Andy

The reason it often doesn't happen is that the pacey winger is doubled up on by Joelinton or Gordon. It's been rare historically that Burn has been allowed to be isolated 1v1.

If any other manager was in charge of this squad of players, there's no way Dan Burn would start at left back. Love Eddie but he needs to realise he's getting this one wrong and it's costing us.

He can mix it at this level but has obviously still got a load of physical development to do, especially in his engine room, he always noticeably drops off after about 50 minutes. Going to be a top player when we can afford to ease him in and out of games.

While I agree about his first half performance, it's not much good if he can't do it for 90 minutes, which he rarely can this season. He's been done time and time again this half.

So much better, great to see us higher up the pitch and getting our foot on the ball

Aye it's shite. You're in a perfect place for a once a generation title push, but despite having money, you can't strengthen due to FFP, so you'll drop off, probably find yourself in a similar boat to us next season where you struggle to maintain top 4 due to champions league being the focus. You'll shift on key players to the big six, and probably never get back into this position for a decade. Absolute closed shop.

I guess the counter argument would be that Pep doesn't need to manage fitness and fatigue to the same extent that Howe does, since he has an infinitely deep squad. Doesn't really matter if he runs players into the ground as he can switch them out when necessary.

Love Bruno but he does try to force the play too often sometimes. Needs to learn to keep it simple and pick his moments. 30 yard, outside of the boot through balls look mint when they come off, but in general they're about as effective as Shelvey's hollywood passes used to be, especially when Isak is stranded. Feel like this is something he's introduced to his game far more regularly this season, maybe it's due to a lack of moment around him I guess.

Poor performance but a good result. Managed the game well after the second goal. Hopefully will give us some confidence going into Villa.

We need both tbh. A proper, athletic "6" would help add some actual drive and cohesion to our build up, Bruno just isn't dynamic enough in that role.

Poor performance, let's build on the goal in the second half though. Please don't try to sit back.

Aye, this has been the standard away performance all season. We have no coherence and no belief.

All of our midfielders are shite in front of goal tbf. He's probably the best of the bunch and that's arguably his worst attribute.

I'm sure it'll get sorted, but if not, it would be a huge misstep to let Big Joe go. As well as being the embodiment of the club's rise from the dust over the last few years, he's easily our most dynamic player. It'll be difficult to find a player who adequately replaces what he brings.

Aye. "We won't get £20m for him so we should sell him for £12m". Erm, how about we just keep him instead?

Frankly can't believe we've laughed off £13m for a 33 year old Kieran Trippier and allegedly want around £25m for Miguel Almiron. Do our owners think they're playing football manager?

The market has changed since then, and he is worth far more to us both on and off the field than he was to Atletico.

You're referring to my post in the Almiron thread which you quoted earlier, which I'd like to correct you on - it was in Euros. £25m from Saudi is fair value for a player who hit double figures last season and is a regular premier league starter. If you think £11m for Trippier is good value you're clueless btw.

I don't know what's more laughable, the idea that we'd want £11m for him or the idea that Bayern wouldn't instantly stump up such a small fee for a player of his ability. He still has a good 2 or 3 years left in him tbh, 33 isn't as old as people make it out to be in the current game; it's not like he's had an injury plagued career. People are completely blinded by that dip on form he had in December, prior to that he was playing the best football of his career.

I don't rate Miggy, but in the current market, £25-30m to a Saudi club isn't unrealistic like, when you look at what they've spunked on other players. In terms of contributions, he's been far more valuable for us over the past 12 months than ASM ever was for example, and he fetched a similar fee.

I don't think he does fuck all else on the pitch and never said that, you created an argument where there wasn't one I was assessing him on his output as a wide forward with the "purple patch" comment. My comparison was also directly with Murphy, who works almost equally as hard so the more relevant point of comparison was their output.

I don't disagree with that, but at some point you have to replace graft with consistent end product when it comes to wide forwards. The only way we'll ever be able to do that is by selling squad players like Miggy when their stocks are as high as they're going to get.

If you remove that spell from last season where everything he hit was going in, it's a different story though. It's not unfair to say it was a purple patch given that he's never replicated it before or after. Wingers back in the day were more the traditional cross early/beat a man and cross type too. Not inverted forwards as they are now. Someone like Robert for example was far more effective than Miggy even though he scored less goals for us.

That says more about the standard of wingers we've had for the majority of that time to be fair. The few decent ones we've had have been moved on far more swiftly than Miggy.

The problem is, Miggy should also be a squad player, not a starter. But of all the players you could define by that sentence, he's by far the one you could get the most money for. If the club HAVE to sell someone, he is the best option imo.