r0cafella

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.

This is a good analysis although I must admit I'm not overly keen on someone like Burn being the guy who gets tight as he isn't very agile or good on the turn. I think you need exceptional one Vs one defenders to play this way.

Everything comes back the commercial side given the rules. Early days obviously and maybe it's not reported on but in not seeing an influx of data people or scouts. I'm more concerned about the class ceiling I feel we face.

I hear this arguement a lot but I don't really see it. If we are not closing the revenue gap we are falling behind, we know for a fact consistent achievement required a big budget and in this regard we are way behind and hamstrung by the rules.

Why would a new striker be third choice? A new striker should be rotational at worst. Wilson shouldn't even be a consideration he is unreliable and once again we made a terrible mistake in hanging on to him for so long.

Eddie didn't want a dedicated 6 and I'm guessing the Bruno zubimendi type aren't attainable.

It definitely is IMO hence we play a system which nobody else plays. With Bruno we kind of want to have our cake and eat it. We want him to be free to create as well as be a 6.

Would help aye,as well as someone who can create from the middle of pitch (a wirtz) type ie someone who can carry the ball as well as pass and obviously some proper competition for Isak. We would then have a fictional attack.

Kinda makes sense too when you look at our side as well. We are reliant on our left winger be it Gordon or Barnes and our forward for goals. Murphy likes to stay wide so will always struggle for goals. We have nothing from central midfield for goals either. Tino and Hall aren't going to get more than 5 goals between them In a season and we are useless from set pieces. Considering all of these factors a lack of goals make sense and it's largely a tactical issue.

Aye sorry for the miserable takes, just calling it how I see it. It's not easy to flip players for 50m + because your pool of buyers is so small and these buyers already have players who are extremely good when production lines via academies, feeder clubs and scouting networks. We are probably the one club which places such emphasis on premier league experience.