KaKa

1 minute ago, Holloway said:

I do enjoy a Krafth surge forward

He's been really good.

2 minutes ago, Smal said:

There is nothing about Almiron’s game that suggests he can play on the right. Nee idea why we keep trying it.

Don't understand how a professional can be so adverse to using their weaker foot. At least be able to strike the ball or at least side foot the ball with it.

Could have just gone with a strike with his right after that lovely disguised ball from Bruno, but started checking back onto his left as usual ...

1 minute ago, Bompeter said:

 

Name change to the Oracle please. 

No.

Knew Miggy should have shot there. So annoying.

No right foot ...

Offside ...

Yeeeeaaaaaaaaaassssssssssssssssss!!!!!

Just now, David Edgar said:

Stop doing stupid dribbles to nowhere you berk.

I hope something from him comes off and we win tonight, but my God he is really starting to get on my nerves too.

We'll see about that 

What is he, 21 years old? Pretty confident I'll be proven right on him.

56 minutes ago, Mazzy said:

Don't see why Bowen would want to leave in the summer, unless it's for a Champs League team. West Ham won't let him go easy either.

Yeah, can't see that one either.

A more realistic move for another English left footed winger that I really like is Dwight McNeil. Very underrated I think, and outside of Burnley's more rigid style he will be awesome. Whoever gets him from Burnley is going to get a steal there.

1 minute ago, Fantail Breeze said:

Fabio Silva playing for them is good news too, lad is absolutely garbage.

Way to jinx things man. Nice one.

37 minutes ago, tgarve said:

personally think a defender who has spent the majority of his career at championship level is very over hyped . He’s steady- that’s about it and better on the ball than lascelles

 

asm puts himself out there , tries things then gets put down for them not coming off some times. People would prefer a team of runners or obertan I’m sure 

If we stay up it will largely be for the difference Burn made coming in for Lascelles.

Nobody cares about ASM trying things, he just needs to learn when to do those things, to release the ball when multiple players are trying to crowd him out, and to be more engaged when we press.

Looking forward to seeing this midfield three together, with Bruno further up the pitch.

He's going to thread one of those lush through balls for one of our goals tonight. Book it!

Raphina cost around £17 million from France. There are wingers we can still get from there for nowhere near £40 million, or the £72 million Arsenal foolishly paid for Pepe. Zaha is 30 and would still cost us a significant fee and wages. It's a bad deal.

You like Raphina so much, but you don't want the club to go and try and find such a player themselves like Leeds did, but want us instead to go and fork out £75 million for him. It's that kind of lazy approach that will do us in.

You say why spend on an unknown quantity? Well because, that's the way football works, if the club does the work behind the scenes on the player and are happy with their profile and valuation then make the deal. Paying over the odds for Zaha at his age is a bad idea, and there is absolutely no guarantee he'd be a success here either, as I don't think he's that good that you can expect that as a certainty.

1 hour ago, Outremont said:

It’s unfair Maxi cops this much criticism, especially when Burn has cost us at least 6 of the last 9 points and gets away with it. 

Burn has won us far more points than he has cost us, and even in the matches he has made mistakes he has performed very well for the majority. His contribution to our improved defensive performances has been massive.

Also, there's nothing unfair about the criticism of ASM whatsoever, he needs to iron out a few things. It's been particularly glaring this season, because of how admirably the team performed when he was out injured.  

I honestly think you could find at least 20 better wingers in France that would be better quality players for a fraction of the price, in comparison to Zaha.

We literally got ASM from there as a throwaway from Nice. I've seen people saying we should spend £75 million on Raphina, but again he came in from France for around what we paid for ASM.

The lack of imagination is astonishing man.  

Just now, ManDoon said:

You don’t like Nunez?

Nah, not you man. Nunez is the sort we should be after, although I do think he has done too well this year now like others have said, and so I think there'll be too much competition from more established clubs.

It's the Zaha talk that has completely befuddled me.

So glad a number of folks on here aren't in charge of our summer spend. My God ...

4 minutes ago, Fantail Breeze said:

 

I’d take anyone like that, because we need to think of a squad rather than our first 11. Our squad is atrocious.

 

Zaha is better than Matt Ritchie or Jacob Murphy, for example.

 

We unfortunately can’t buy 18 players in the summer, but it’s at the stage where pretty much anyone is an improvement on what we’ve got.

Now more than ever, we shouldn't just be taking anyone. 

We really can't end up being saddled with expensive dross like Everton have.

We shouldn't be going anywhere near Zaha. Please God, no.

He turns 30 this year, and he really isn't that great. A big NO from me. 

Watford look like they will be going down and if we stay up then I'd have both Sarr and Emmanuel Dennis in ahead of him. If Burnley drop down, Cornet ahead of him too.

12 hours ago, reefatoon said:

I don't even think you need to double up on him. Teams are now realising that if you give him a boot in the first couple of minutes, he is not the same player after. He hates the physical side of the game, but he needs to get over that and stop moaning and rolling around for ages. He needs to shrug it off and show the opposition he can take that side of the game and it doesn't let it affect him. If he sorts that out and doesn't let his head drop after getting fouled, he will be so much better for it. Needs to toughen up to be a better player.

Was saying this to a friend during the game. His body language is terrible in these sorts of instances and the other team feeds off it, while it seems to discourage his team mates after a while because it leaves them short on numbers defensively when the ball is lost.

