HaydnNUFC

Really looking forward to seeing him back. His reception from the away end tonight and from SJP on Sunday will be immense. Hope he'll allow us more control in games with looking after possession, especially away from home. Would be huge for us.

Prefer "preparing bid" myself.

Fuck sake. Dead by page 23.

Got me before I corrected it, fuck sake.

Somewhat similar CB to Schar apparently.

If they want €50m that's about £42m. Almost £25m cheaper than Guehi. No brainer for me.

It does, aye. He'll be back for Wolves away after the break.

No one start a thread until a bid's actually been accepted this time, please.

Most football fan forums and their presences on Twitter are all the same. I'd despise every club if I based my view of them off what they were like online. And us most of all.

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.