KaKa

Edouard scores from his first touch and shot

I am very very impressed by the work Viera has done so far. Palace look miles better than us already.

If Edouard comes in scoring goals at anywhere near the same rate as he did at Celtic this team could be solid.

1 minute ago, Segun Oluwaniyi said:

I agree with the sentiment about Zaha, but that was very poor and rash from Tanganga. Guy spent the last few minutes playing like an area boy and fully deserved his red.

Tanganga is a certified ruffian on the pitch. Very very aggressive strong defender, but it's never really malicious. I like his game and potential, just needs to drop it down a notch for sure. 

Just now, neesy111 said:

 

I just see how much Messi is kicked and have you ever seen him kick off?  Ofcourse he's annoyed but you're right that zaha makes it a huge event.

Yup, same with Ronaldo. Very occasionally they might kick off, but never to the extent you see Zaha do it every single game.

As a top player that runs at people and is skilful and tricky it just comes with the territory. No idea why he's always so surprised by it. 

1 minute ago, neesy111 said:

There's a reason he's still at crystal palace.

Yeah, I think mentally he's just not strong enough.

Zaha is so overly sensitive man. Never seen a player take a tackle so personally. You'd think he was the only skill player that gets kicked. Ridiculous guy.

Yeah, it's the ideal situation for him to come straight in and have a great start in front of their home fans. A complete no brainer. Be crazy if Ole doesn't start him.

1 hour ago, Paully said:

 

I imagine Rafa was continuing to pore over the finer details of his team over the international break, while our manager was off for a lie about in the sun after just three games of the season.

45 minutes ago, gjohnson said:

Rondon is massively underrated by anyone who's not seen him play regularly. I'll freely admit i thought he was a bad/cheap signing at the time, but was hugely impressed by his work rate and skill.

 

It's strange how such a good player can stay hidden from the elite for so long. Sadly he's probably a bit too old for a Champions League team to even look at him now even though he probably deserved that chance

After his brief stint at Zenit, where he started to be more of a consistent goal threat I thought he'd get a decent move and was shocked when West Brom and Pulis signed him.

Pulis' terrible approach did not do the guy any favours at all, as it did not showcase all of his abilities. Pretty much ruined his chances of getting a more high profile move afterwards. 

Of course it would end up being Rafa that would recognise he could get so much more out of him, and get him out of that situation at West Brom. If Rafa and Rondon had stayed and got a full pre-season together along with Perez and Almiron, I reckon he would have gone on to score at least 15-20 goals for us easily, and cemented himself as a top striker in the prem.

2 minutes ago, Joey Linton said:

Ryan Fraser injured too. Pulled out of the Scotland squad. 

The way Bruce has completely destroyed this guy's career so quickly is bloody impressive. Hasn't even been used in the first team since he's joined.

Both Joelinton and Hendrick have regularly been used ahead of him for goodness sake.

Pretty sure the guy swans off on holiday every time there is an international break.

41 minutes ago, Shearergol said:

 

"Going to be"

I hear you. We're there already!

Quote

Speaking after the game, the 29-year-old said: “I had a tight quad from the 10th, 11th minute in the game. I managed to get to half-time, then just managed it myself. I felt I was going to get a chance, so I wanted to stay on and give something back to the team.”

So Bruce kept him out there leading to the long term injury then. Brilliant.

Way to compromise the one goal scorer we have at the club. 

The buffoonery is all coming to a head this season. Going to be a complete an utter disaster.

Deschamps is the absolute worst.

Quote

"in the top six of the form table over the final nine fixtures"

They genuinely felt that the team would just carry on in that vein with Willock coming in permanently

Hopefully this statement and the expectations of the team easily achieving 12th again means Bruce gets the sack when we stay in the bottom 3 week in and week out.

1 hour ago, Hhtoon said:

"Having finished last season in 12th place in the Premier League, and in the top six of the form table over the final nine fixtures, the club at all levels maintains a strong belief in its current squad. We have a talented and committed group of players who have shown that they are fully capable of delivering"

 

No mention or praise of Bruce here, in fact they seem to pointedly avoid referring to him directly. Hopefully all is not happy in paradise.

This is why every jammy win the manager gets winds me up so much.

They actually genuinely believe the team is good and Bruce is earning decent results.

Looking forward to getting back to prem games and the beatings we will be taking. Ridiculous club.

17 minutes ago, ManDoon said:

I think it was different here though. We’d only seen him in a Pulis team. They’ve seen how good he was for us 

This is true, but still thought the criticism was harsh at the time. He was way better than any of our other strikers were and was always going to bring a lot more to the table with his presence and heading ability alone.

Man, Rondon was fantastic. Still can't believe no one else picked him up after that season with us.

17 hours ago, Numbers said:

Everton fans moaning their tits off about signing Rondon. Fucking depressing.

Same thing happened on here too with him, unfortunately. The gladiator will win them over.

I mean he's backing up DCL for goodness sake, who always plays. Not like he's going into the first team. He'll do a lot more than Moise Kean did for them, or what King did last season.

6 minutes ago, Tomato Deuce said:

What’re the chances this kid was only on our radar because the name?

100% been done as some sort of marketing ploy

3 minutes ago, TaylorJ_01 said:

 

True, but what was he worth before the loan? Developing and raising a player's value then paying it seems like something that'd annoy Mike tonnes.

That's a good question. Definitely would have got him for less than that I imagine, probably more around the £15 million mark. Easily avoided by inserting an option to make the deal permanent with a fee agreed on ahead of time. No idea why that isn't always included.

50 minutes ago, joeyt said:

Really? That's some step down from Celtic and Marseille

Very weird. Especially because he's better than most of our centre mids.

5 minutes ago, TaylorJ_01 said:

Don't quite understand why Mike Ashley would ever agree to a 'senior' player loan. If he has a stormer, he'll obviously just go elsewhere, if he's shite then it'll be a waste of money.

To be fair we just signed Willock after a successful loan here.

10 minutes ago, toon25 said:

West Ham doing great business. Alex Kral lined up as their next signing.

West Ham and Villa have put us to shame this summer.

1 minute ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

It’s still no way to run a club though. There needs to be a connection between the transfer strategy, the manager and the tactics/player types that the manager wants to use. All have to be working together. 
 

However good Carr was, having one bloke decide on who a club signs and doesn’t sign is a recipe for disaster. 

I imagine the recruitment team still has discussions about the areas of the team that need strengthening based on how the manager wants to play etc, and then provides a good range of options as far as players are concerned. I think it can work.

However, the most important bit is having a manager/head coach that is in agreement with the setup from the outset, which Ashley never does. He just tries to strong arm random managers into going along with it, and when they kick up a fuss he just ignores them and signs no one

Just now, HaydnNUFC said:

 

All this fuss over Hamza Choudhury man.