The College Dropout

Yeh with an option to sign for £25m and he extended his Brentford by a year. Think the loan is FFP related but weird it’s only an option.

They all signed the goalkeeper that they were desperate for. And paid the premium for them. Raya had 1 year left on his contract. They could’ve waited and got him for free. But they thought he would be a significant upgrade and the difference so they got him.

This isn’t the first time Pope has dislocated his shoulder. Considering the FFP limitations we should probably give Pope a chance to prove himself.

No - I would work on Isak's conditioning in the summer. Perhaps adapt the tactics slightly. I'm happy with Isak - Wilson - Gordon as our 3 options. Especially with Barnes & Big Joe able to deputies at LW. Biggest problems in the first-team are (1) lack ability in midfield to control a game. Tonali goes a long way to solving that. (2) lack of guile going forward. A creative RW should contribute to that and number 1. (3) Lack athleticism in defence. A pacey CB/LB would solve that. Everything else is 1 in 1 out for me.

No - which is even worse news. He missed a grip of games last season and missed loads this season. Agree you can't. The bigger problem is the £60m £100k+ a week main man. And Howe isn't going to rotate Isak with a significantly lesser player to any meaningful extent. We should know that by now. We have a super talented £30m+ RB who isn't rotating with the exceptional 33-year-old RB.

We are paying Isak £100k+ to only play 50% of matches. And he costs £10m a year in amortisation for FFP. £15m p/a for a player to feature in 50% of matches. Is that not a bigger problem? If we fix his injury issues, we fix the back-up problem too. How much do we pay Targett, Krafth, Dummett, Ritchie? They don't play under any circumstances. You wouldn't. We had Chris Wood who is a serviceable PL striker who has scored goals everywhere he's played. Everyone hated him. Any legitimately good backup striker (who is not old) won't want to be a backup for long. Our problem is our backup striker has needed to play too many minutes this season. ---- IMO there are 2 types of "back-up" striker in the modern game typically at the highest level. Maybe 3. 1. The not-good-enough backup: Nketiah maybe Jhon at Villa. These lads are proper backup strikers who only play 9. Only problem is they aren't v. good and their managers often prefer to play other players at ST anyway. 2. Great player who is more natural elsewhere but can play ST: Trossard, Havertz, Alvarez. These players get most of their other minutes in other positions but can play uptop too. IMO we have that in Gordon and Barnes is a superb deputy LW. No problem with this but we already have it.

I think i've said a lot of this pretty much verbatim. To me... that's been the most logical position. In those 2 starts both his defensive awareness and physicality didn't look up to scratch.

That's the actual problem. Isak's fitness. If he can't stay fit or we can't adapt to keep him fit - we should sell him. We can't have a £60m striker who can only stay fit for 55% of matches. I'm not advocating we sell him. But people are blaming Wilson (a 32-year-old injury-prone backup that is only at Newcastle because he's injury prone) for Isak's fitness issues when it doesn't make sense. Wilson has got himself injured mostly from being run into the ground due to Isak's injuries and Howe's lack of rotation. He played 90 minutes 5 times in 15 days before getting injured at a point. It would've been reckless management to demand that from him 3 years ago as our star forward, it's reckless to expect that from him at 32. He's a back-up. He should start 3-7 league games through injuries. Some more due to rotation. And regularly get 20-30 minutes off the bench. Unless we need the money because of FFP, we won't find a better striker to do that next season. I'm happy to get a RW that can play ST the way Gordon does. But we are so weak at RW.

Wilson shouldn't need to play half a season and Gordon has arguably the strongest back-up in our squad. Wages and fee his back-up shouldn't even be a back-up.

It's moreso that CB is such an important position. You can't have 1 injury causing a significant decline in ability. Especially when competing on 4 fronts.

Its only Burn that starts when everyone is fit. That's signing up for another season with Burn at LB. No thanks. Someone to warm the bench for Isak isn't a priority for me. We still have Isak, Wilson & Gordon on the books. 33 goals between the 3 so far this season.

It wouldn't even be back-up. It would be someone ready-made to step in. If he's left-footed he can start at LB. I think most top teams have at least 3 top options. Dias Stones Ake Akanji Saliba Gabriel White Kiwior VVD Konate Matip Gomez Pau Carlos Konsa Mings Varane Martinez Maguire Evans Schar Botman Lascelles Burn Ours is the weakest by a distance.

Burn has played LB for pretty much 2 seasons. He's an inferior CB to Lascelles. I'm glad he's not considered a CB. Back-up LB or sold, please. This assumes we sign a CB in the summer. I'd rather a CB than an out and out ST. RW LB CB Anything else is a bonus or 1 in 1 out.

Bolded = selling players

What else is he going to say? They keep asking about him at press conferences.

£15m. And apparently £100k p/w for 4 years. Expensive deal all things considered.

No I think it aligns. Getting meaningful minutes would be great for Hall’s development. Getting minutes for Hall isn’t a priority for Howe so Hall sits on the bench all the time.

That’s what he’s saying. I’m not convinced. I think we will be signing him so he has to say positive things.

Howe doesn't think he's ready.

Signing someone for £25m+ for the medium term future doesn’t seem the smartest approach considering he is not getting much game time. I think he’s not as far developed as we had hoped. Being on loan means we can’t loan him out so he’s just had to train loads. We are still optimistic he’ll be a great signing.

Assuming no English club wins a European comp but we get 5th CL spot and a top 5 team wins FA Cup 5th CL 6 Europa 7th Europa (FA Cup winners) 8th Conference If say Chelsea win the FA Cup. We don’t get the 5th CL spot it will go 5th Europa 6th Conferencd league That would be shit.

It pushes European positions down. Eg 6th Europa and possibly 7th depending on Fa cup winner. we want that extra spot.

Chelsea have a history of selling good academy players though.

People don't realise how clueless the FA are.

Definitely has a lot of credit in the bank.