alexf

Yeah I was about to say. Would feel like a massive downgrade actually. Big Joe is massive for us when fit and healthy and pops up occasionally with some important goals. It's just a shame his finishing is so erratic because sometimes his touch can be sublime. (Spurs last season)

Oh I agree. Just in an ideal scenario where we weren't stretched by goddamn FFP. But if it's needs must then I don't mind the club making difficult decisions and short term pain if they manage it right and it leads to more long term joy.

I get the need to flog some of those players mentioned it we want to progress and upgrade. However....it doesn't build any depth. Unless you are also going to buy a whole host of cheap young players in the summer also, then even if we replace these players with better, we are only an injury to them away from fielding the likes of Ritchie (or equivalent) again. I think my hope was that we would be able to phase out the likes of Miggy, Trippier, Wilson etc and they would be great fresh squad players to use where their age wouldn't be an issue not needing to play every week.

If ASM was £25m then id expect to receive the same minimum for Miggy. Scored way more goals last year than ASM so should be easy to justify.

I think they would obviously prefer to sell older players like Miggy and Trippier. Ideally neither of any of our other squad players had any value. I think selling a Bruno is worst case if we got desperate as he and Isak are our highest value assets. But the likes of Gordon, Isak,Botman and Bruno I believe are what we are trying to build around. They won't be trying to flog all of them. Just the older players that have some value. Miggy is probably the best of the rest as he had a strong season last year for output. Joelinton is probably the other that they may seem worth getting a fee for in the summer.

Think it's a big risk losing 1 and potentially 2 first 11 players who have more or less stayed fit somehow despite this awful injury crisis. We are in freefall in the league, with no suggestion our form is going to turn around anytime soon with Joelinton potentially out for the season, Bruno about to serve a 2 match ban and relying on long term injured players to return to hit the ground running. I think finishing bottom half would be pretty bad for us. If these sales meant we were able to get at least a CM and possibly a RW in January then great. But I suspect this is a balancing the books exercise and we wait til summer.

Big 1996 era vibes with these which I assume was the intention. Remember the King Kev and Terry Mac ones.

was it confirmed anywhere that he has had the op? Or are they doing another wait and see situation?

Yeah can't be throwing injure prone at him yet. He had a really bad hamstring pull meaning he got no preseason and then came back and had to play lots of minutes straight away and suffered another injury as most would. This season is almost a right off for him unfortunately, kind of mirrors the whole team, and would be one of the examples of perhaps our medical department not managing our returning players strongly compared with the other unfortunate freak injuries we also sustained. But I have sympathy. Who else could have played in those games we asked him to play? As we have already seen the squad is empty below the surface. I'm pretty sure even Miley was out with glandular fever around that time aswell?

Back to Milan because he's homesick. Don't rule it out ?

Actually feel most nervous about losing him due to the lack of top strikers out there in the world. But I would only if our form continues till the end of the season. If we pick up some momentum leading into the summer and then get into a position to really attack next season then I'm confident we wouldn't lose him to somewhere else. That finish was as "elite" as it gets. He's shown so many times he doesn't need many opportunities. If we could give him more he would score boatloads.

Just left De Bruyne in acres of space so many time#. Like he's not one of the greatest ever when he has time to pick a pass or shot.

Haven't seen it back but it looked the most blatant obstruction/not playing the ball. Lead to Gordon not tracking back properly and being out of position.

That's a massive blow to our hopes of climbing back up the league. He's a really important player for our midfield.

Have to admit I'm abit frustrated at Spurs emergence this year. I really thought after the awful end to the season last year and with Kane leaving we wouldn't have to worry about them. But, and I know they had a massive head start in finances and many years finishing top 6. But they are in a far stronger position that us now in terms of squad depth and quality and I think it's gonna be frustrating trying to break back in next year with the likes of them, Villa now and probably improving Chelsea. All while we will continually have to spend less than them due to FFP.

That's a fair comment. I know Isak has had injury problems but he has to be number one surely. Therefore the most logical would be to bring in a young understudy to cover him and Wilson and bring in a top level player in right wing.

Then Wilson stays fit for remainder of season and Solanke gets crocked 10 mins into his debut ruling him out for 8 months

I think he came out with the intention to test it by running it off as it happened so close to half time. But I think he knew straight away from the look on his face and would have come off regardless of the goal. However I do hope I am wrong and you are right. But if he has any sort of issue, would the sensible thing be to let him recover to avoid potentially reoccurrence once again and then get him back fit and ready for the Villa game which maybe more winnable than this?

I know we have other quality players with potential to improve further (Isak, Botman, Gordon etc) But for me Bruno is the main difference between us being a top 6 squad and a top 12 (mixed in with the likes of (Wolves, Bournemouth etc) I know he lacks the athleticism to be in the real top tier level but he's got something about him that makes him shine ahead of alot of the other clubs. He can find passes and control games when he's on form better than most in this league. He has just suffered a little this year by not having our strong players available with him. If we did decide to sell him, we could easily fall back into the pack we find ourselves with currently, rather than pushing the top 4 again next year.

All depends on players returning and our form and fitness improving. Which are all possible. But right now I can easily see us going to places like Forrest away and losing. But if we get (most importantly for me) Willock back and then possibly Barnes and Murphy to help freshen up the wings. We could build up a lovely bit of momentum. However, we still only have Isak currently available as a fit striker and with Joelinton season being so stop start aswell. I just don't feel as confident as I did before that we finish the season as strong as we will need to make up for our awful recent run.

Some strange backing off by our Cb's for the two shots they had 2nd half. Not sure what's going on there. Also Burn just feels like watching such and oil tanker out there at the moment. I really feel Tino needs to be first choice left back now. Lots of people felt Man U at home was one of our strongest performances this season and that was with Tino marauding down the left. Not to mention his excellent defensive 1v1 work.

So typical that we play them now they have De Bruyne, Doku and probably Haaland back. Not that I thought we would win anyways. We were bit more like our old energetic selves but we still didn't look great and would need to be at full strength squad wise and firing on all cylinders to get something here. Hopefully Tino starts ahead of Burn and Joelinton is fit.

Utterly dominate but would be worried bout Joelinton getting injured here. He's been a stand out here and we need him going forward. Longstaff and Miley together doesn't work.

Ritchie not deemed good enough to start even in that squad 4 years ago. Says a lot about the predicament we have found ourselves in this season that he has started games.

Playing with zero confidence it looks like. Scared to misplace a pass etc. Not what you want for a young player. You want them to be confident and daring to try things others might not. Feel sorry for him. Just hasn't worked so far. Do feel Eddie has picked the wrong moments to use him/not use him.