

He's an 8 or a 10, similar to Iniesta. An excellent dribbler. He'd give us something we haven't had in midfield since Saiz left.
He's got an €88m release clause, so he's obviously highly rated by Barca.

Nice! That’ll be interesting with one year left on his deal

Well I’d take a point tonight no doubt. I worry about Chelsea and their pace with Ziyech and Werner. They could really trouble us if we get stretched. Should be a good game

Chelsea good value for that. They just had too much quality

Too good for us tonight Chelsea. I feared the worse with Werner against Alioski or Dallas and it proved right. James top class for them too. Thought Bielsa got it wrong tonight not taking Alioski off at half time. Anyways they’ve spent £250m in the summer so they should be good.

Need to sort left back out longer term. I’ve said it for weeks it’s our weakness especially against the better teams

That`s why I thought it was a bad decision to let Douglas go.
Neither Alioski or Dallas are LB`s.
Hate to say it but Chelsea look the like the best team we`ve played this season which is no surprise the amount of money they have spent.
They got their tactics right and we had no answer.
Might have been different had Koch stayed on and Poveda rolled about like Martial does for MU.
Whilst Bamford keeps scoring I would still like to see Rodrigo up front and Bamford at 10.
Strange I know but it seems Rodrigo is nullified in that role.

Rodrigo should have come on at half time for Alioski and Dallas moved to LB. agree re Douglas. Priority in Jan or Summer for me is bringing in a quality LB. thought Llorente did well considering it was his debut and coming from bench. Not easy at all especially against their quality. Hope Koch not out long..

Some good fixtures coming up now need 4 points from next two. West Ham won’t be easy they’re in decent form.

Midfield is the priority, we only have 4 midfielders in the whole squad, and 2 are injured, with one of them won't be back anytime soon. To be fair, it was Raphinha who didn't track his man (James) in the build up to the first goal. I thought all our wingers were poor on the night, especially defensively.

We would make life a lot easier for ourselves if we learned how to defend set pieces. I think half our goals conceded have been from penalties and set pieces.