r0cafella

Mokhbel was on loaded mags last night and said a couple of things I thought worthy of posting. 1, Mark Guehi was the only CB Eddie wanted, it was him or nobody. 2, we did make a deadline day bid for Elanga.

I'm not holding this delay against them or reading into it given the situation with Darren Eales, it's the prudent thing to put it on hold and let the new CEO device.

Aye waiting for the stadium announcement that will tell me what I need to know.

Thanks for the insight! Yes I think such takes without any form of nuance or detail are pretty unhelpful and don't add much to the conversation. That being said, I'm sure we are all guilty of the odd flippant post myself included I will also add that the club have themselves to blame as well for expectations which maybe considered elevated given past statements mind.

I see, I think I read most posts but I don't really see what you've described to that extent. Plenty of bad takes which is to be expected and events of the last 12 months or so have definitely knocked the wind out our sales though.

And apologies to all for derailing this a bit. In regards to this contract I'm happy but a bit confused. Are we planning to give everyone who performs well for a year a new contract which makes them the highest earner? I was certain the stories of that initial contract being 3 and half years were nonsense but now I'm not sure anymore.

Absolutely if you feel a certain poster talks nothing but drivel or trolls just stick them on ignore and move on. Things can certainly get emotional at times on here with knee jerk reactions aplenty but the thought of being driven off this section because I disagree with someone's views on football is beyond me.

In my experience of this place, those posters don't tend to last long as they generally aren't sincere. Sincere posters generally have nuanced opinions. it is possible to be supportive of someone whilst questioning someone's decision making too, of course Eddie knows more about football than any posters but this forum exists to promote discussion of all things NUFC and despite Eddie's superior knowledge he will still get things wrong.

You can always engage with those you disagree with instead of dismissing points raised as negative shite. I think @HaydnNUFCin particular has written some excellent posts about his concerns. Things don't have to be tribal.

Our competitive advantage over Villa would be the power to the leverage the state of KSA however that isn't allowed to be fully leveraged. Fortunately for Villa they didn't recede for 14 years under a disgraceful owner.

So in that case your playing with one less attacker? Isak is already isolated most of the time so I can't say im keen.

So you want to play with one less central midfielder who on paper are our best player. Neither barnes or Gordon are well suited to being 10s imo both are suited to attacking space and not playing in congested areas. Our recruitment has led to us being one dimensional imo.

We don't really have the players to play many other systems to be honest. Our squad building had been flawed and we've made mistakes we simply couldn't afford.

Becomes a beast on FM. Have we been linked?

Out of our reach imo.

Technically not true, given our offers for Olise and Tosin although I do appreciate your sentiment. I think we've Guehi, we got tunnel vision as the noises sent to us was he really wanted to come. We obviously spectacularly failed the calculation of Palace being willing sellers.

If the profile we are after ends up being Elanga and you deem this to be a negative then it's a recruitment/ tactical issue.

Someone should tell these clubs that despite what they think, they are not the arbiters or who gets to buy what.

I think he's decent but paying a premium for him would be silly. If we wanted him we should have got him before forest did.

Statsbomb are just data providers they aren't making decisions or selecting targets for us.

Elanga maybe good, however if we go for him alarm bells are ringing. Total failure of recruitment given how little he went to forest for.

Cracking post, this is definitely on approach we could take to address our issue. I'm not so convinced with Hall being the DM profile you mentioned, that being said as you correctly pointed out these Rodri esque type players are goal dust and everyone seemingly want them. Your point about our glut of B2b midfielders also stood out and your on the money again. From a squad planning perspective having 3 of your highest paid players and all seem to want to do the same thing makes it really difficult to balance. Someone has to be the square peg.

@Smalwould like to hear your thoughts on this.

I think our squad is quite unbalanced which isn't helping things either. We obviously don't have any dedicated DM which limits our tactical flexibility in addition to that we also don't have any players who are capable of playing as 10's. We've got a squad full of 8's so us playing a high energy make sense from that Pov but moving away from that will be difficult given the personnel. I'm also not keen on what we are doing out wide, I think Hall is good but you probably want him to invert given his passing ability but then we lack a player holding width on the left as neither Gordon or Barnes are that kind of player. On the right side we have the opposite problem. Tino wants to get up and down the line but as Miggy is limited and out of favour the option becomes either Gordon who doesn't seem well suited to cutting inside from the right or Murphy who wants go hold width. Tldr we lack options which limits our tactical flexibility. Our recruitment has been lacking and left us without a plan b.