Just couldn't keep it off target, did his best though.

Serie A is the league for him, he was amazing for Roma when he played there too.

To be honest when I look back at our past season highlights Gervinho somehow is involved in a lot of our good attacking moments. He is just inconsistent.

Bonaventura with a lovely goal - just stormed through the penalty area to meet the low cross from Suso. 2-1

Suso sending in another brilliant ball, this time for Higuain. And yet another.

Any chance we can sign him? One of the most obvious striking talents ever

We have Aubameyang and Lacazette.

Just finished the Napoli - Udinese game. Really impressed with what Carlo is doing with that team. Relentless and stylish. Just keept tearing apart the Udinese defense with their movement. Catch the Ruiz goal early on in the game. Just bursts past his man on the outside at the top corner of the box and unleashes a beautiful curler

I might adopt Napoli until the end of the season while I understand what’s happening with this Ronaldo situation

Claudius wrote:

Just finished the Napoli - Udinese game. Really impressed with what Carlo is doing with that team. Relentless and stylish. Just keept tearing apart the Udinese defense with their movement. Catch the Ruiz goal early on in the game. Just bursts past his man on the outside at the top corner of the box and unleashes a beautiful curler

I might adopt Napoli until the end of the season while I understand what’s happening with this Ronaldo situation

How do they compare to under Sarri when they were the neutral's favourites?

Did you see the embarrassing miss from 6 yards that was saved by the keeper, but then the defender tried to chest it back to the keeper, only for the keeper to be stuck on the ground helpless while the ball rolled over the line? I'm too lazy / busy right now to find it, but it was funny.

Surprise of the day: Higuain misses a penalty in a derby. A good friend of me is commentating and is a huge Milan supporter, can't be easy to hide the rage in cases like that.

Commentaing on a Milan-Juve game? Not too shabby!

Great save from Szczesny to be fair. I did fancy him to miss though.

Not seen that much of him when he was at Inter, but Joao Cancelo is absolutely brilliant on the ball.

I read that Cancelo had a pretty weak season last year, but I think he's been very good the times I've watched Juventus this season.

Ronaldoooooo

Cancelo is world class on the ball for a fullback. So threatening. Makes the goal with a good shot. Ronaldo doing what he does.

Higuain is appalling in big games.

Bentancur is a talent that's for sure. Not the flashiest player as you allude to Klaus but excellent at carrying the ball forward.

El Shaarawy scored this yesterday, eerily reminiscent of Mertens last season vs Lazio

Possibly not even the best goal in that game though

Happy to see El Shaarawy get back there....seemed like he refound it last year after floundering for a year or two. Can't imagine how challenging it is as a professional player to break through, stall out, and then get back to the next level (albeit he's still well short of the top tier).

Klaus wrote:

Sicario wrote:

Higuain is appalling in big games.

He's got a great big game record. It was just one of those nights when nothing worked out for him.

"Those nights" is quite a collection to be fair.

True. Thierry would have the same accusation thrown his way by outsiders.

Klaus wrote:

I think it just appears that way because he's missed a couple high-profile penalties. On the other hand casual viewers fail to notice that he scored a brace for Juve in the same Milan fixture last season, or that he scored the winner away against Napoli, or singlehandedly dismantled Inter last season in the game that won Juventus the title. He turned the last-16 tie against Tottenham around for Juve with a goal and an assist within three minutes when it looked like they were crashing out of the competition. He has an insanely good record against every top side in Serie A.

Higuain's reputation is an effect of people tuning into a select few games more than anything. He has bottled some important penalties and it's funny when he steps up yet again and misses, but every striker out there will screw up from time to time. The big difference is that they don't call Henry a bottler for botching the Champions League final, or Messi for looking just as bad as Higuain for Argentina, because they've seen these guys regularly.

You could tell that Higuain was desperate to prove himself against Juventus, that he wanted to show them how wrong they were to send him away just so they could cope financially with Ronaldo's astronomical wages. People talk about the missed penalty, but not that he won it in the first place. They blame him for costing Milan points, but they say nothing about Donnarumma who released a rebound straight into the path of Ronaldo to lose Milan the game. It's all a bit meh now, but I think there are certain narratives in football that write themselves for the lazy, and after a certain point it doesn't really matter whether they're true or not because people keep repeating them.