It's a shame really ... but I'm kind of getting tired of the guy tbh.

6 hours ago, Fantail Breeze said:

Decent managers know to just kick him and put three players on him and he’s completely out of the game.

It's so easy man ... just crowd him when he gets the ball, because he never looks up to release the ball early, ever. He just tries to dribble past them all, and they can then just bully him off the ball and go the other way on an instant counter attack.

31 minutes ago, Manxst said:

This is where I’m at too. He’s on £250k at Chelsea, so won’t be leaving for much less than that, IF he does go. I’d rather we put those wages towards any of those players you’ve mentioned, or even two of them- Bruno is allegedly on £120k for comparison, so whatever we could pay the likes of Jonathan David would be a sizeable improvement and incentive compared to what he’s currently earning. 

Yes, exactly. I think some people are just more comfortable with known names, and just have no faith in bringing in an emerging player instead that they don't know much about yet. It's not the way we should be going though, there's some terrific younger talent out there we should be prioritizing that we can get for better prices and wages and who have the potential to reach the top and are still driven to do so.

Like you, I'm also a big fan of Jonathan David and think that would be such a great signing for us this summer. Very versatile forward that can also play on either wing and behind another front man as well. Has now lit up both the Belgian league and French league in quick succession and is rising very fast. Whoever snaps him up this summer will be very happy. And in another few years I think he'll be right up there as one of the higher valued forwards in the game that will be too expensive for most.

Why should we be the ones to try and find out if Werner can figure things out after he leaves Chelsea? No thanks. He's no doubt on a sizeable wage, and he'd no doubt still cost a fair whack.

I'd much rather see us go for the likes we were linked with in January, so one of Jonatahan David, Nunez, Schick, Beto, Dembele, Simeone etc.

Werner coming here and continuing to struggle would be a disaster not worth risking.

11 minutes ago, macphisto said:

Fair enough, every other top club has it wrong. Salah and Mane were four and five years ago, they would be a lot more now. I have mentioned Rob Lee numerous times as an example of players we can also aim for but you just ignore it. What would Van Dijk and Allison go for now? An example where they had to spend big money, it's unavoidable if you want to win things. 

 

I am not saying this summer but we'll definitely have to start spending a lot of money next year if we want to reach the owners stated ambitions. As daft as this may sound, £30/£40 million pound players will only get you so far in this league. I doubt it would get you competing consistently for Champions League positions and you certainly wouldn't be anywhere near winning the league. 

 

Name one club that has consistently competed in England without spending a lot of money? You can't as there isn't a team like that unless you go back to before the Premier League.

 

FA cup winners: Usual top spenders apart Everton 1995, Wigan 2013 and Leicester 2021

Premier League winners: Usual top spenders apart from Leicester 2016

Champions League: Almost always the top spenders qualify and certainly the top spenders win it.

 

 

I'm not saying we shouldn't spend. I just don't believe it has to be in the £100 million bracket when we're talking about individual players.

I think we'd be infinitely closer to our goals bringing in 3 - 5 players with a £100 million consistently rather than spending that kind of money on one individual player.

I think perhaps when we get to the point where we have a great team in place, and we are in and around the mix of challenging for things, and we maybe feel we need one special player to get us over the hump, then maybe at that point we make that kind of signing. But for now I don't think it's the way to go.

35 minutes ago, macphisto said:

How is that ridiculous when every team we will be competing against will have a few players, possibly more than a few, worth £100 million???? You can't get to the stated aims of the owners, starting from where we are without doing that in the next year or two.  Also why are you ignoring what I said, I'll repeat for the 3rd time that yes you'll need smart recruitment like Rob Lee but we'll also have to spend a lot of money. 

 

The four best strikers I have seen in my lifetime are Beardsley, Cole, Ferdinand and Shearer. Based on your thinking we would never have signed Ferdinand and Shearer when we did. 

 

You can quote Everton, but I'll give you this list from the last 10 years. Some teams have won more than others but that's when structure, philosophy and managers come into play. 

 

The top 10 highest spending clubs in world football
1. Manchester City - £1.38bn – 260 arrivals

2. Chelsea - £1.33bn – 342 arrivals

3. Barcelona - £1.28bn – 156 arrivals

4. Manchester United - £1.24bn – 167 arrivals

5. Juventus - £1.24bn – 533 arrivals

6. Paris Saint-Germain - £1.17bn – 177 arrivals

7. Atletico Madrid - £940m – 216 arrivals

8. Real Madrid - £920m – 133 arrivals

9. Arsenal - £890m – 195 arrivals

10. AS Roma - £870m – 508 arrivals

 

Liverpool are not on the list but they spent when they had to on Van Dijk and Alisson. 

 

It's dreamland to think we can somehow buck the trend of every other successful team. 

 

We absolutely do not need to buy players currently worth £100 million to compete. I think that is ridiculous.

The key is identifying players with that kind of ability that are on the rise and can be bought before they have hit those kind of sums.

Building up the squad with players similar to the profile of Guimaraes is exactly what we should be aiming to do right now, and we will be well on our way.

Ironically Liverpool under Klopp are mostly made up of players that were not considered at the very top tier at the time they were bought, but grew into that. Both Salah and Mane cost in the £30 millions. That is the sort of approach we should be going with.