Pata

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Should tell Brighton they are getting mugged and maybe apply for a job on their scouting network, they know nothing.

Yeah, robust is certainly one of the words I would use to describe him. He was 26 when this season started, think it's a bit early to be concerned about how his body can handle aging right now or even during his new contract that he hopefully signs soon.

"Doesn't seem to have physical robustness to be able to stay on the pitch for a meaningful stretch of games" is just pure weird when he had been fit for basically the full four seasons before this. He'll be 38 at some point too but right now he's 27 which isn't old no matter how you look at it. Happy to disagree with such knee-jerky statements.

I don't think so. Everyone knows he has a year left in his contract next summer and we are never letting him walk for free in the summer after that. I see it as a message to Joelinton and his agent that he will be sold if things don't advance in the coming months and I'm certain he doesn't want that either. Pardew was doing this with anyone who was good, no matter how long they had left in their contracts.

Was suspended for three matches last season too iirc. Incredible.

Seriously? He has played 32, 35, 31 and 38 games for us in the league in the past four seasons. Are we really declaring every player that gets injured this season a sicknote without looking at the previous seasons?

Would be fantastic to be in it too. Many new opponents/countries and we could rotate a ton giving the fringe players and youngsters some minutes. Racking up some UEFA coefficient points too.

Yeah, moving Almiron for whatever it ends up being will tremendously help us with FFP considering his age and the need for replacement in any case. Trippier has been so good for us (excluding the last few weeks) that I'm not sure if the help with FFP is worth it, especially if we are able to move Almiron. Getting similar level of performances for even 18 more months would make it hard to justify selling him and we would probably need to sign another fullback next summer. Saying pretty much the same as you but think he's easily worth more to us in the squad than in the balance sheet.

Think I've read about it too, some teams/agents really value that number.

In a non-FFP world I would rather keep him as a squad player but this makes a ton of sense in reality. He's nearing the age where his value plummets and getting even £20m for him would be great. We need to sell players to be able to build the squad and his age is a massive factor in that. We'll miss his running and reliable fitness but he's one of the first starters we simply need to upgrade. Hope Murphy has a great spell from here to the end of the season so we can move him for £15-20m in the summer too.

His finishing has been poor but he gets the chances. xG of ~25 without penalties in ~2800 minutes in the PL. I already said it but he’ll be devastating if he gets more confident with his finishing and iirc his finishing at Benfica was really good.

Only saw bits of the second half but that was ridiculous. The ref was even looking at Bellingham being 'fouled' couple of metres away and rightly didn't react but VAR screws him over.

His xG+xA per 90 numbers are ridiculous both last season and this. Above Haaland this season, shame he only seems to be able to finish against us. Think he'll be an absolute beast if he gets more confident and his finishing clicks, obviously hope he keeps struggling as long as he's at Liverpool.

Referees making sure Real win. First a soft pen for Real and now they're about to take away Almeria's third for a soft foul. Horrible acting by Bellingham and the ref was right there initially but VAR.

That's a horrible tackle.

Just running in a straight line with that ugly style, 2/10 wnb.

Just a single dribble or goal outside the box would’ve been nice. Found him incredibly boring to watch for a supposed elite striker which is rare. If he didn’t have his intangibles he never would have made it as a professional football striker, let alone one that played for peak Man Utd and Real Madrid.

Ruud van Nistelrooy had an amazing career for someone whose only qualities were being in the right place at the right time and I guess finishing inside the box. I absolutely loathed him when he was at Man Utd.

150-200k a week would be nothing special at our rivals for the CL spots, especially for a core player like him. We can't be paying our players pennies forever, they'll know what similar players get at other similar clubs.

Lino did everything right and it was 100% close enough to not raise the flag up instantly.

It’s very close but don’t think he crossed the line with the shirt pulling or the arm lock and don’t think VAR overturns anything the onfield ref decided if it was in use. Ballard seems like a player, love his physicality and pace.

They should have changed it when VAR arrived. Would’ve been impossible for the linesmen without VAR but would make it a lot clearer now with VAR. You only have to look at the grainy images they used at Anfield and IMO it’s impossible to tell where the hand starts from the shoulder. Much easier if they were only looking at the feet of both defenders and attackers. Good posts from Cf, I’ve been saying the same for ages. ’Clear and obvious’ just unnecessarily muddles the water and the ref on the pitch should be allowed to make the decision after few replays from the screen.

Kamara ended up as a bargain but must be getting close to 10x his Marseille wage at Villa. He earns significantly more than Brazilian international Bruno did with his initial contract after the big money move from the same league. There are bargains to be had in the free transfers but they are not free of risk. If Kamara had flopped there’s no way Villa could move him anywhere with the reported £150k per week wages. We’ve seen how hard it is to even give away players that earn way more than they should.

Tielemans labeled as a free transfer just isn’t right. Apparently he over quadrupled his wages, doubt that happens if it wasn’t ’free’ especially after the season he had at relegated Leicester.