timeEd32

I can't imagine arbitration would grant us less than we paid Brighton (+ likely some additional), so that feels like the worst case scenario. The best case scenario is they pay us eight digits while simultaneously getting sued by City.

God, I love our manager.

If he was more of an emotionless robot type of player or a little less ambitious I think I'd be very into the idea of cashing in on him to fund the type of squad rebuild we need. But his bar raising mentality and desire to win things means we're not just replacing an exceptionally talented midfielder. As you said, he's the heartbeat of the team.

Not sure why there's surprise about Shaw when you can barely even name another LB.

He's been given a ton of credit as one of the key players in Palace's run-in. We were linked in January. Annoying as he could very well be our player if it weren't for the financial restrictions.

I agree at a certain price it'd be fine. To me it's mostly about how we use our resources and having a 1A and 1B doesn't seem ideal from that standpoint. But, at the same time, I could see us thinking that the single biggest issue in our entire season was the drop-off at GK and doing whatever we need to do to prevent that from happening again.

This part makes me nervous, but it's so hard to compare across leagues / teams.

I know we're not going to come out and say we're replacing our current #1, but I do find it interesting how we're framing the GK search as competition. I assumed we'd either do: A) Buy a younger, clear backup with a similar style to Pope (or even better with feet) B) Buy an outright replacement But an option C seems to at least be on the table.

No one costs £0. It's hard to know for sure in the murky world of free transfers but Tielemans costs you ~£9-10m per year. Barnes costs us ~£12m per year.

You joke, but that's going to give us as much as we made on transfers from 2020 through 2023 financial years.

I may come to regret this, but I am not even contemplating a scenario where City lose. This is a manager and a team aware of their place in history. Being the first to win four in a row was important to them. Being the first two win consecutive doubles will be important to them by the time kick-off hits. Pep mentioned how their fans can now probably say they are the best ever team. The best ever team doesn't lose to their inferior rivals in a cup final.

Obviously, and Brazil probably travel around the US like they are Led fucking Zeppelin circa 1972. Can certainly see why some players might be annoyed this week though.

We'd all trade places in a heartbeat, but Bruno's life: Run more than anyone in the PL over a grueling 10 months > fly to Australia > fly back to England (presumably) > 10ish days off? > fly somewhere in the USA > play Mexico in f'ing Texas on June 8 (central time) > play the US in Orlando on June 12 (eastern time) > 10 days of training camp somewhere (California?) > three Copa America group stage games in LA, Vegas, and SF in a week > QF in Arizona > SF in Charlotte > final in Miami > 10 days off > join NUFC for Japan? > repeat long season Maybe he skips the Japan tour if Brazil go all the way to the final, but either way it's pretty relentless.

Worth noting a few things: Unless I'm completely missing something, club coefficient points seem less important from a competition standpoint under the new format It still dictates a portion of the money, which is significant in the CL, but they did slightly reduce the % based on coefficient points and increased the prize money With the new format comes changes to how coefficient points are earned and, not surprisingly, it's even more beneficial to be in the CL now CL group/league bonus goes from 4 -> 6 Max coefficient points from each competition change as follows: CL 38 -> 48, EL 34 -> 40, ECL 30->32 Finishing 1st in the new CL league phase is worth 12 bonus points. First in the EL league phase is worth 6 bonus points and ECL is 4. Knockout progression in the CL is now worth 1.5 bonus points, EL is 1, and ECL is 0.5. Importantly, all these changes also apply to how country coefficients are calculated for the extra CL places so having multiple clubs progress far in the CL will be critical to earning the extra spot.

I don't think the average age of the squad matters so much when it's mostly being inflated by players we don't want anymore and a few defenders / GKs. We obviously need a stronger pipeline of young players, but we're getting there. Similar to what you're getting at I continue to feel like Villa is walking a tightrope (very well so far, of course). It could all work spectacularly, but it feels to me it could as easily go south.

Our club coefficient now is 8 so if we did something like that it'd be in the mid-20s and we'd start using club coefficient instead of country. We'd be within a few points of where we are now using country, but we'd be standing on our own two feet. From there further gains would start to help more substantially.

Not sure how we're classifying Trippier, but Gordon, Pope, Tino, and Burn all excellent business.

I can't tell if this is what you mean, but a reminder that our coefficient is just the country one as ours is so low. If we had to use our club coefficient we'd be right on the edge of Pot 4 / Pot 5. We still have a ton of ground to make up.

This is the key and you can use Man United to see how it can be valuable. In 2022/23 Man United finished 3rd and won the League Cup. They were also third in the league in SOT. All hail ETH. But there were concerning signs like a GD that was more in line with 6th-8th and an xGA that said they were fortunate. Their xPTS were 6th, almost 9 less than what they actually earned, and they were trending down over the last 2.5 months of the season. You could have argued heading into this season they underperformed their xG by a pretty large amount and so any defensive issues would be balanced out by more goals (which, to some extent, is what happened to us). But, instead, they created less chances and conceded more goals as the underlying stats said they should. Despite a worse defensive record they once again outperformed their xGA by a ludicrous amount this season, which is why their xPTS have them closer to relegation than top 10. Injuries definitely account for some of this, but two seasons of this trend should be highly concerning. And it's not like you watch them and come away impressed by a world-class GK and sublime counter-attacking football. These stats match the eye test far more than a 3rd place finish and then what was looking like 6th until a month or two ago.

The Ramsdale links make far more sense if we're trying to get him on the cheap. That fits our MO. Can't see us agreeing a deal <£20m though.

The final being held in the third biggest stadium in Poland is hilariously on brand for the Conference League (no offense to Poland).

Now that we've finished ahead of Man United / every club over the course of the PL ... are Spurs the only other club to do that without having won a title? I didn't check every season but I don't think Everton have ever finished ahead of Arsenal.

The magic hat

That’s less of a pen than the one on Gordon.

Feel like Mbuemo is auditioning right now.