stozo

Surely we want the club to vote in favour? As a vote against is a vote for FFP. And unless the FFP loss thresholds change, over time that would mean we have less ability to spend versus if we move to SCR? And TBA is actually good for us as in theory it would limit the City's of this world, pulling them closer to us (though you imagine in a decade or so it may then limit us).

The one thing I'd say, having been hyper critical on Langley and the start of the season, is we are actually still very much in the promotion battle. We are a bit adrift (6 points) but our next three are Sunderland (below us in the league), Portsmouth (below us in the league) and Southampton (one point above us in the league). 1st placed Charlton also play 3rd placed Bristol this weekend. If we can find form we could very easily go into the winter break three points off the promotion places. And the transfer window then opens, potentially allowing us to address some of our problems.

Not quite but not a million miles off right? 14 Prem wins would land us 42 points plus the 12 we have already takes us to 54. Throw in a turning a few draws and you are into the low 60s which is probably the Champions League. Obviously If some of our 50% of wins come from cup competitions, the league position deteriorates but given where we are on the League Cup especially you’d imagine a decent chance for a trophy. I’d love to see a simulation of what a 50%+ win rate does, but I imagine in 75%+ of scenarios it’s trophy or CL qualification.

I mean Howe is unsackable for me. But just to provide even more balance to proceedings - we've won 50%+ of our games since the last international break. We also won 50%+ of our games before the last international break. If we continue winning 50%+ of our games moving forward then we are going to either win a trophy or qualify for the Champions League. Calm down everyone.

I'll give him a pass on tonight. You could see that he obviously had quite a bit of strapping on already, so I'm assuming he wasn't right and that showed in his performance. He's quality on his day - hopefully just needs three weeks of rest and we'll see the best of him again after the international break.

I think the honest answer to how we challenge is process and patience. You need a process for making the right decisions across every area (commercial, academy, recruitment etc.) and then you need that patience to see those results through to fruition. Getting lucky aside, there is no 2-3 year route to the top - we've got to keep incrementally improving across every area of the club. The most difficult bit of that, as we saw in the summer, will be player trading. Within the next 5 years it is very unlikely we'll be able to compete with the super clubs on wages and therefore when we get a player who is genuinely elite and wants the mega wages, we will have to sell them. That will be tough to swallow but the model has to be to re-invest the money wisely and keep improving. From what we've seen this year, I'd say the signs on that are encouraging.

Don't know where to start with this one. But the bit about Bloom renting out the data and it going into Brighton's P&L is not true. Jamestown Analytics is the company that is an offshoot of Bloom's Starlizard and works with other clubs (e.g. Hearts) but the revenue from those commercial deals does not go to Brighton.

He's injured. Don't think the loan department can really take the hit on that one...

Fundamentally for me, and I say this very rarely as I think he's superb, but Howe blew this one at HT. He was pissed off at what he'd seen and got the subs all wrong. Took off our two players who can create something from nothing (Gordon and Woltemade), left on the two players who most needed taking off (Burn and Joelinton) and also didn't make the subs with a view to what might follow. To give one example, with Krafth off, I always suspected we'd end up at some point having to switch to a back 5 but then because he'd taken Gordon and Woltemade off, he had no option of going to 5-3-2 because he had only one striker left. Similarly, because he left Joelinton on while bringing Ramsey on, he was completely hamstrung in terms of his ability to bring Barnes and Elanga on in a way that actually made sense tactically. It was bizarre. The players were obviously dismal too but we're going to have bad 45 mins now and then, and when we do the way we change the game needs to be smarter.

Not helped by Burn playing at LB. I also think he was hooked too soon today. Gordon and Woltemade are two players who can produce something from nothing on a bad day. We were worse with him off the pitch.

Mad that we haven't sorted the new manager during the international break.

He has no say. If we play him against Brenford and he declines the the international call-up, then Congo will be able to trigger the rule that means he can't play against Man City.

I think it's absolutely this. 2 weeks of full training during the international break is a lot more valuable than 15 mins against Brentford followed by two weeks away with the DR Congo national team.

I said he made the right run - I agree with you. But watch it back. Once the decoy run is done, he basically just keeps jogging forward and watching the game - without any thought of the fact he might be able to make another contribution. As I said if either the goalkeeper parries right rather than left or Bruno hits the right hand post, then Elanga is a mile offside and unable to make any attempt at putting it in. Once he’s run offside, he should be getting himself back onside in case he can get involved again.

The winner summed up his performance today. Brilliant interception, good run and then absolutely zero effort to keep himself onside. If that ball had been parried right rather than left, it would have been infuriating. Bright moments but very inconsistent.

Correct. Even if Wissa doesn’t want to go, if Congo call him up and he declined the call up, they can enforce a period following the international break where he is ineligible for his club.

Largely rubbish again. We’ve gone backwards on last season.

Oh yeah, we're definitely way behind you guys. I think the difference at U21 level at the weekend was mainly that beyond our better players there is a big drop off. Neave is probably our best prospect and didn't play. Park looked bright in pre-season but also didn't play. And the rest of the team is a bunch of players who are destined for release. Of those who played, probably only Shahar, Finneran and Wooster have any chance of making it.

To be fair the USG U19 game in midweek led to Neave, Park etc. missing out from the U21s, which led to a few of the U18s playing for the U21s and in turn quite a young U18 team.

OK, I’ll bite: 1. Isak. We identified and signed early one of Europe’s Top 5 strikers. Played a massive role in getting us into the CL in two out of three seasons and scored the winning goal for our first domestic trophy win in 70 years. We then sold him for a British record transfer fee which has unlocked us from the FFP shackles for our next phase of growth. You can hate him for leaving but he is clearly our best signing to date since 2020. 2. Bruno. Joined early and played a big role helping us stay up, before becoming an integral part of our success. He’s a world class midfielder and clearly a hugely positive contributor off the pitch too. 3. Burn. Joined early like Bruno and has proved to be insane value for money. League Cup Final goal probably edges him past the tough competition for third place.

Underpaid by about £20m judging on the performances so far!

£15m

The annoying thing is I think we’ll sell him in the summer (largely for FFP reasons) and he’ll become an absolute beast after doing 2 or 3 seasons in the Bundesliga playing 30+ games. You can see him improving all the time here, but I just don’t think he’ll get the game time with Woltemade and Wissa here (and the expectation level we now have) he needs to develop.

Great performance. Woltemade continues to look class. Great game from Gordon - more of that please. Elanga’s best game for us so far. Tonali, Bruno and Joe all did their business. Have we ever had a better centre back group than Thiaw, Botman, Burn and Schär?

Another terrible result last night. Langley has to go. The results so far suggest we have actually regressed compared to last season, and we need to do something urgently while it still might be possible to salvage the season.