Conjo

I'd prefer Joelinton - Bruno - Willock over Joelinton - Shelvey - Bruno, but like many others I'm almost certain it will be the latter.

Yeah, prime Robert. Easily.

Bit weird to think that if we play Joelinton, Shelvey and Bruno as a midfield 3, we'll be fielding a 100m central midfield trio.

I mean...Nketiah is more exciting and pleasing on the eye, but he is 22 and has 5 PL goals in his career while Wood as his senior has scored more than that in every season he's played, so that would be my assumption unless Nketiah has a break through moment.

Nketiah is a decent 3rd option behind Wilson and Wood imo. Would hope we could get a better CB than Burn in, but at least he will improve what we have. If we get Bruno in together with those two on top of Trippier and Wood I'd say it's been a very pleasant transfer window and that Howe has gotten the support he needs to keep us up.

This I don't agree with. This I agree with. Maybe I haven't watched enough of him, but Lingard doesn't strike me as a player that dictates a match. In his first 10 matches for West Ham he scored 9 and assisted 4 goals. He managed 0 goals & 1 assist in remaining 6 matches which is more in line with the rest of his career so it's safe to assume it is more likely a purple patch like Willock rather than being a player teams have to take special precautions against. We seem to be getting a proper CM that we've been screaming out for in Bruno. If we get him, I think our next priority should be a CB considering the amount of goals we let in.

He's 10 months younger than Joelinton, hardly up an coming talent. It's more like we're buying a top player who should be at or close to reaching his peak.

Not really fussed whether we get him or not. He would definitely be useful for the next 4 months, but not crtical for survival imo if we get Bruno and a CB in before the window shuts. There's younger and better players we can bring in for next season.

I love that Supermac video. It must have been so much fun to watch him play. Built like a tank, seemingly able to leave every defender for dead even when they are trying to piggyback onto him on his way to goal, agile, tough in duels. For anyone that has seen him play, or watched more than that video of him - did he have any weaknesses?

Never heard of him but very pleased to see we are seemingly adressing our weakest position.

I was mostly a lurker on here at the time of signing up back in '06, but do remember fondly @Gemmill contributions to the board for a short while until you stopped posting. Hope you and the other new/old ones stick around

@ManDoon

That's a pretty optimistic worst case He's nowhere near the player Santa Cruz was.

The keeper gifted us the goal though. Imagine if that FK was against us, and the comments on here if it was Darlow that let that one in

I said when his dribbles are/were successful it looks like nothing else I've ever watched in football. I tried to make that distinction because obviously there will be better players than him in the future, but I doubt I'll ever see someone that looks so good doing what he is doing.

I hope you're right, and you probably are in terms of skills/performances vs output/results. However, I can't think of a single player I've ever watched that is more aesthetically pleasing to watch when his dribbles come off as HBA. I doubt I'll ever witness something like that again.

I think Manquillo on for Dummett made a bigger difference in the second half tbh. I'd be fine with Longstaff playing 45 minutes, but he's not able to play a full 90 minutes. Joelinton beasts it from start to finish.

Besides Messi I can't really think of a player in the last 20 years whos had as refined technique as Ben Arfa. Cronaldo (back when he dribbled)/ASM dribbling looks so frantic and reliant on being explosive. Ben Arfa seems to be gliding smoothly, in lack of a better description Fucking love watching him play.

Bit rich of a social worker to claim he wouldn't be in a job if he put in the same effort as our players did today

Agreed. I got a bit sentimental tbh when his shot that got blocked when ASM played him through on the break at the end of the match when you could see how much pain he was in but instead of laying down like 90% of footballers would do he battled through the pain and ran the full stretch of the pitch back to help defend.

Maybe the main problem is his fitness. I've seen him start games good, but quickly dissapear. Today he had the energy left in the final minutes to make a difference.

He definitely wasn't like. Raphina got past him every single time. He misplaced passes in familiar fashion and almost cocked it up with the ball to Dubs. He doesn't have the recovery pace anymore either. Game changed when Manquillo came on isn't a coincidence. He's a lame horse that needs to be put out of it's misery. Awful player.

Should have put a bet on