Conjo

When I think of creative players it's the Bruno types who can split open a defence with a pass nobody else sees or predicts, or dribbles past players in unconventional ways like Isak and HBA. Maybe I do have a narrow definition of what creativity means, or just very high standards Nothing to see here. I love Gordon.

If you go back and look at his assists, they aren't a result of him being a creative player. Either easy lay offs after working hard for the ball or whipped crosses for the most part. Didn't he win almost as many penalties as he got assists? If they counted as assists his numbers would have looked absolutely ridiculous, but he do fall over easy to win them many times, hence my comment. This isn't intended to shit on him before any white knights chirps in. He's a great player. He just isn't what I consider a creative player.

Keeling over by the slightest touch in the box to win a penalty is being a creative outlet? He's ruthless, effective and hard working, but creative isn't a label I'd put on him personally.

Given Trippier Schar Woodgate Enrique Batty Bruno Joelinton Ben Arfa Ginola Shearer Didn't read OP so might have misunderstood the assignment, but that team would have been so much fun to watch.

We had a young back-up striker in Shola for 14 years

Just nice to have a young promising striker available to take some of to load off if Isak or Wilson is injured so the fit one don't have to play every minute of every game, thus increasing the chance of both Isak and Wilson being injured at the same time.....and obviously to have a recognized striker available if both are injured at the same time.

That ship sailed a year ago.

It's based on last season, the season before that and the season before that again. Two examples that has occurred once each hardly breaks with his general reluctance to rotate unless absolutely needed.

Desperately need a Norwegian in next now. What's Per Ciljan Skjelbred doing these days?

He prefers to use experienced players, and keeping a settled starting 11. It seems he values a settled 11 with fatigued players over playing a fresh players, or opting for a different kind of player in a position where the player in the settled 11 is hard countered by the opposition. Only notable changes I can think of to the teams he has fielded has come through suspensions and injuries. Would be very happy if he proves me wrong this season, but that is what he has shown me so far since joining.

As long as Wilson is staying, I'm confused as to what kind of player people who aren't happy about this rumou are expecting? Isak is and will be our number 1 striker. We play in a system that only uses one striker. We have Wilson right behind him who will get game time whenever he is fit, and he already fills the experienced back-up role. Is Mitchell and the team supposed to unearth an unknown yet world class striker in his prime years whos been banging in goals for fun for years that nobody else knows about, that will be ecstatic if he gets to play 15% worth of minutes of a season of domestic only football?

It's the way Howe operates. Don't understand why we have to make excuses on his behalf. He didn't play Livramento either unless he absolutely had to. Same with Miley and Anderson.

Yeah, I'm not convinced it was happening at some point if injuries weren't forcing his hand either.

A bit surprised. People were shitting it that we'd lose Isak, Bruno, Gordon when we didn't get to europe. By the looks of it we are now keeping all our key players, have added Kelly, signed Hall permanently and some underwhelming keepers in. Yet there are so many that are miserable that we haven't solved all of our problems.....? If we manage to get a decent right winger in I'd say we've had a pretty good window. If we manage to get a decent CB on top of that we've had a great window. If we manage to get a striker in on top of that again it's 10/10 for me. Without anything more happening I'd still say we've got a team we should expect to compete for top 6 unless we have an even worse injury crisis than last season.

How do you know?

I don't think he's that good on the right, and limits him quite a lot not when not being able to cut inside like he does on the left. Better to play Almiron there imo.

Dan Burn can play are RW too, but he's not particularly good at it.

Why the fuck would they Be lucky if we could give him to them for free with a wage contribution on top of it.

RW is the most important position to improve imo, second is to get a more reliable option to Isak up front. CB would be nice, but isn't a very high priority for me. Schar and Burn are reliable and rarely get injured and we've got Kelly now who can fill, and in emergency Alex Murphy. Botman & Lascelles is back towards the end of the first half of the season. I don't think its worth spending a lot of money on a CB if it means we can't get the targets we want for RW & ST just to have additional cover at CB for 3-4 months. I'd be fine if we waited with getting another CB in until next summer.

Sad thing to happen to the club responsible for gracing us with Gabriel Obertan, Yoan Gouffran and Henri Saivet.

Dovbryk would be Moyes wet dream. Not sure about Lopetegui.

Not really. They just have a better foundation for dealing with it.

I fear it could turn out to be a massive mistake to sell him, but howay it's one goal in a friendly against Kashima Antlers. At least wait until he's scored a few in the league before we start jumping the gun about him being the next Salah.

In hindsight it wasn't due to the unprecedented amount of injuries + our main signing of the summer getting banned for 10 months. When the summer window closed I thought it was pretty decent though.

3 of the players have already played for Villa so assume they wouldn't require much bedding in. Think they are doing smart deals to bulk the squad ahead of a busy season. Probably looked at us last season and identified beefing up the squad rather than just focusing on improving the starting 11 as a key factor in being able to be competitive in all competitions.