TRon

I would say Emery seems to be a bit more fluid with his tactical set ups in that his in-game management seems more flexible. Howe tends to swap like for like and usually around the hour mark when things aren't going well. Just going off the game against us, Emery seemed to be able to tweak things more effectively in that game anyway.

I assumed we leaked this information to soften the blow when some other club like Chelsea sign him in the summer.

Although you could argue that given they have gone more direct this season, a player like Tonali might fit their style better than previous seasons.

I don't think their players are individually great, but they seem to have bought players to suit the system they are playing. Not sure how much input Le Bris has on incoming transfers, but it's worked out remarkably well for him if their DOF is buying players over his head. Disclaimer: I have no idea if they even have a DOF btw, for all I know they might have a mackem Lee Charnley doing all the admin stuff.

Not even sure they are that good, but they are athletes, and they haven't cost that much. So maybe their business will end up being better than ours. But I'm still hoping the likes of Wissa, Wolt and Ramsey will come good.

This. We spent plenty in the summer, it makes no sense to keep spending unless we are going to land someone we really want.

I wouldn't be going down the wages route when you think of what we are probably paying to some of our signings last summer. Howe has been backed by the board heavily, by all means you can argue he's not in a position to compete with the cartel, but he's been given as much licence as possible within the PSR framework. We tried to sign his preferred targets, and when they went elsewhere, we signed the next ones down the list.

I'm happy enough. Never expected any incomings to begin with, although the young uber talented midfielder from Reimes not signing is a bit of a pisser. We even managed to fuck up an expected quiet window.

Well looks like we've done the scouting for everyone else. Will be an honour to see him line up alongside Ekitike next season.

If they can get a big money move at the end of it, I doubt they will be too miffed.

So were Liverpool.

It's more of a shit show at other clubs, I don't think the grass would be any greener somewhere else.

From our POV we don't want to sell our best players, but a lot depends on if they get offered bigger wages somewhere else and get itchy feet. We saw how that played out last summer, so if it does happen we need to get the best price. That's all I'm saying.

I expect our best players to move on if we don't get CL, but if they are playing badly it means we don't even get full value. He needs to start hitting some form so if we have to sell at least it will be worth our while.

This is the issue though, why has he been so sloppy for months now? I would hate to think it's to make it easier for him to get a move.

The board have pretty much backed him from the start tbf, that's why Mitchell walked and Howe didn't.

He'll find it a lot easier to be successful in his role if we can qualify regularly for CL football. If we want to become a global brand like the cartel clubs, it's essential.

These are players we bought specifically so we would have a squad big enough to rotate.

Targett is a more than capable back up LB. Personally I get that he is happy at boro, but if we need him here then he should pack his bags and head up here. If he wants to stay there then let boro pay his full wages.

On that point re struggling with 3 games a week, I think some of that has been self-inflicted. We've got a bigger squad now, but it's only recently we've started rotating a bit more purposefully. Ramsey has been mostly unemployed, Miley could have been used a lot earlier, and while I get Osula has had injury issues this season, I always thought we were too reluctant to throw him into the fray as well.

Of course it's not happening today, it's just usual deadline day filler rubbish.

Of course it can change, but I am just going off how we have performed so far. I was hoping Wissa coming back would give us the focal point up front to make a big difference but he's been poor when he's played. Gordon getting picked ahead of him on Saturday spoke volumes.

Honestly have been surprised how bad his first touch is. He looks fit enough now, he's shown bursts of pace so I am at a loss why he looks so clumsy on the ball. He can't still be so rusty after a month of being back he can't control a ball that is passed to him.

People kept pointing to us only being 2pts off a CL place a couple of weeks ago but that was ignoring we had played the easier games and had much tougher games to come. If you look at the general pattern of how we've performed so far, our current position of 10th is about right.

The main reason we aren't signing a player right now is because there's none of the required quality available.