alexf

We tried putting him there back in the 23-24 season when we had that awful injury crisis. Think I remember him doing a stint upfront against Bournemouth away? Was absolutely tragic. Didn't work at all and we lose his qualities in midfield as a double whammy. Plus his finishing is still pretty poor even though he chips in with the odd nice goal.

Yeah it didn't seem that straight forward to me if it was true.

Just caught that spurs 2023 6-1 clip on YouTube and it did make me think. If Isak wasn't being a dick and Willock wasn't injured we could easily have fielded 10 of the first 11 from that game in our first game this season. Even if you take those two players out we defo could be fielding 8 of that same 11 if we played a back 3/5. How many other teams in the league would that be the same for? I don't know if it's good that we retained all these players that set a high level in 22/23 or if it's bad that 3 years later in 25/26 we have struggled to refresh the squad and still rely on the majority of the same faces.

Does Eze really have a £65m release clause? I find that hard to believe and even more so that no one has activated it given some of prices alot more average players have gone for this summer.

PSG were walking for about 80 mins of that. Clearly miles of it fitness wise after all the football they played without a decent break. Spurs did the basics well but they weren't anything amazing. It just showed how much fitness and sharpness counts at the top level. As soon as psg woke up after the first they were all over them.

Or you stole that line from peep show.

I think that isn't a bad shout. I know it's not all been bad there but mostly we have struggled away to them in recent times so it's worth trying something different. Setting up to be rock solid but with our pace on the counter I think we could cause them trouble. If we go high press and normal 4-3-3 as per then I can see Trippier , Burn and Schar all being badly exposed here. With also the added lack of threat through the middle if its Gordon alone upfront. I'm sure Eddie has a plan and it's no coincidence our bad performance there last year coincided with him being away in hospital.

I do agree that this "threat" which again is just a leaked quote and not a direct on the record quote, is a last hail Mary attempt to force us into a sale. If it doesn't work then I'm pretty sure he won't have the courage to see it through and will claim he never said that he wouldn't play for us again and that he now wants to play. Still think he will go before the deadline unfortunately.

What would be nice is it we could go to Villa park and for once not leave Schar consistently isolated up against Watkins. That ball over the top when we are pushed up high just exposes Schar's lack of pace and Watkins always causes us massive problems. Would hope we can finally learn some lessons and set up a little more proactively.

Sucks that we are still the losers in that scenario. He misses a number of games..will take awhile to get up to full match sharpness and ultimately will still be sulking and playing below his best. Or he might stick to his guns (unlikely) and not play at all til the next transfer window.

We'd break the wage structure for Jacob Ramsey but not to keep Alexander Isak?

Tell that to those quoting Matt Targett or Lloyd Kelly's weekly salaries

Takes Isak's locker

Romano seems to have a tendency to downplay the cost of Liverpool, Chelsea , Man U spend to the minimum it might be and then the opposite and hype up the high end figure when it's us.

Must be remembered that back in 22/23 Wilson was in direct competition with Isak and was regularly starting ahead of him and having a great goalscoring season himself. We don't have a 22/23 (18 goals) equivalent to Wilson right now to fall back on if Isak goes. We have Osula and Gordon. If we get a Wissa or equivalent then agreed the drop off shouldn't be as severe. But we will see against Villa and Liverpool if we have no one new to play up top how much of a difference it makes. Just look at how much we improved when we got Wood in 21/22. Yes he didn't score the goals but it improved the function of the rest of the team having a recognised striker.

Yeah no chance Villa would allow him to play against them so if this is done. Don't expect to hear confirmation until after the Friday squad reg cut off.

Thinking another way though. Dubravka - £1-2m maybe? Kelly - £17-20m? Longstaff - £12m Almiron - £8m? Wilson - £0 Total income: £38-42m Ramsdale - £4m loan (£20m buy?) Thiaw - £30m (+£4m add ons) Ramsey - £35m? (Total £40m?) Elanga - £52m (3m add ons) Wissa- £35-40m? Total cost £156-173m (not counting Ramsdale future buy price) So roughly if all max prices are received and spent were looking at at outlay of £131m so far if we are adding Wissa into the figures. Plus whatever wages we have added more than we dropped. That's alot of money to us and where we are currently and with PSR to have only really improved on our backups, added zero extra depth and maybe 1 likely first 11 starter in Elanga. It would certainly mean we need the Isak money if we want to try and sign a "purple" again in this or future windows I suspect.

For the record I was saying if Willock had carried on his form of 22-23 and kept growing as a player then he would be worth £40m or there abouts too. But obviously he didn't and there's a reason we would struggle to give Willock a way for free at the moment and we are paying £40m for a player who has had similar injury issues. Clearly he's a better player but Willock had alot of unfulfilled potential. But it's just that... and will likely remain now unfulfilled

Just a shame we might feasibly have lost our star striker and difference maker for possibly nothing if we don't sell and he refuses to play. But agreed. Depth is slowly but surely improving. Fuck you Isak.

So we're swapping Willock for Willock effectively. If Willock had stayed fit and maintained his form of 22-23 then he'd be in the £40m bracket too. Not that I think Ramsey is worth that. He was when he burst on the scene but he's had a tough last two years, similar to Willock. Just don't like the idea of giving Villa £40m of homegrown bonus PSR.

Hope beating Romano by a minute. Almost like these Twitter gimps just regurgitate anything that comes out and claim it for themselves. Still £40m is a big risk and also hands a wad of homegrown PSR cash to one of our closest rivals.

People called it on here last summer when they were rejecting our crazy high bids that he will bend over for Liverpool for half the price the next summer.

I know the more Isak acts the prick now the more people will buy into this conspiracy. But have to say I think it's complete bullshit.

Of course that's your opinion. Just trying to understand why? Who would you be wanting to drop out of the team for him? Would you want him permanently or just for a year on loan (which Eddie doesn't like doing so wouldn't be possible anyways)