HaydnNUFC

Not watching it but saw that was their first shot on target of the match.

Fuck sake.

What I'd give for a Doncaster win tonight. Can't even imagine how glorious Spaces after would be. Would prefer it over a signing for us tbh.

He signed for Chelsea officially on July 1st, after reports that he agreed a deal with them on June 7th. Refuse to believe we've been unable to find a single alternative to him other than Guehi, like.

The Pervert?

"We want to be successful, we want to be competing for trophies. But trying to make Europe, we expect to really be in Europe and that's got to be the aim for us next season."

Buckled.

Good thing it's tomorrow, then. I see you've edited this. If only you could've put this post in the *cough* pre match thread *cough* *cough*.

Aye he's awful that NUFCLC. Purports to be a spokesperson for the fans the way he tweets as well.

Fully agree. We had some frustrating results pre-October in 2022-23 for some draws to clutch at. Home and away (Palace, Wolves, Bournemouth, Liverpool) but from an admittedly tiny sample size I've not seen anything remotely similar so far this season to the level of performances that we saw from 2022-23 against Forest, Man City or Liverpool. Fingers crossed that changes starting tomorrow and Sunday.

A big part of our defensive frailties last season were injuries across the board but crucially the injury to Pope. Not just in the disparity of quality as GKs between Pope and Dubravka but also the effect it had on our defensive play. The number of goals conceded and clean sheets before and after Pope's injury is telling. Schär is banned for another 2 games plus Botman will be back in November-ish? 10-12 games' time, where we'll hopefully have as options there Burn, Schär, Kelly and Botman. I've wanted a successor to Schär signed also given his age and expected that after last season ended, but we've also needed an upgrade at RW for years now. Going into 2024-25 with Murphy and Almiron as our options there (assuming Howe still doesn’t choose to start Barnes with Gordon on opposite wings) 3 years post takeover is truly baffling.

In isolation, keeping your best players is always a success. Not augmenting or adding to them whilst your opponents do pales that into near insignificance in the context of us being successful this season.

I wouldn't say it is. If no one else comes in, we'll have not made an improvement to the first team for 2 consecutive windows, whilst the teams around us have. That's stagnation and will make it even more difficult for us to achieve Europe. Failure to get Europe and its quite likely those players who we've been able to retain this season will want to move next summer. They're far too good to not want to be competing in the best competitions. And then we'll have regressed, as there's next to no chance we can replace a player like Isak or a character like Bruno.

He wasn't established as ASM was here, who was actually sold in order to fund/make room for Barnes. Subsequently Gordon has started for the last 12 months on the left (with the exception of one match, Brentford at home) or up front when Isak and Wilson have both been out. Barnes and Gordon have started together on opposing wings only twice, with Murphy who most will agree isn't good enough to be a starter for a club that 'expects to be in Europe', starting ahead of the former once Barnes returned from injury in February. I find it bizarre. Hopefully from Sunday onwards they both start together.

I don't think Barnes was a mistake as I think he's a good r̶e̶a̶l̶ e̶s̶t̶a̶t̶e̶ m̶a̶g̶n̶a̶t̶e̶ player, but it's puzzling at best that he can't get starts ahead of Jacob Murphy when he's been fit since February/March. Hindsight and all that but I'd personally have rather spent the £40m we paid for Barnes on a RW last summer when we also had the pull of CL football.

Which is true, but we have a £80m outlay on 2 LWs who the manager chooses to hardly ever start together when we've needed a RW for years.

I'm begging Tonali can help us play in different ways or at least help with the bold as it looks like atm we're trying to play a way we just can't do. We could've signed players (mainly last summer) to aid us doing that but didn't.

Trippier's started 1 match since 2nd March. He's also going to turn 34 this season and is one of our highest earners, plus we'll not get more than the alleged £12m Bayern were offering in January now. He also may well have asked to leave this window. He is important to how we play (a downside of the system but that's another matter) but that's testament to our ineffective our main RW options are, and why they need upgrading. As without Trippier, that right side is poor offensively. I personally would have sold Trippier in January and got to the end of season (we arguably did anyway, given his lack of starts since early March), kept Tino and Krafth as RBs and go for a RW who can actually get a good level of goal involvements in tandem with what a club who 'expects to be in Europe' should probably have on that side.

We just need to get better at squad management and being ruthless. If an opportunity arises where we can move first teamers who are not playing/starting much on at an optimum value due to their ages we need to be taking them; Trippier in January, Almirón this summer.

Because our valuation of him is too high. No one will pay over £10m for him and his value is only going to decrease.

Charlotte FC offered close to the absolute maximum we'd get for a soon to be 31 year old attacker with the same amount of goal involvements last season as Dan Burn tbf.

I tried to remember what you said back then but but just couldn't do it so I pinched most of it. Shameless, I'm aware, but absolutely think it all.

So much for the pre match thread at the bottom of the home page.

I really think Pope being out for so long is the biggest factor that contributed to us being so defensively shite last season. That plus us persisting with Burn at LB in a period where he was getting rinsed by any winger with pace. We last signed a RW in 2017 and our current 2 options there will be over 30 this season and aren't good enough.