Very good post except for the bold part where you're close to doing the same as others do with Higuain. Messi has carried Argentina so many times and was let down badly by his team mates almost every time, Higuain was one of the worst offenders but Agüero has been just as bad in that respect.

Yeah, there was an 19 month period where no other player, aside from Messi, scored a goal for Argentina.

Klaus wrote:

I think it just appears that way because he's missed a couple high-profile penalties. On the other hand casual viewers fail to notice that he scored a brace for Juve in the same Milan fixture last season, or that he scored the winner away against Napoli, or singlehandedly dismantled Inter last season in the game that won Juventus the title. He turned the last-16 tie against Tottenham around for Juve with a goal and an assist within three minutes when it looked like they were crashing out of the competition. He has an insanely good record against every top side in Serie A.

Higuain's reputation is an effect of people tuning into a select few games more than anything. He has bottled some important penalties and it's funny when he steps up yet again and misses, but every striker out there will screw up from time to time. The big difference is that they don't call Henry a bottler for botching the Champions League final, or Messi for looking just as bad as Higuain for Argentina, because they've seen these guys regularly.

You could tell that Higuain was desperate to prove himself against Juventus, that he wanted to show them how wrong they were to send him away just so they could cope financially with Ronaldo's astronomical wages. People talk about the missed penalty, but not that he won it in the first place. They blame him for costing Milan points, but they say nothing about Donnarumma who released a rebound straight into the path of Ronaldo to lose Milan the game. It's all a bit meh now, but I think there are certain narratives in football that write themselves for the lazy, and after a certain point it doesn't really matter whether they're true or not because people keep repeating them.

The narrative is obviously overstated, but without being close to having the motivation to check myself, I honestly and quite strongly believe that Higuain misses more against the so-called "big clubs" than against others. He's such a good player that he'll story many goals regardless though.

Klaus wrote:

I think it just appears that way because he's missed a couple high-profile penalties. On the other hand casual viewers fail to notice that he scored a brace for Juve in the same Milan fixture last season, or that he scored the winner away against Napoli, or singlehandedly dismantled Inter last season in the game that won Juventus the title. He turned the last-16 tie against Tottenham around for Juve with a goal and an assist within three minutes when it looked like they were crashing out of the competition. He has an insanely good record against every top side in Serie A.

Higuain's reputation is an effect of people tuning into a select few games more than anything. He has bottled some important penalties and it's funny when he steps up yet again and misses, but every striker out there will screw up from time to time. The big difference is that they don't call Henry a bottler for botching the Champions League final, or Messi for looking just as bad as Higuain for Argentina, because they've seen these guys regularly.

You could tell that Higuain was desperate to prove himself against Juventus, that he wanted to show them how wrong they were to send him away just so they could cope financially with Ronaldo's astronomical wages. People talk about the missed penalty, but not that he won it in the first place. They blame him for costing Milan points, but they say nothing about Donnarumma who released a rebound straight into the path of Ronaldo to lose Milan the game. It's all a bit meh now, but I think there are certain narratives in football that write themselves for the lazy, and after a certain point it doesn't really matter whether they're true or not because people keep repeating them.

Great post Klaus.

Henry used to be called a big game bottler quite often back in the day and accused of not being able to perform on the day. They always seem to mention that he never scored in big games and used to use his record in finals to back that up.

Thing is, although he may never have scored in a final, he was France's top scorer at the Euro 2000 and the WC98 (the latter of which he was only 21), or that he would have scored to win us the 2001 FA Cup final if not for handballs not being given, or that he single handedly took us to the CL final amongst other FA Cup finals.

That's without saying how many goals he's scored for us to win us the title or the numerous goals he's scored against United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Inter, Real, Valencia, Deportivo, Juve, Roma, Bayern, Dortmund, Leverkusen and probably others I have missed.

But that did not stop the haters who even tried to claim van Nistelrooy was the better player and big game player.

Lazio - Milan just kicked off for curious folks. Let's see if Cutrone and Suso can make-up for that suspended Higuain

We should have thrown some money at them for him. After seeing him and Toreira at the WC I wanted us to get them both playing for us. Too late now I think, wish we could do a Ramsey + cash deal for him.

Uruguay really have some crop of midfielders at the moment haven't they? Torreira, Bentancur, Vecino, Valverde.

Inter-Juve in for those staying on Friday night. Don't worry if you're out inhaling hippie crack