The College Dropout

Got lots of love for Schar but lad has been bad recently.

A FA Cup semi final, CL QF + genuinely challenging for top 4/5 would have Emery challenging for manager of the season. They have the 7/8th highest wage bill and squad cost. 9th/10th and deep CL and FA Cup runs is about fair. Let alone getting to finals or winning.

This is wishful thinking on your end. A CL QF and a 10th place finish is a succesful season imo. Not to mention they've got great chances of getting to the FA Cup Final, the strongest team left are very beatable and could go even further in the CL.

Standard Eddie. I don't blame anyone for this injury mind. And i'm not overly worried for him long-term. This doesn't sound like a major major injury. Will wait for more info.

It’s more than Liverpool have. 1st CB. 4th CB. 1st LB. 2nd attacker. Doubts over our primary attacker too. Thats VVD, Gomez, Robertson, Diaz. Doubts over Salah. That hits their squad hard and their squad is a lot deeper than ours.

Thought Targett was solid when he came on. Prefer Tino to start there though.

He looked great when he came back at first. Unless we think he’s finished and he’s got Demba Ba knees (and I guess his knee did finally explode many years after he left) I don’t see the drive to sell him.

Leicester fans did call him lazy at times. He just may not have the physical capacity to go up and down all game or the mindset to do so. You have to think - a premier league winger would have been close to the best player in a team growing up from 5 to 18. Work rate isnt going to be something most valued in themselves growing up.

Tino did deliver the best cross i've ever seen from him with his left foot on the weekend mind. Curled in at a good pace. Usually he just thumps it hard and straight on his right foot.

I said in the Europe-ometer I think - having sold Almiron & that defender - we needed to have really good luck with injuries to get 5th. Gordon is our second biggest attacking threat and he's missing the Cup Final. Liverpool have a great bench and we don't at our strongest. With the injuries we have, we have even less off the bench. Gordon will miss 2 games we need a minimum of 4 points from. Our form and belief is shakey. A lot will depend on the injury news from Botman and Isak. IMO we need these lads fit pretty much every game from now til the end of the season. Against West Ham we need Isak, we need Botman. We are bang average without them. We are chasing in the league. We need 3 more points than Chelsea, 4 more than Forest and need to match Bournemouth & Brighton at least over the next 11 games. Our margin for error is slim. Every injury is a huge blow, let alone missing multiple games like Gordon or season-enders like Hall. Having the likes of Barnes & Trippier to bring off the bench was one of our power moves against our rivals. Having to start them and having less quality off the bench is a huge blow. I dunno man. We needed luck and we haven't had it.

Think there's a dearth of talent at LW in the league. Maybe i'm missing someone really obvious but I can't think of a genuine world-class LW in the league. There's no equivalent to Salah (or close). At one point there was Mane, Son, Hazard, Sterling you could argue were top 10 LWs in the world. There isn't a massive quality gap between the likes of Gordon and Barnes - but the game is still meaningful. Barnes has lots of ability. But his lack of work rate and all-round danger is why he's a 10-15 G/A a season winger who struggles to get a start for a team that finished 7th last season and is 6th now.

We can't afford those PSG wages.

And the Tonali news. All season ending. That was the cornerstone of our eventual injury crisis + Willock.

That £15m is too good

It's reminiscent of the Sheff U game last season or around that time. Around that week Tonali gambling charge came out, Barnes & Botman got their season ending injuries. I think Isak got injured around that time too? The season fell apart around that time even if we won that game by a landslide,

Doesn't make sense. His value will have stagnated or fallen since peak.

A bad injury too. Terrible terrible news.

That was a bad game and performance tbf. I sold Isak for Jackson on FPL off the back of that. For a hit. I think Isak missed the game and I thought things could get dicey for us overall if Isak was out. Kneejerked myself into my worst FPL season in a long time

Yeh that’s a major blow.

I’ve never had so little belief in a Real Madrid team since Varane’s last days. Edit: Always got Atletico’s number in the CL though

Villa finished high in the group phase - got a bye into the last 16 and a top seed. They earned that.

Villa’s CL run is a success. Ours wasn’t. It also going to be very lucrative - ours was minimally. IMO their CL run and the sale of Duran will have done wonders for their revenues. CL run has got to be £50m+. Ours was what? £32m?

Fair. Was this straight after a game?

I don't think so. He barely played. I didn't rate him much but.. barely saw him play.

I believe "squad cost" in the FFP/PSR sense = yearly wages (players and staff only) + amortisation. That's the yearly accounting cost of the squad. The actual squad cost is always going to be super high.