The College Dropout

Solid performance. Still a player I think we could upgrade in the summer but I’d prioritise replacing Schar first.

He’s one I want in the squad next season. While it’s a luxury move I wouldn’t be against signing a first team player in his position. He’s easily upgradeable and could do with the competition.

Awful game of football.

West Ham. Chelsea. City. Arsenal. Man U. For reference Zaha has scored the same amount of goals this season as ASM has in his entire time at Newcastle. Raphinha's I like ASM but he hasn't actually consistently shown, that he's one of the best players outside the top 7. Zaha's a significant upgrade. The bolded - Arsenal thought the same thing and opted against Zaha to sign Nicolas Pepe for £72m who has flopped. Why take the risk? We don't need to worry about re-sale value, we just need to get into Europe asap so we can attract a higher calibre of player (and demand/justify better commercial deals). I personally love Raphinha. He's the real deal. Adapted to the league and Northern England. Undeniably good enough to play for a team fighting for the top 4. Why spend £40m on an unknown quantity instead? I'd take Raphinha over Pino this summer easily. I wouldn't want a 19-year-old kid from Spain having the responsibility of firing us up the league.

Secure safety early and go in early and aggressive imo. We seem to like to dally though.

Hard disagree here. I do think we need imports but the likes of Sagna, Nasri, Cliche, Barry, Milner, Tevez, Lescott, Adebayor all helped get City to 4th and made other teams in the division weaker as a consequence. Aguero and co. join when they finish 5th and get them to 3rd then champions. Aguero, Silva and Toure don’t join a team in our position. I think the best strategy is to take the best hungry talent from the division that will join to take us to 5-7 and into Europe. As a core at least. And supplement with the best talent from Europe we can get. Zaha would be our best player and can play left or right. Suddenly we are a massive problem on the counter. I don’t think we have a solid core of British players. I don’t think any of them get much time in the top half of the PL except Trippier & Wilson.

Would we take Zaha? I'm not sure he would want to join mind. And we would likely only match his wages.

6 points from 8 games is all we need. If we can't do that we deserve to go down. We should really aim for 8-10 points.

He'd do a better job than Lampard tbf

If we did they would definitely go down. If they stay up i'm sure those 2 points we gifted them will be the difference

Modric is good on the back foot though. Great engine, closing people down, looking to nick the ball. He's a runner. Not sure if Bruno is a runner and dribbler.

They were awful against us. And we threw it away.

If it was a computer game you would rage quit and say it’s fake.

Benzema unbelievable pair of headers.

Carlo going to go for the 0-0 again.

Pino's release clause is roughly the same as Raphinha's. Would rather Raph's experience of playing in the PL and living in England than a 19-year-old. I don't want a #10. Get the creativity from wide.

We should be all over that. All £75m. Let's price Barca out. Would have him over Paqueta all day.

Has 23 and 26 become the new 13 and 16?

He has zero conviction in the final third. Pass, shot - zero conviction.

Ideally on the bench next season

Play to nick it 1-0. A 0-0 is fine and probably a good result for both.

No he wouldn't. Klopp requires wide forwards to score goals. I think sometimes when a good player is in a poor side, you can attribute some of the negative aspects of a game to other playerss. Eg Raphinha only has 3 assists but that's actually down to the lack of finishing from his team mates than his own creativity. Over here we say ASM attempts too many dribbles when passing is a better option because the other players can't do anything with it rather than ASM will predictably attempt the take-on 8 times out of 10 so teams can prepare for it. Or Bruno dwells on the ball because others aren't available rather than being used to a slower game and taking more touches than is neccessary. I remember when Sissoko was popular on here, people would defend his poor pass % by saying he was attempting to make things happen in a static team. In reality, he's not a great passer and needed a role with less attacking responsibilities so he could play a simple passing game.

He added some real quality when he came on. I don’t like how he dwells on the ball though.

Nice finish Darwin.

Liverpool are scary.