The College Dropout

Yes that's exactly what I think. I think if you spend £30m on an 18-year old you expect them to be worth £60m when they are 25. £30m gets you a Jack Harrison, Zaha in January. If we choose to spend that on a teenager, we would think that kid has a higher ceiling. That has been Real Madrid's transfer strategy post-Neymar. Sign the best Brazilian wonderkids for a lot of money, in the hope they either become superstars at Real Madrid or at least good enough to be sold for a healthy profit.

Btw Raphinha has started poorly at Barca. If he continues to dissappoint and Barca crash out of Europe, i'd be in for him next summer and give Barca 80% of their fee back.

Richarlison scored 43 goals in 135 pl matches to get that move. Even his Everton move could've been as high as 50m. Raphinha 17 in 65 (and a lot of assists). You don't have to be a world-beater to get that type of fee for a Brazilian international.

There's always teams throwing around big money. A £30m transfer like this, with low wages can always be flipped for £50-£60m if it goes well. You have 7-8 PL clubs that can do that. Plus 3 from Spain, a few from Italy, PSG etc. It's the transfers that the likes of Chelsea and Liverpool do that they can't sell on. The wages are too big and the inital fees £40m+.

Love this. I would love a proper prospect to have on the bench and get the minutes Murphy & Fraser have been getting.

For a long time he flattered to deceive. The type to look dangerous but have little end product. But that part of his game is improving.

Never been a fan of Trossard

Good point.

Thought he looked the weak point in the last 15 minutes too. In general that system works well and Dan is performing really well.

Aye. I thought he was weak in the air and slow. But he's been solid across the board. I still think he tries too many balls that don't come off but one of those led to a goal yesterday.

Aye. Arsenal have spent £350m in the last 3 years - it's rarely brought up. That's on top of a team that won the FA Cup and regularly finished top 6-8.

Great off the ball. Another assist from an effective press today. Bought he was solid on the ball too. Better than Everton.

I was surprised he wasn’t brought in for the last 10 minutes. Burn was gassed out. I was expecting us to go to a back 3

Yeh he’s brilliant.

I’m delighted for him and us.

They’ve been awful all season long

He's not the "dominant" type of defender - he's lowkey but great at what he does. DCL has a tremendous leap. He was always going to win 1.

29, 29,30 with contracts that take them all to 33/44. It's not a good strategy to have those players as the first building blocks for a team with aspirations of breaking the top 6. 1 or 2 of them. Fine. But not all 3. That's not a good strategy. You buy players that age for big fees or wages to come in and hit the ground running to hit targets. You do that - you need to finish top 8 this season.

TBF it does well online these days on Youtube DoF / a strategy to break into the top 8 or whatever. A way of operating. They let Stevie G come in and sign whoever he wanted within reason. Unless it's Pep or Klopp, you can't give a manager free reign like that. The best run clubs these days have a way of operating and they stick to it through various managers. But it comes from the very top. I like to think we have that.

Villa need to get the proper infrastructure in place to avoid ending up like Everton. IMO they should have never sanctioned the Coutinho, Digne and that Sevilla defender deals.

Aye - think i've discussed this elsewhere on here. Lampard has understood and worked well in terms of squad dynamics and Gerrard hasn't but that's about it. Lampard's not done anything Alan Pardew can't do. Got the support of his dressing room, added "good characters" and put together a hard-working and committed team who defend as a unit. That's enough to get 8-10 wins at Goodison Park. But that's it. They aren't well coached. Gerrard didn't even manage that though. And his transfer approach wasn't coherant. Lampard's was coherant. They'll be a hard team to out battle and out run which will get them points.

Always looked like a bad signing.

Nah. Don't think they will go down. But they had a chance to be in position for 7th this year and have blown it.

Also it doesn't look like any other club will keep pace with the top 6 like West Ham or Leicester have done in the last couple of years. I think as low as 56 points may seal 7th. I also think there will be a proper midtable for once and 4-5 real strugglers.