tom1988

Chelsea can't sell at the moment though can they? I thought as part of the sanctions they weren't allowed to collect money as well as spend.

I have often wondered this as it used to really piss me off that we did it all the time under Bruce. Apparently the aim is to get the ball to a non threatening position for the side kicking off, preferably a throw in, so that they can adopt their tactical positions based on the ball being in that particular area of the pitch. The thought/worry being that if the side kicking off immediately go on the attack from the kick off, losing the ball in the middle of the pitch would result in the opposition being able to quickly counter from a strong position.

I'd have him here just to piss off the scouse mackems. Can't wait to see them struggling to get out of the Championship next year, horrible cnuts.

Was thinking last night that despite how pissed off I was after the game on Sunday we really should be bottling this feeling and committing it to memory. That feeling of having been outplayed, outsmarted and ultimately smashed by a 'top 6' club that are better than us all over the pitch should be something to remember and reminisce about because if this summer and the next few seasons go as we hope/expect then getting a spanking and seeing our average players chase shadows will be a thing of the past. Remembering back to games like Sunday will just go to show how far we've come and what the last 14+ years have been like.

Probably has more contacts at Burnley than he does with us now

Dream scenario today is Burn, Targett and Lingard plus out of nowhere another CB and a class forward/AM. Imagine the scenes if somehow we got Joao Felix or someone of his caliber!

I just hope that we don't focus too much of our efforts on Monday getting rid of the deadwood. They should just tell the players/agents that they're surplus to requirements and you have until 11pm to sort something else otherwise you're out of the squad and in the reserves until the summer.

Ok so based on your logic, we won't pay these exorbitant amounts to buy players out of their contracts so we'll just carry on fannying around trying to get clubs who clearly don't want to sell to us to sell us their players at a fair price, meanwhile each day passes and we don't have new players bedding in to the squad in what is a relatively quiet period of the season. It's hardly a recipe for success is it? My point with the release clauses is that if the club acknowledges the, at present, virtual certainty of relegation and wants to do it's absolute upmost to avoid it then we need to act decisively now and if that means spending over the odds to fill certain voids in the squad then just do it. I'm not talking the ridiculous €1bn amounts that players like Gavi and Fati have in their contracts supposedly but if that Kounde at Sevilla has an €80m release clause (not saying that he'd come to us atm) then we should be asking the question. I'm sure that at most of the clubs in la liga (barring CL clubs or those with CL aspirations) there are players that are better than we have at the moment with release clauses that would be interested in hearing us out if we made an offer.

If we're getting knocked back by clubs left, right and centre which appears to be the case then why aren't we just focusing on players with a release clause - it worked with Wood. Pretty much every player in Spain has one in their contract as far as I'm aware, in the interest of urgency just pay the price, get the lad in and start improving the team!

I'm all for backing Howe as manager and he is infinitely better than Bruce as a person but, I don't think he's particularly good. Aside from us being more energetic and pressing more, statistically we're still just as bad as we were with Bruce. Under Bruce this season we conceded an average of 2.375 goals a game and scored 1.25, under Eddie we're conceding an average of 2.1 goals a game and scoring 0.88... Pretty damning for a supposed attack minded coach. Under Bruce we had an average of 39.4% possession per game and under Howe it's 39.88% - again, no improvement! Our xG under Bruce, 0.92, under Howe 0.88 Our xG(against) under Bruce was 1.47 and now under Howe 1.73 The only stat where there is a noticeable difference is points per game, under Bruce we managed 0.3 and now we're up to the dizzy heights of 0.77 - Bruce also had 2 less home games and twice as many away games as Howe has had. I detested Bruce, he was and is awful and is the epitome of everything that was wrong with the Ashley era but with every passing game we slide closer to relegation because Eddie Howe is just not a very good coach. In my opinion, if he were a good coach he would have looked at what we have (shit) and tried to make a system work that if not brings the best out of the players at his disposal then at least covers for some of their frailties but that just hasn't happened. It's all well and good having a particular style or identity or idea of how the game should be played but if you haven't got the tools for that (which he hasn't) then you need to adapt and I really don't think Howe has. Life is certainly better with the new owners and actually being active in the transfer market this month is fun but we're going down whether we like it or not.

We'd be best sticking VVD in midfield, more mobile and better equipped than longstaff

For me, 1. Fofana from Lens 2. Milenkovic 3. Carlos

So how about them transfer rumours hey?

It doesn't work. By his logic they should play under their previous ownership too then. Can't have both of us with new owners, something something integrity

Reckon one or both Longstaffs could be gone

Onana signed for Inter

Origi would be very decent. Whilst maybe not the level that we aspire to long term, if we're talking about the next 6 - 12 months then we could do a lot worse!

With Wilson out for the foreseeable we should try and get Alexander Isak in. Is he realistic?

We're 19th in the league, have conceded 11 goals and scored 1 in the last week and we've only won once this season. I think we're probably past the point of being fussy whether we will get more than a couple of seasons use from a new player. To start with, we literally only need 6 months of value from them.

As players based in Spain tend to have buy out clauses in their contracts a lot more than in the UK I was wondering if there is anywhere that you can see this information and if there are any other countries where it is as prevalent? I looked on Transfermarkt but couldn't see anything. Would be good to see who we could potentially buy without having to get the owning team to 'accept' the bid

Would love us to take Ben Godfrey from them but Holgate is probably more realistic, not that I rate him

For me, the worst part about yesterday was the damage to the goal difference. Once that 2nd goal went in we should have changed our approach. At that point, despite how 'even' the match appeared the last thing we needed was further damage to our already shite GD. Looking at our next few fixtures I think he'd be better off taking the caution is the better part of valor approach. If we're going to lose, which, judging by yesterday's capitulation, seems highly bloody likely, then losing 1-0 is infinitely better than losing 4/5/6-0/1. I'm all for playing it his way until the tide turns and our defence goes AWOL again at which point it really needs to be damage limitation. End of the season a few goals here and there could make all the difference.

I went to AS Monaco v PSV a few weeks back (fucking awful game btw) and we had to scan the QR code on our health pass after scanning our ticket on the turnstyle so was pretty seamless. I guess the problem is when you get some muppet doing it wrong holding everyone up

Here in France we've had to show the vaccine pass for about 6 months now and it really isn't an issue like. No different from showing your ticket to an inspector on the metro or the train or your ID to a bouncer. I really don't get what the beef is with in the UK. As to it's effectiveness.. well that's a different argument.

Shelvey is never going to be more than he currently is and will definitely regress once his initial enthusiasm wears off. If he's not replaced in January then he sure as hell needs to be in the summer. Unless we get relegated of course.