McCormick

I’ve been really critical of him in the not so distant past but he always seems very professional, coachable and was a big part of us avoiding relegation. Fair play.

Howe is such a gem, man. Rated him before but he’s so much better than I thought.

I think he just means the next deal will (for budget reasons) affect the other deals we can do. Do we go big on a striker and small on a winger? Do we loan a striker and go bigger on 2 positions? Etc. etc.

He does score and assist just not prolifically. He presses well, creates chances and progresses play well. Would be nice if he was quicker but yeah, good player.

He won’t be solving any of our goal issues but he’s a quality player imo.

No-brainer then. Like I said, he seems super unheralded in France.

Yep. Fantastic first touch and vision. Very classy player, good age and good work-rate; really does seem like someone Howe would love to work with. Good news for us is that he’s very under-appreciated/ underrated in France. We’ll still probably need to spend at least 30m to prise him away though.

Won’t come cheap though.

I think he’s really really good tbh; very clever little player. His only downside is he’s not as quick as you’d ideally want for a PL winger. Amazing work rate for a young “flair-player” too.

Linked with Sofiane Diop according to Media Foot. Really promising Monaco player and yep, you guessed it, a right-footed lw.

PIF do this all the time. The Harimain railway, the King Abdulaziz airport, all the housing projects, Neom, Kingdom Tower, Qiddya even. Aim unrealistically high, underfund, delay, delay, delay, fire foreign project leader; rinse and repeat.

The lad threw his career away just to live in Paris. Slow for a wing- option- so I’m not sure where he’d fit -but there’s still quality there. Great price as well.

@The ProphetSee your point, but 6 months ago we didn’t know if we would still be in the Premier League this season.

Saved me a few minutes. Mine was gonna be very similar . Maybe Leicester instead of Man Utd for underperformers.

Draxler’s lack of a game-time is due to him not wanting to leave Paris. After being touted around for years, he actually took a pay cut to stay there despite being told he’d be mostly a bench-warmer. From a purely footballing perspective you have to question that kind attitude. That being said, I think he’s a decent player. Slightly slow for a winger but versatile, really clever, good technically and a good presser too. If he’s motivated, I’d take him.

I’d be fine with it- it’s an upgrade- but it doesn’t solve our issue of not having a proper rw. Also, there’s no chance of Leicester selling unless we make a truly ridiculous offer imo.

Most people, I would assume?

25m could get you Cornet, Dennis or possibly Sarr; all proven PL performers. I will say it probably won’t get you the top performers for a current PL team but there are definitely PL players you can buy for that price that would improve the team. Obviously this is due to how poor (Maxi aside) our wide options are.

Agree for the most part but you could definitely improve upon our wide options with 25m.

Pre-Raphinha and Philips sales I reckon Leeds would have taken 25m for Harrison. Highly unlikely now though.

Our strongest links seem to be with 2 footed-players tbf. Gives us the option to switch if maxi isn’t pulling out the numbers we need from that side.

They both are tbf. Pardew’s method is slightly more palatable though, to me anyway. Really can’t stand Wor Steve’s woe-is-me schtick.

I will say, in defense of Pardew (), whenever he’s on Beinsports he’s always very complimentary to the club and the fans. Usually he gets into heated arguments with dossers Keys and Gray and will often challenge them on their use of cliched criticisms of our fan base (albeit despite he himself using those same cliches during his time here). You’d imagine Bruce would use the same air-time to belt out his well-worn violin routine.

I think the reason I dislike Bruce more is that at least Pardew seemed to have the self-awareness that he wasn’t up to it and was simply blagging his way through the job. With Bruce though, despite the same levels of ineptitude, you get the impression that he legitimately thinks that he’s a good manager but situations are conspiring against him. You never see that bloated cunt hold himself accountable for any of his massive shortcomings.

Doubt they’ll stick to that. Looked really special until his back injury; he just came back and hasn’t looked quite the same (or still still recovering). Bit of a risk but, in theory, it’s the best time to go for him if we want decent value.