The College Dropout

Yeh I think so. I kinda saw what we would look like when Dubs was in goal with Botman - Schar in defence.. a lot more footballing ability. Add that level of football with a pacey CB and a better GK. Then a RW that can contribute to build up. Those 3 and I think we are close to Arsenal level. Add another CM and we can play at full pelt for 90+ minutes. Obviously semi joking about the CL. But we are maybe 2 away from being a very very serious team.

Brentford’s model is seemingly to run a cheap profitable(?) PL club. They don’t sell big or sell often.

Us finishing 5th with Williamson, Santon, Raylor, Jonas, Shola, Leon Beast, Guthrie etc. A few quality players and a shit hot streak from Cisse got us there... and obviously a great team spirit and morale.

Barcelona cooking their numbers it seems. They’ve managed to defend it through audits but it’s too coincidental to be genuine. truth be told - I want us to push the envelope. We are like 4 purples away from winning the champions league.

Forest won’t be able to spend big imo. But also probably not forced to sell.

Well Man City decided to get a striker who will primarily play with Haaland in Jan. ditto Villa with Watkins and Rashford. Thats the move. We already have that with Gordon and strongest bench player is Gordon’s primary positions backup. We could do it with a Mbeumo type player too. The alternatives are have a young player who might develop i to the main man shortly or be sold. Osula is possibly that. Wouldn’t mind getting another cheap one. At Delap’s price either he or Isak will need to be sold after 1 year. Which is a fine strategy imo. Not every move needs to be long term. If I’m Delap I’m not risking it though. Or an aging striker like Wilson that we already have. I do think if you have a Grade A striker. It’s the managers responsibility (and the players) to ensure they can play 85% of minutes he needs too. All the top players have always done that. Your best player is going to play a lot of minutes. ISAK’s physicality has improved this season, it needs to go another level again. You can’t burn the clutch out of a top talent like Isak. Central midfielders yeah you might have to push to their limits physically. Thats why you need top quality on the bench.

Neither Jesus or Richarlison actually play. Both were signed for big fees with the intention to start. Same with Nunez. I would be happy for us to sign a striker that would largely play RW like Liverpools strikers can play LW or in Jota’s case RW too. I would not be happy to have a £80m backup striker like Liverpool currently have though.

Truthfully all of these clubs have a striker quality issue. None of them have an A grade striker backed up by C+ striker. Liverpool have several B options at 9. All but 1 of which can play at LW too. Most of the time 2 of their strikers will play a the same time. Richarlison is shot. Jesus is shot. Havertz and Solanke is £120m worth of striker. They are not backups. Us, City and Villa have A grade forwards. Their backups play most of their minutes with the main striker.

I said it when he left. Chris Wood is as good a backup striker a non-elite team could have for a few seasons. There's not many rattling about.

He's going to be 19/20. It's not crazy that he might not be ready to play 45 games for a team that's playing in the CL and wants to qualify for it again. Happy for Howe to decide if he's ready or not. But at the moment he's only trusted to see games out - that's not enough. A 4th choice CB and CM are not "backup" players IMO. The drop off needs to be minimal. City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Villa, Spurs - all have far more depth at CM than we do. IMO a top striker is going to be one of the least rotated players in a team. That's why most teams don't have a top backup player. Man U are shit and have shit options. They signed Zirkzee because their main man striker is a kid (and shit). Villa have 1 striker. Their now backup striker is primarily a LW who can play uptop (worse than Gordon IMO) if needed. There's a reason Villa's strikers were - a main one and a kid. As soon as the kid got good they sold him. They didn't replace him with another striker. They signed a first-choice LW who can fill in uptop if needed. That's how top teams are building their squads. Chelsea have 1 striker. Nkunku has played the majority of his games at AM/10 or LW. He's not a 9 or a backup striker. He's a AM or LW. Chelsea have horrible squad building so their squad doesn't make sense. Man City have 1 striker. Marmoush still gets minutes when Haaland starts at 10 or LW. Prior to Marmoush they had Alvarez who also regularly started with Haaland at 10 or wide. Jesus and Richarlison are physically shot which is why their clubs have effectively replaced them. Although Havertz was signed to play as an 8 in the same team as Jesus. None of these clubs (except Man U) have a striker that will sit on the bench while the other striker plays. Marmoush, Rashford and even Havertz were signed to play alongside the main striker - not to sit on the bench. Delap would join and sit on the bench. If we sign a backup striker, their primary position will be RW IMO. And even then Howe would line-up Barnes Gordon New RW. If we sign Delap - it would be with a view to sell him or Isak in 12-months. Delap would start for Man U and most clubs.

People under-rate Nuno as a manager. He's an excellent manager for an underdog type team. Forest will forever be a underdog type team. He's a little similar to Benitez in that way. Nuno got top 4 with Valencia in a difficult era for them - the last time they qualified for the CL I believe. The last time they were good iirc. Two 7th placed finishes with Wolves. This will be his 5th top 7 finish as a manager in a top level league. I think they will struggle with CL next season and expect a drop off. It happened with us and it's happening to Villa so obviously it will happen to an inferior technical side with less resources to a greater scale. But if they stick with Nuno long-term, he could establish Forest around the European places. He's shown that is his level.

