STM

I presume we are talking CM here? Our defence has very good technical ability, Schar, Botman and Tripper. Bruno is fantastic technically. Liverpool won the league without any technical players in CM or at least nowhere near the level of Man City's CM. What made the difference for them is that they had Salah, Mane and Firmino as front 3, which guaranteed them 50 goals a season. In short, yes good technical players are preferable but it's not absolutely essential. What is essential is that we have CMs who can do the high intensity stuff, since that's Howe style. If you want tika-taka we've got the wrong man anyway. If we can find players who can do both, well... Anyway, I'd like to see how we fair with another star on the right hand side first and an Isak who players more games. Sometimes the solution to problems is far simpler, we need more players who can score goals. Liverpool have Salah, Nunez, Gakpo, Jota and Diaz.... we have Isak, Gordon (who's a work in progress) and Wilson who can't stay fit. Get two more quality attacking players in, get Barnes back up to speed and our CM "issues" won't seem so much an issue.

His age must be a factor in our thoughts. I'd be surprised if it happened but if it meant getting a quality signing elsewhere...

Trippier for Kimmich.

He should pretty much be on par with our top earner like.

Really likeable player. Hoping that him leaving gets us some very small wriggle room. Every penny counts. Although Hayden being back will offset that somewhat.

On Broja/50m, of course Chelsea would ask more than a players worth. Isn't that what every club does? They might get 40, they'd be pleased with that. To an Everton, a Forest, a Brentford (as a Toney replacement) he'd possibly be worth that. He's a good player, who's chronically been mismanaged by Chelsea and obviously had some injuries. He's not for us anyway, so it's by the by.

I agree with the @The College Dropout in the idea that we need to be able to have that string to our bow, r.e players who can keep the ball and kill a game through possession. It has many benefits, fitness/fatigue being a good point. I'm not sure this window is the one and it might not even be the summer. I can totally understand why Howe might look at this Ederson and think "another Joelinton would be bloody handy", even if that comparison isn't quite correct. As Howe himself points out, it is possible to play and succeed with the fast action approach, Liverpool being a good example, it's not easy though. It's also important to remember that we aren't a bad technical side either, our possession stats are quite decent or certainly were. We might be in bad form but we are a good side that needs some fine tuning.

Will be interested to see if we get this done.

Chelsea and value isn't two words you can put together though.

It was said at the time that we overpaid for Gordon. I don't think anyone would pay 60m for Gordon, although with what the likes of Chelsea do, who knows. Either way, I'm more than happy to be wrong. The lads gannin no where.

Or by my calculations (Top 5): Isak 120m Bruno 100m Botman 60m Joelinton 60m Gordon 50m I can deal with selling players but IF we have to sell players, we are putting clubs over a barrel and not letting players go for beans.

Not anger, no.

If you think we should go from high pressing, fast action, get the fans off their seat, its about the team not the individual Howe to pragmatic, insta-success, its all about me Mourinho, you don't understand football. Clubs hire sporting directors specifically to prevent this madness. A medium term vision would see any Howe replacement (not that there needs to be one), as a similar type manager and not the polar opposite. In short, hiring Mourinho would be the equivalent of ripping up the blueprint and tearing down the foundations.

Part of me thinks we should fuck off this transfer window. I'd rather we go mental in the summer.

I think the journos know fuck all again. Phillips is just an easy link. Wouldn't shock me if a surprise loan from abroad happened.

Why? I hope you aren't suggesting Hayden should play for us.

Still don't feel like he's anywhere near his potential. Frightning stuff. First half against City was possibly the best we've seen of him though. Such a devastating player.

It was a British transfer record . It was 7m. Losing Cole was the problem, not the money we got the other way.

Just bare in mind that Craig Hope gets pelters on here for his negativity (some headlines are ridiculous mind), even he saw the positives.

Aye we conceded in the 70th minute or something. They were knackered. We had no subs. It's not hard to grasp. Why not send Eddie an email about what you would have done differently.

Dubravka made numerous game saving saves today. He also played out from the back better than Pope, but that will go unnoticed. Dubravka is our number 2. I'm pretty fucking pleased our number 2 is actually half decent.

Thank you to the voices of reason in here who seem to understand who we are, where we've come from and what we were up against today. Full behind Eddie and these lads. It might get worse before it gets better, but it will get better.

"Not having that tired reason". That will be the... the players are fucking exhausted chasing the ball for 100 minutes... reason. Ask any professional footballer.

It's worse than that because we scored twice and were 1 minute away from a creditable draw. The fact we fought like that is testament to the players, not to their detriment.