TRon

I've always thought the same thing re Bruno getting caught in transition with the way we press forward, I think this is where a lot of his fouls come from. But I wonder if Eddie is looking at all three midfielders defending according to their position on the pitch rather than have an out and out athletic defensive mid?

Not to mention we aren't in a position to spend our way to the top like our rivals.

Finishing 4th was a miracle in the first place man. Have you seen the spending of the clubs around us this summer?

I don't know if your comment is tongue in cheek, but they will use the Kane money to buy another striker, maybe even two players. They aren't going to get relegated man, they might have a season treading water, but the sale will put them in a far healthier position long term.

Willock has already shown end product here though, he scored 7 games in a row when he was here on loan in his first season. Since then he's scored less often, but his all round game is far better. It might just be a case of him having a season where he puts it altogether and becomes a genuine superstar. Even if he doesn't, he's still a high impact player in most games he starts.

I would guess anyone who would pay a bigger fee, wouldn't want to pay those sort of wages.

I just think £80m might be the best fee they are going to get for him, and it's not like there's loads of clubs who will get involved in an auction. But then I thought no club would be dumb enough to spunk £75m on Harry Kane with a year left on his contract but apparently Levy is reeling Bayern Munich in.

They are in danger of doing a Leicester I think. There's only a handful of clubs who can pay outrageous Fuck You FFP prices, and if they decide to go for someone else instead, that can leave you with a devastated and demotivated player on your books.

Made more infuriating when you know we could compete with the best if we were allowed to spend our money, but obviously we can't because the game has been rigged to protect those already at the top.

A lot of the knackers can make the best atmosphere as well though. The knackers don't make for comfortable reading on social media, but I don't really use it much, it would do my head in reading that shit every day. When I started going to football matches they used to be handing NF leaflets outside the ground, but it did get better, and it used to be jumping in the Gallowgate back then.

It doesn't work if the manager doesn't get better results though. I don't think the board members or the ownership would be that short-sighted.

Sorry like but I would be surprised. What the fuck would Mourinho do with the same squad that Howe hasn't already done better? The only way you can get better results than we are getting is to ignore FFP and just start throwing money at superstars.

People also don't factor in rising cost of salaries as higher calibre players come in. We are soon going to be shelling out 200k/week to our better players, that's got to come from somewhere as well. And yes, ticket prices are obscene, but so are those wages. It's an awful situation, because the alternative is to run the club Ashley style, keep the costs lower, pay less to players, and you get to watch awful football for the privelege.

It was never going to work, Moyes likes centre mids who are big, put themselves about, and don't fanny about on the ball. He'd probably pay £20m to stick Harry Maguire in midfield tbh.

So how much have Everton offered on the back of our Chris Wood rape of Forest coffers?

Surprised a Saudi club didn't come in with a £40m bid and a £15m/year wage package.

No one's going to give us £30m for a 31 year old striker who has a poor history with injuries. Realistically we might get £20m, and that's being optimistic. We are better off keeping him because he's still going to get goals at the top level for a couple more years and it would cost a bomb to replace him.

You are looking at it from a European POV, which is understandable, but there is a massive appetite for football in Asia, you only have to look at how Man U or Liverpool sell their shirts in that continent to see the potential. I can remember a poster on here used to have a profile pic of some Iraqi kid wearing a NUFC shirt while toting a rifle during one of the various gulf wars. The Saudis have the money to invest big time in growing their professional football league, while there might not be much interest in Europe, it might get successful enough to get a following in Asia or Africa. Those are big markets, you only have to see how PL clubs have toured Asia to try and get a piece of it to realise that.

You're right, especially with him being 31 and having only a year left on his contract. Problem is, because of his age and injury record, we aren't likely to get that big a fee for him, and considering he's still one of the PL best goalscorers when he's fit, would be expensive to replace him.

I'm avoiding threads about this cunt nowadays, mainly because I can't stand his snivelling patter, but that hits the nail on the head.

I hope not. One of the biggest endorsements of our running of the club under this regime is we targeted both Emery and Howe, both have turned out to be brilliant choices. If we did approach Gerrard, hopefully one interview with the dimwit will have made us look elsewhere.

Been thinking that for a while now as well. It's not what we are used to, but it's how Ashworth operated at Brighton.

They didn't look so well run a year ago when Stevie G was running them down the pan. Amazing the difference just appointing a decent manager can do.

The real downside of having to sell players to fund upgrades for me. ASM would have relished the CL nights, would probably have done well in them too.

Yeah he definitely faded the last couple of months of the season, but supposedly he was carrying an ankle injury, he was getting caught on the ball much more than earlier in the season. Never really heard much about the injury since then, but I doubt he'd be playing preseason games if it wasn't recovered. Think he's probably just getting back up to full speed at this point.