The College Dropout

Yeh I think generally they’ve just struggled to create great chances this season. With Partey and Zinchenko in midfield they were excellent at passing through the lines into space and they played more of a transition game. With Rice they have more control but don’t create as much. He’s not as good at those line breaking passes. if they had Isak though - they would obviously be better and closer to the title.

Arsenal have spent 750m in the last 5 years surely. in attacking areas they have bought: Trossard Havertz Pepe Gabby Jesus Tbis is almost £200m worth of attacker. Edit: Odegaard brings it to £200 and makes it look a bit better. But not good enough for the money spent.

I doubt that highly. Other clubs were in for him when we signed him and we offered him the most.

Howe could customise the system more when the personnel changes. The system requires strong and hard running power. If we don’t have that, we need to tinker the system to protect us. Howe has proven himself a ‘let’s do Plan A better’ type of guy so I expect that to continue. So we need Willock and Joelinton back asap.

He’s a real finisher. I thought he looked leggy in the second half. But he’s getting there. He’s a top finisher. That second goal, expertly taken

Ok… so you agree with me. If you don’t. That’s also fine. Just opinions.

That’s because Sunderland are shit. IMO anyway. I don’t think we are fully over our fatigue issues. It might carry into City a bit. But by Villa it should be much better.

Only disappointment was we looked leggy in the second half.

These were shit.

This is a lot of Champo teams apparently. With the disparity in £££ it makes it hard for them to rise to the occasion.

Is Joelinton injured or we just don’t want to take the risk? this is why we can’t sell Almiron btw. He’s the level for pressing. He shouldn’t be our starting RW but we shouldn’t sell imo

Not enough tekkers in our front 6. The RCM and RW are especially limited.

I hope we can keep our concentration and composure. We will win this comfortably if we do.

We are a good Prem side though.

I’ll be delighted with a win and no injuries. But we could win this by 2 or 3 and make it an enjoyable and easy afternoon.

These are shit.

Well done Danny boy.

I agree with this. He should’ve cut across him but that’s a St. James penalty or red.

That’s a penalty anyday.

The Burnley PL move came too early. Burnley would look to make all their money back and we don’t need him.

It's a moving target and our financial figures are only published once a year - some time removed from the actual date. So nobody outside the club will know for a fact and some of it will be fluid (competition money, bonuses etc.)

And they did it in a panic. I remember the story coming out that they advertised the positions they need to fill somewhere online. They signed fairly well-known players in the end that had been hawked around or speculated for some time.. but it's worked out.

I also think Abramovic was great for the PL brand. That "big 4" was great for the PL. Wenger, Ferguson, Mourinho, Benitez. For the previous decade, it was Man U + 1 and English clubs were largely off it in the European Cup / Champions League.

We can go back & forth on this Newcastle forum about this. But in the real world, people will attribute our success to the Saudi state ownership's financial might. It's going to be deserved. So we need to be honest about ourselves and with each other.

I tried to make this point in another thread (or was it this one?). Apart from the Kuol type signings - most of our recent transfers are expensive for what they are. I think long-term, they are less risky. Big fee, youngish player + relatively cheap wages, is expensive for FFP in the short-term but long-term we should have good resale value, easier to shift if they flop and the expense of the fees decreases with contract extensions. But short-term with our thin squad... it's expensive stuff.