The College Dropout

Rumours (as in someone on twitter) were that Ashworth was being a tough negotiator with Joelinton's agent and that his departure was likely to speed up the contract situation. I'm not against Ashworth on that. We have to be careful. We can't pay CL wages until we are consistently a CL team.

Not really. We should have 1 primary striker, an understudy and a versatile player. Arsenal have 1 striker, an understudy and a couple versatile options at 9. Spurs have a main striker who often plays on the wing. And a backup striker. City have a main striker. A versatile backup striker. Villa have a main striker and a backup striker. Only Liverpool have a number of striker options. And their manager actually rotates and makes proactive subs. Isak needs to be available for 80% of matches. He needs an understudy be that Wilson or someone else and then Gordon as 3rd choice. If he can’t be fit 80% of the time, let’s cash in and get someone that can. I love him but he needs to be more robust. We can’t carry a £60m player who misses 50% of games. We’ll get our money back, probably a profit which will fund an excellent replacement. Id rather invest in RW, CB, LB and another CM/RW before spending £30m+ on a Wilson replacement

If Isak can’t stay fit we need to sell him.

Both. Wilson second, Gordon third. Nah I’m happy with those 3. Need Isak to be more robust and not play risky games with Wilson.

We don’t need a striker imo. We just need a fit Isak.

big incentive to finish top 2. Your route to the final doesn’t include other top 2 teams. Means we won’t get runs like Real with Benzema (beat PSG, Chelsea as champs, City and Liverpool) to win the CL.

Yeh I would sell Longstaff if there's £15m on the table. If we have a Confrence League campaign, I'm happy with Longstaff as 5th choice and sliding down. And I don't know who would spend £15m on him.

CM is 1 in 1 out for me. The season is dramatically different with Tonali.

Think we just need 2 or 3 players at the right level. RW, LB, CB.

We really need to bring Forster or Krul home.

They've averaged over 50% win rate. 6 wins out of 11 gets them to 62 points. We'll need to win 8 out of 11 to beat that. We've not shown that form all season. To catch them - they'll have to be worse than they've been all season and we'll have to be better. And we've never finished above them. And we play them away.

5th is gone. We needed to beat Luton & Bournemouth at home to stay in the running. Mid to high 60's would put us in the running for 5th. Low 60's is 6th/7th this season. Most of our rivals for 7th have European football to contend with in March and probably beyond. We should finish above them. It would take a bit of a collapse to even catch Man U unless we go on a super run.

Would have Kane Foden Bellingham Saka As the front 4. Not sure who to play alongside Rice. Maybe TAA. I'd like to see us play 4-3-3 but we don't have the second 8. I think Rice - Foden - Bellingham might be too defensively open in a 433. Might work better in a 4-2-3-1 but I don't want Bellingham playing in a deeper 2.

The slow thing is funny. People noticed it early doors... and then other people ridiculed the observation. I think people have finally landed that he is a bit slow. But what a fantastic player. He has a great overall engine, is aggressive, makes fantastic runs, he's definitely mobile but the actual speed of his running is fairly slow. Even at his best, Longstaff is similar (in terms of engine and making runs). Get some athleticism around Bruno and understanding and the midfield quality shoots up. This lad is brilliant.

Think he's 2nd/3rd choice RW. It's tougher on Maddison. Years undeservedly behind Mount at 10. Then Bellingham explodes as a 10 and Foden shows incredible form at 10.

Agreed. We are close. We’ve had the toughest European campaign, dodgy transfer window, bad luck with injuries and dealt with it all badly. So we’re battling the block beneath us - we have enough to finish above that block though. I don’t think we’ll be able to catch Man U unfortunately. But if we somehow beat them at OT it’s definitely on. 7th would be good all things considered. 6th would be excellent and positions us greatly for next season if that’s enough for Europa League.

Yeh he was bad against Blackburn but all is forgiven.

Nah Kelleher has stepped in well whenever Allison is injured.

Yes definitely. The squad costs are close based on these numbers. There’s a £50m gap in wages which is likely to be smaller but we will be ahead. I think Villa’s accounts will show that Villa are right up with us in terms of general spend. And further highlight how awful Gerrard performed as manager.

Too old and expensive for us imo.

Sorry. It’s the 7th most expensive squad. and 7th highest wages. I’ve always maintained I expect us Howe to get us to 7th/8th and qualify for Europe if we can get players back and the majority of the team stays fit. Im glad we have a performance to build our confidence on. Massive clean sheet that.

They’ll both end up qualifying.

We need another first team level CB. Lascelles has done admirably and really steadied the ship at times. But we need one to compete with the 2 ahead. All the other top 7 teams at least 3 that are excellent. I don’t think we need to find his replacement. Just another on his level. Could be right or left footed I don’t think it matters when Lascelles is 3rd choice CB regardless of left or right and Burn isn’t good enough for that role.

I had major doubts over his physicality. But from the summer he looked fitter strong and sharper. From the little I’ve seen. He’s kept that.

He’s just so consistent. He’s scored 3 in 3 I think but he’s not really had a proper purple patch. Just consistently scoring and assisting throughout the season. Thank god for his fitness levels too.