Apart from Liverpool, no other top club has a proper "backup striker" that can't play anywhere else. Even Liverpool all can play multiple positions with the possible exception of Nunez. It's not good value for money to have a singular backup striker unless the player is accepted to be substandard. They won't get enough guaranteed minutes. Forest have a backup striker. He doesn't get minutes. City's backup striker gets most of his minutes off the wings. The 4th choice CM gets a lot more minutes than the backup striker. I do think Howe will have to change his tactics if we get into the CL. Isak pressing the way he does, he'll have to get subbed regularly at the hour.

Think he's too small for us/Howe. Might sign him for the flip I guess. Don't see us selling Barnes now that European football is confirmed. He's an actual rotation option. Gordon is considered more physically robust than Isak too. Barnes on, Gordon up top will continue to be a viable move IMO. That 4th choice CM role is too crucial. Unless Miley develops like crazy over the next few months I think he's too far off it. Milner played that role for years at Liverpool, Curtis Jones is doing it at Liverpool now. That's Merino's role for Arsenal and was Jorginho's role. It needs to be a really good player that will end up playing 30-40% of minutes in a season through injuries, suspensions, dips in form for others and rotation. The gap from Joelinton to Miley is massive.

Hall is a different level of prospect to Osula. Hall cost 2x at a position that is generally cheaper than strikers. Hall was given a couple of starting opportunities in big games (Dortmund away springs to mind) and when he didn't perform Hall shuffled him to the back of the pack to rebuild. Hall's pathway to LB was also a lot easier with Targett and Burn in front of him. Osula came with less hype and expectation. Hasn't started a single game of note iirc. And has one of the best strikers in the world ahead of him, in the prime of his career. Backup strikers don't tend to play that much. i don't see Osula becoming a viable rotation striker the way Wilson was intended to be with Isak last season. I think next season Isak will just have to be a 60-80 minute player to save his legs.

Is it? Why? I think he'll have to stay and will end up getting more minutes due to European football. But I don't think it would be because of what we've seen so far. I would probably want Miley to go out and on loan. But I don't think he will/can. I expect us to sign another premium midfielder but also sell at least one of Willock or Longstaff so Miley can't be sold.

The Villa side with Gareth Barry, James Milner, Ashley Young, Downing, Delph, Bent etc.? Good side that. Not many fancy foreigners but lots of good young English PL players. Young - Milner - Barry - Downing all in their prime. That's a very good PL midfield, especially for that era. Excellent professionals and characters to have in a squad. The first 3 would play PL football late into their 30s and be dependable players in multiple league-winning sides. Young & Milner winning league titles with 2 clubs. Downing himself got a Liverpool move too and I think he was ok from memory

Agreed. Don't see why Delap would join too unless we told him Isak would leave the following season. A new CM is more important than a new striker. Most top PL clubs backup striker is someone that primarily plays wide. I'm fine with Gordon + Osula personally. If we sign a RW that can also play uptop - great..

I'm not talking about what I wanted. It's best for Forest to lose. But they were never going to lose to this Man U side. I gave up the goose on Forest when they beat City. They'll not finish any lower than 5th. They keep grinding out results, have tremendous belief, can defend, can score a goal etc. They've got tough fixtures but after that City game, I expect them to get it over the line. Comfortably too. It's between 4 clubs. Villa might get Europa but those 3 massive games means they won't get +3/+4 points against the rest to finish 5th. Don't think Fulham or Bournemouth will get 65+ points either. It's us, Brighton, Chelsea and City. 2 of us. I think we can get to 68 points and that will be 5th minimum, nearly always is - comfortably too. I'm only interested in the CL. The new format makes it worth £50m as a minimum and compounds our raising profile like no other. If we can keep our best players and add a couple quality players. I really think we close the distance to Arsenal and Liverpool (and City). We won't have the depth of the last 2 but it really closes. That's only possible with CL.

I just really hope neither them or Spurs get into the CL via Europa league. Man U seem capable of turning it on against big name sides. We must get 3 points against them. If we don’t. We don’t deserve CL. Our game is between their EL QF games. He’ll probably start Eriksen CM again.

Forest secured CL with that City win imo. Worst case scenario today was a draw.

Want Forest to win the cup. Elliot Anderson and Wood from ours. Proper club. FFP Brothers. And almost certainly finish top 7 unless they implode. Dont see Brighton catching them and the rest are too far back.

They are not a great side at all. I’ve long thought this but thought they would definitely finish top 5. They’ve got good fixtures but it’s not a formality.

Chelsea are doing illegal things imo. I expect Villa to be able to at least double their main sponsor if they win the FA Cup this season. They signed that deal after relegation battle seasons.

We are largely in the same boat. We need short term results to increase medium term revenues. I think we both need 2 seasons in the CL out of 3 to keep the team together and keep building strongly. successove yeara without CL will mean taking steps backwards. Aston Villa’s main shirt sponsor is worth 6m per year and ends next year. Ours is worth 25. Top 6 is 50m minimum. If they can get 2 CL Campigns in 3 seasons could they land a sponsorship closer to £40m per year? Can they expand the stadium? even if their plan works they’ll need to continue to produce good academy players and wheel + deal. Same with us. If we don’t succeed now, how can we hold on to our best players and build on them? We can’t we would have sell - if not this summer then next. If we Dont get CL football this year or next we’ll need to cash in on our best players

Villa will have raised an additional £150m in CL money and player sales this season. They’ll be fine. Manchester United have shrinking revenues - no? Last season they were in the CL. High amortisation costs too.