The College Dropout

Elite playwrs are also now compared to Messi and Ronaldo. And a lot of the best players just aren’t appreciated. Vini Jr is what 25? His highlight and big moments reel is superb. Neymar’s entire career is disrespected. He doesn’t have the international success but his club career he was largely supreme for a long time. Constantly disrespected. Vini is disrespected. We don’t enjoy good things.

I don’t think this is true. There’s a fair amount of footage of elite teams of that era just knocking it long back and forth and heading the ball. And that game where Man U beat Arsenal to end their streak would cause uproar today. Literally a dozen awful decisions. 3 or 4 terrible fouls. Dives not spotted. In retrospect that was a screw job. In terms of pure quality of football. The Pep era and the teams that stopped or challenged them was the best - across Europe. That Barca side, the Madrid Mou to Carlo era, City, Klopps teams etc. A lot of the football prior wasn’t as good as nostalgia has people believing.

Rather have all internationals in May/June & August/September. Start and end the season.

Second half of wolves vs Liverpool was good last night. Even the 0-0 between Brentford and Bournemouth was a decent game for a 0-0. Man U vs Bournemouth was excellent a few weeks ago But there are a lot of bore fests. I like Arsenal personally but a lot of games involving them are super boring. Even the Wolves game with the last minute equaliser. Theres a dozen reasons for it imo. Better teams lower in the PL, better defensive setup, better quality lower the league, robotic coached players, everyone a super athlete, ‘top’ teams playing crazy amount of games etc. The days of Man City regularly slapping teams 4-5-6 is over. The league is more competitive. But teams just stalling themselves out against each other is all too regular. Even Arsenal slap up teams in Europe in entertaining fashion.

Loads of good players will be available whoever goes down tbh Like those 2 for sure

Wolves aren’t a bad side at all.

He’s the least likely imo. Due to age and contract length (possibly). From the team that won the League Cup who do we expect to still be at the club summer 2027 and playing regularly? Just Bruno and Joe imo. Barnes too maybe. Maybe Burn or someone older as backup. Last 2 years we’ve stood still (or gone backwards). We should have 3-4 players we’ve signed that are adding big value now and 1 or 2 more for the future. We’ve signed - maybe 1. Tougher argument for 2. No argument for 3.

We will not be competing for that in 2030. The Owners are either delusional or bullshitters or a mix of both.

The project is going into an entirely new phase or a ‘restart’. With the possible exception of Bruno G, I expect all of our purples to leave over the next 16 months and the older guard to be phased out. How do we rebuild? September 2027 I don’t expect to have or start: Pope Schar Burn Tino Hall (maybe) Gordon Tonali Trippier

Haven’t managed to string together 4-5 consecutive green arrows all season. Been getting consistent reds followed by massive greens. Been bouncing around 300k-150k since GW18. Back down to 160k. Really hoping I can get some momentum and get to 120-150k before the blanks and doubles and push into the top 100k.

Just use them to get him match fit. We are winning he FA Cup.

Love Pope but he’s been bad this season. Defended him for a long time but it’s mistake after mistake now. Would stick with him in the hope he discovers som confidence And form. We have to stick with 1 keeper from now though. Chopping and changing will only dent their confidence

Aye worst craic on the forum.

Not true. Neither of those clubs have revenues over £200m. The gap in revenue between Brentford and us is as big is us and Chelsea.

A lot of the business was meant to pay for immediately though.

Hi will say it’s harder now. Chelsea in particular will sign anyone with a reputation 21 and under now. Selling Jackson to sign Delap is mad.

I mean yes - we aren’t going to sign top players. We never did. We can sign players with something to prove. We signed Isak Bruno Hall Tino even Gordon before they were proven enough for the top 6 to sign them. Thats what served us well.

Also a different profile though. We used to go for players before they were proven enough for the others to get interested or at a lower ebb. We went back for JP and Etikite as more proven players.

Joelinton does this all the time Weve scored from it at least 3-5 times over the last few years. Schar to big Joe. Not always Joe the goalscorer but from that move. Even Harry Kane scores a bag of those.

In retrospect Ashworth was great

It’s absolutely nonsense. It’s definitely going to encourage the deepest blocks

It’s not just the targets - it’s the negotiation, the relationships with agents etc., the influence on PIF We went from almost signing Watford JP to getting the Isak deal done in a week. We don’t seem to have the ability to move that quickly across the whole process. Seemed to get the Tonali done quickly too.

Pretty much spent that on Woltemade. A lad with no pedigree prior to 2025. Literally a 5 month purple patch.

To the point that game 1 with Isak - we knew he was a player and don’t know what happened at Sociedad - this is a player. Same with Elanga but in reverse. Game 1 that i saw - doesn’t look a player at all. Hoping it was nerves. Don’t tell me about Forest - this is not a good footballer. It’s a bad one at this level actually. Very obviously judging players with a different lense now.

We spent £60m on a striker that scored 6 goals the season prior. We spent £35m on a 19 yo fullback with 12 senior appearances. We spent £45m on a PL winger with 4 PL goals in his career. We spent £40m on a pacy 21 yo fullback with only 1 season of PL football and fresh off an ACL return. We used to back our judgement on ability, attitude and squad fit.