The College Dropout

Rooted to his line at crosses. Had links with Leeds and a few others. Selz is 30+..... he's seemingly improved crazy this year, he was a weak link last year. We had him in his mid 20's.... he wasn't very good. I dunno. I like Pope. Our lack of transfer wokeness has been an advantage for us. I don't want one of these regen keepers that can't handle pressure or a cross.

A large part of 22/23 success was the Joe's bombing up and down for 90 minutes.

He was our weakest link at LB. He's not looked a weak link at CB at all this season. Everyone down that right side of the pitch has looked a weak link at points this season. Including Schar.

I'd happoly see the seahorses gone. We don't need any Magpies either tbh - ateast not 2. I'd go with a bigger black and white badge and castle with a Magpie on the middle. Honestly I wouldn't mind a Juventus style rebrand.

Would people be upset with some Saudi green?

Nope. Just don't want a 24 y/o GK from a midtable Ligue 1 team. It's a Spurs signing. Could obviously be incredibly wrong.

Pass

The GD advantage is why Chelsea are favourites

Awoniyi clearly didn’t feel fine. Poor lad couldn’t move and looked in distress the entire time.

It’s the wages for Allison and the injury record. Age is not a massive issue for goalkeepers. Performance wise at least. Inter replaced Onana with a 33 year old. VDS was one of the best pickups by Ferguson.

He doesn’t work that hard and he’s not a RW.

Anyways Awoniyi has been put into a medical coma. Rumours he’s had a ruptured spleen or intestine.

Pl has had 2 winners over the last what, 7 years? 5 to City the other 2 to Liverpool. The times Liverpool have won it, there wasn’t even a title race. Every close title race ends with Cty winning, if there is a close title race. Only Serie A has different winners. Atleast La Liga bounces between 2 clubs regularly. Madrid never defend a La Liga. Been a while since Barca defended it. And Atletico have won it twice. Financial rules have killed European leagues.

Why would we want to do what Chelsea do? Our model works. Theirs does not.

A part of me would like to see it happen. Rodrygo’s good but I’m not sure how good. Typically he’s amazing for 6-weeks, then will score important goals but otherwise not be a consistent menace. I actually think he works better with Mbappe at LW than Vini and wouldn’t fetch of the money Vini would if he was sold. But Vini’s proven he can carry a side week in week out. Rodrygo hasn’t.

It’s easy to look good for middling PL clubs. their middling shot stopping doesn’t become an issue. We saw with Kepa when he played for big clubs - he would throw them in. Sanchez was highly rated at Brighton - he’s a poor shot stopper and not that great with his feet. Vicario - you can just put that ball on his head - he’s going to struggle. Flekken, Verbruggen - all meaningfully inferior shot stoppers and inferior at claiming crosses. Nick Pope at his best is elite in those categories. Pope is a big reason we don’t concede many goals from set pieces. I’ve not seen much of Trafford so won’t comment too much. But I don’t like that he’s a kid. Goalkeepers need to be commanders with stature and that’s more likely to come with age and experience. Maybe he’s a Courtois, Donnarumma, Cech type that is commanding at a young age. The fact we have a team of men is an advantage in the pitch. Unless we sign ice cold players like Botman I’d rather not got sub 25 at GK and CB

Fair chance several teams finish on 69 points.

If Pope plays 40 games next season and Dubs plays 10 we are fine. Not perfect but we are fine. Longstaff/Willock/Miley will play 40 games next season. It's not fine. We are significantly weaker whenever one of them is on the pitch. Every other good team in this division has a quality CM that is on the bench when everyone is fit.

I lost my nerve with Isak and took him out for a hit to bring in Nicholas Jackson It was the West Ham game he missed through injury and we looked so shit. Didn't trust Howe to be honest about his injury and couldn't bear the pain of us being shit and having Isak in the team. Jackson scored 0 goals, Isak scored something like 10 in 5. Brace against Liverpool, hat trick when the fixtures got easy. That was my point of failure. Moved on from Wood and Mbuemo when I was better off sticking. Failed punt on Foden. Never got on the right side of hat-tricks or multiple hauls unless it's Salah when everyone else did too. Too trigger happy in the wrong moments, too slow in others. Started to get on the right side of variance now with good captain picks KDB the week before, Wood this week. But not getting the hauls vs blanks to make serious ground, just single returns and bonus. I expected to make ground up GW20-30 but it never came. Was ranked 1m until GW30 or so. People can spend 5 mins on FPL a week and do that. Patience and keeping it simple for me next season.

What does that mean? why would we want Vlahovic?

One good thing we are doing is trying to keep our options open and take advantage of free transfers, release clauses and FFP swipes from other clubs. That might mean getting players we don’t 100% need so be it. I don’t love Angel Gomes for our system. But if getting him for free means we can spend big money on another CM, sell Longstaff and Willock - great. Let’s do it. I don’t see where Cunha fits but if we can get him for £50m let’s do it.

Don't think you can plan in detail for 2026 - right now. If we have back-to-back Champions League seasons compared to 0, it's a massive difference. Likw £250m difference when you factor in gate receipts, average ticket price, genuine sponsors, FMV sponsors. Some of our better players might want to leave, some may fall off a physical cliff, and others might enjoy an Indian summer. The manager's status might change. Some of the kids may emerge etc.

I'm not overly concerned about the definition of world class. Tonali is top dogs, Bruno is top dogs, for our system Joelinton is top dogs. We need a physical beast that can play in that 3 without any drop off. That's probably a £40-60m player. If you can get that quality for less, great. After a RW, CB that's the next priority position for me.

We signed 2 in 18 months.

In the Ashley days it was first-team and then backups. In this era it's stars and first-team then backups. With like 4 backups for each area of the pitch. Not 8 or 9 backup players, that squad can't compete on multiple fronts. You need about 18 first-teamers. The top squads in the PL have about that.