HawK

Hall looking more and more like our starting LB

Very good 60 mins, welcome back lad

More injury prone than Bellamy, less mobile than retirement-year Shearer. Poor sod.

I guess we don't use FBRef to scout our players

So he's a bit better than Chris Wood then

I think it depends on the position, I've certainly seen players dominate and shine out in teams when their ability is obviously a level above those around them, like Le Tissier, Kinkladze, Mahrez etc. But yeah it can definitely be seen in two ways. I still think it's amazing how well Gordon is doing in terms of end-product compared with our legendary PL wingers of yesteryear though, and his output (putting natural development aside), has no doubt been elevated by joining a stronger team with a better coach.

Yep you're right. But my memory of ASM is a head-down player who often chose to run into those blind alleys rather than have a bit of nous and lay it off for a one two to exploit the space from the double-up

I was surprised to see Maxi's goals per game isn't that far off some of our other notable French wingers/attackers : Hatem : 72 apps 12 goals Ginola : 58 apps 6 goals Robert : 129 apps 22 goals Maxi : 111 apps 12 goals Can't see the assists though. Statistics need context, and the context here is that often Maxi was the sole ball carrier and goal threat at times, he got so much more of the ball due to the lack of quality around him whereas the other players in this list had less share of the ball. Any of the other players in this list above would have probably scored many more goals if they were the only threat or ball carrier in their team - Hatem/Ba/Cisse, Ginola/Beardsley/Ferdinand/Lee, Robert/Shearer/Solano/Lee, Maxi/Perez/Rondon/Wilson Puts Gordon in a good light : Gordon : 51 apps 12 goals in a team with Bruno/Isak/Trippier as the main ball carriers/threats. I hadn't realised how prolific Gordon was when compared to Hatem and Robert. He's actually beating Robert for goals per game, and has fantastic work-rate off the ball. Maxi has good qualities but just isn't an elite player, and as you say @Dr Jinx, if he was he wouldn't be playing for Fenerbache.

Issue is is that we, as owned by PIF, are seemingly trying to be seen as whiter than white.

Wasn't it 6.5m IIRC?

Completely disagree on Wood, every game I saw him he marked himself out of the game, had no link up play and let defenders stand goal side of him. At best he was just a body up top, but we had literally no-one else to do it at the time.

Other than the glue factory?

Nico Barella & Sandro Tonali vibes. Maybe we're getting brathwaite

I have an irrational dislike of Chris Wood, even beyond his goals to games ratio. I'd even have him below Riviere. Obertan... no words. I never thought Ramage had played football before his debut, where he adopted a faux Kung Fu stance when standing off a player in possession of the ball. Imagine jockeying, but the opposing player is stationary... Marcelino for refusing to play for effectively 2 seasons deserves a mention. Nicky Butt was decent when he arrived but when downhill so fast he was almost embarrassing at times. Viana for us was absolutely woeful. Even when the team made a concerted effort to keep getting him the ball, he hadn't a clue.

Can't be worse than or last Wilson-cover striker Chris Wood

All valid - but the impatient fan in me just wants to see us with a great winger on the right with the squad we already have, the dividends it could reap this season would pay itself back if we get top 4 or a, *easy now*, cup. I was equally bemused when we got Gordon instead of a LB when we did, but I was proven wrong. I hope I'm proven wrong again and again and the club keep playing chess while I'm playing checkers.

I hadn't noticed that, you'd think such a thing would be quickly worked on by Pep to keep up the speed of play. I hadn't noticed this dallying before this tournament, it's like he was rigidly sticking to tactical instruction despite it obviously not working.

I was really disappointed in Stones tbh, he spent a lot of the games just looking for that short pass into midfield and Mainoo or whoever was meant to be there was nowhere to be seen as Declan does his now traditional role of making sure there's an opposing player between him and the ball. Cue lots of gesticulation from stones and just passing it sideways rather than trying a more direct ball out to the flanks where Trippier was often screaming for it on the diagonal.

Of course none of us really know what the plan is and how much money we have to spend - but my overriding point was if we're buying one player this summer that walks into the team, I'd want it to be a right winger. If we get that right winger, it's all gravy! I just can't see with all the finances laid out how we're feasibly going to spend up to around the 70-100m mark this summer (Guehi + a top level right winger) without incurring some serious issues for PSR over the next few accounting periods

you put my point across much more succinctly than I did

I think he'd be a great signing, but the PSR stuff is really making it hard for me to enjoy this at the moment. I really hope we know what we're doing, if he joins and the window closes and we've got the same options at RW as we do now, I'd be thinking I'd rather have spent that money on a winger. We've got Schar, Kelly, Burn, Krafth to play centre back with Botman and Lascelles to return. If Guehi joins I think we could be looking at some movement in some of those players. In Mitchell & Howe we trust

I recall that coming out after the fact as a way of saving face for Shepherd. Can't comment on Owen vs Anelka I don't remember that one so well

Dan 'centre of the wheel' Ashworth

If we can double our money on him in only 18 months, we take the money imo and reinvest. Grow or die...

I think as a club we're shifting to a more normal operating mode of a professional football club after decades of mismanagement. If we spent £10m + on someone, it's been pretty much expected they're a starter. Younger players in this bracket that cost a bit were Jenas, Viana, Dyer etc. who had varying degrees of success with us. Signings for the future have always been such a novelty and a rarity in days gone, that anyone who walked through the door that wasn't signed for the first team was seen as the next potential superstar - Zamblera, Vuckic, Tozer, Kadar (and we never spent big on them either). Now that we are forking out big sums for players that don't immediately walk into the first 11 but need a couple of seasons to develop and bed in, we're naturally bemused because the concept is completely foreign to us. Livra and to more of an extent Hall have turned that old methodology upside down. If we want real quality with less of a gamble, the pathway is the same as the previous 'starlets' of yesteryear with the need for development, coaching and reserve games, just with a much higher price tag and a better chance of becoming a future first teamer and with that the associated increase in expectations. However, it's hard to understand this sometimes when as fans we generally just think of this or next season at the most when it comes to squad building. I was sceptical when we bought Gordon for example when it was plain as day we needed a LB not a LW at the time. The club is looking at this with a much longer term view and need to be clever with the money spent, i.e. there's no point patching a hole in RW, LB, with a 28yr old someone at their peak for £40m who'll end up becoming a black hole in our accounting book 3-4 years down the line when our sole focus as a club right now is to grow, and unfortunately the only way to do that is going to be finding players of potential and selling them at their peak. I think the next few windows are going to be frustrating, but if the right player doesn't come along, it doesn't look like we're going to panic buy someone that isn't right from an accountancy, personality and ability standpoint. I don't know why I always recall the transfer of Albert Luqué, but if you remember we only signed him because we missed out on Luis Boa Morte, it was so lastminute.com that even the player didn't know he was signing until he was practically on the plane to us. The £100m odd for Bale at Spurs helped set them up for over a decade. We can't be too proud to sell players like Bruno or Isak if good money comes knocking, the reality is we need to sell them to progress as a club under the current PSR rules. Oversimplifying a bit, but we aren't going to win anything with 2 purples, but if we can sell those 2 purples at peak prices to buy 4 more potential purples, we're on the right track. FWIW I hate this PSR cartel system, but if we're going to have to play by these bent rules, this is the only way to do it imo.