The College Dropout

Lad will come good. Tough first season.

I agree. They are not good.

Agreed. But Chelsea are fixture proof good and bad. Beaten us, Man U, Spurs. Pretty sure they've got points from Liverpool and Man City too.

His salary is likely to be much bigger than it would otherwise. Making him harder to shift if necessary. That's how the free transfer thing works. If we give Kelly a £8m sign-on fee and a £4.2m per year contract over 4 years. That's a fair whack for a squad player and hinges the wage structure weirdly. We've avoided doing that so far. I think the free transfers have largely driven Villa having a bigger salary spend than us last year (I may have made that up). With Coutinho & Kamara surely taking up £15m in wages alone.

I don't want to jinx it. But we have been a bit fortunate that Bruno hasn't picked up any injuries this season. If he's not playing, we don't have any classy passing in midfield spaces.

This works great in FM. In reality they eat a big signing on fee and their wages prove prohibitively high unless it's a youngster signed on the cheap.

There's also an outside chance Chelsea could finish on 60-62 points. Tough fixtures, compact schedule and shit team though.

Agreed. We should aim to win at least 4 games + avoiding defeat to Man U. Whether that's beat Man U + 3 others and lose 2. Or win 4, draw Man U, that should be enough. Win only 3 but beating Man U would probably be enough as long as we picked up a few draws. Man U are so jammy, beating them but only picking up 10 points in total probably won't be enough.

Aye, I don't see us winning 9 in a row either. From our last 10 if we can go: W7, D2, L1 And that 1 defeat not being Man U. We surely finish 6th. That's 63 points.

What's a reasonable amount? To align with the updated PSR rules we need to continue to grow revenue crazily year-on-year. With FMV, an academy 5-10 years behind rivals, not having a new stadium - the only way we can do that is selling valuable assets.

Spurs are too far ahead. Our injury situation is still precarious. Game at OT will be huge. I think we finish within 3 points of Man U, so that game is vital. FA Cup games are massive. Need Man City to win the whole thing. European games are also important. But if City win the FA Cup it's in our hands.

Man U are a different kettle of fish. 3rd/4th highest wages and squad cost. But finishing 4th is always a good achievement for them. Financial mismanagement is a given for them.

It counts in FPL. Agreed. Although physically there's a lot of potential in Gordon. Looks a solid 6ft. Looks relatively wide and thick-boned. He looks like he could add a couple of KG in lean muscle without impacting negatively on him.

And in the short and medium term at least.

The problem is the culture at the club. But Poch isn't doing a good job. Chelsea actually use financial hacks and dopes. We don't. And setup an infrastructure to make them FFP-proof. That youth infrastructure is saving them atm.

FFP will slow them down. They are getting closer to the wall. The CL run will do them good but the summer outlay and wages were heavy. Our wage bill is considerably lower and we are close to maxxing what we can spend. "You spent the same amount as City". City's wage bill is more than double ours. Man U wage bill is close to double ours. the rules mean we must spend about £100m less than you in wages season on season. We can spend in line with Aston Villa and significantly less than the top 6.

No it’s not the same. When he joined Villa had the core of a really decent team. Emery has taken them close to where they should be and a couple places higher. Villa’s wage bill last season was higher than us at 7th. Gerrard was doing a woeful job. Emery is a proven manager and a really good one. But that Villa project was already underway when he joined.

You can tell Neville doesn’t watch much football outside the games he’s covering. Relies on cliche and rhetoric for a decade ago.

That first Wenger league winners was that most expensive squad at that time. But the second and especially the 3rd were not. The undefeated team might not have been most expensive 3 or 4 in the league iirc. That don’t happen again until Leicester.

Away from home? Fulham and Everton away in the league Sun - Weds. I like Arsenal and I hope they win the league.

Conference league might even be better for them than EL.

No just need City to win the FA Cup. we have 4 CL places in the league, 5th is Europa, FA Cup is Europa, League Cup is Conference. Liverpool won league cup so 6th is conf. If City win Fa cup Conf will be done to 7th with extra Europa in the league.

Happy to be proven wrong by this lad. Top top player.

He’s improved in this regard so much this season. Looks so much stronger and faster and quicker of thought this season. He was brilliant. Again.

Brilliant from Howe. Got everything decision right. Tactically outclassed Ange. I loved the approach. I loved the font three. It reminded me of the old us. We were aggressive. That extra cover and sitting deeper allowed us to be super aggressive. We should consider keeping this approach. Thank you Eddie.