SteV

Is your pub friends Northern Irish mate Brendan Rodgers?

Man City are always a bit tight around the homegrown quota. Unless I’m missing someone they have: Carson Walker Stones Phillips Lewis Grealish Foden Palmer *not sure whether some of them even count due to age So unless they have another kid ready to step up, they would have to be buying a homegrown replacement if any of the above were sold

Draw for the Preliminary round a week on Tuesday. Who will Buducnost Podgorica get??

Ridiculous that they’ve already got Nkunku and Malo Gusto to come in. Wage bill must be obscene.

Jack Colback being on ~£40k p/w is probably an example none of us want to remember…. *although (tin hat on) I actually thought he was decent in his first season (obviously fell off a cliff and down to the bottom of the sea after that).

If we’re going to smash our current wage structure, you’d really hope it was for someone better than Tielemans.

Bizarre

“We’ve got Dominic in the middle…”

Or screenshot it?

Yes, obviously how the Kane situation plays out will be hugely significant for them. If he does leave, they really have to do a good job reinvesting whatever fee they get for him, otherwise it could end up being a struggle, at least in the short-term.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Spurs have been a shambles towards the back end of the season, but until the point Conte decided to tell everyone they were shit, they were bang in with a shout of Top 4. Obviously until they get the managerial situation sorted there’s a big question mark against them, but a good appointment, a couple of good signings, and it’s not that difficult to imagine they’d be back in the mix. We’ve certainly stolen a march on them in some aspects this season, but it’s hardly like we’ve streaked away from them and can’t be caught in the foreseeable.

Yeah, for me the only issue is that if the money really starts to dry up at ownership level, and they end up outside of the PL for any sustained period of time, the costs of a facility like that might well become unsustainable. Whilst I understand the theory of the argument about moving away from the city and taking a bit of the ‘club atmosphere’ away, it’s the kind of point that only ever gets raised when things are going badly on the pitch.

As has been said, Felix’s wages would put him outside of what’s realistic for us at the minute. Pretty mad when you consider what that loan cost Chelsea for pretty much zero return or team improvement (even if I thought that individually Felix looked good the times I watched them). They’ve just written off somewhere in the region of £15m like it was nothing.

For comparison purposes, here’s some images from Leicester’s ‘state-of-art’ training facility: https://www.lcfc.com/galleries/1950021/lcfc-reveal-seagrave-training-ground?lang=en Seen some stories that they might be having to allow other teams to train there to help fund it in the Championship. Seems not all of their fans think it’s a good thing to have it, and whilst I can’t see that at all myself, there’s the odd interesting point raised in this thread: https://www.foxestalk.co.uk/topic/131479-seagrave/

It doesn’t work like that though. Over the course of a season where we expect to play a lot more games, the likes of Joelinton and Bruno won’t be playing every single minute that they’re available, which has near enough been the case this season. Not to mention the fact that his best/most impactful performance this season (Forest away) was in a more advanced position, so he could clearly end up getting minutes in that role too.

Absolutely no chance he goes out on loan. Garnacho got twice the game time because Man Utd had a lot more games. We should hopefully have a lot more games next season, and assuming he can stay fit, he’ll get a lot more game time.

Even slipped in him eating an apple. This wasn’t just thrown together…

Doubt Dummett goes anywhere. Ever.

That’s a valid point re. Gordon, he’ll take one of the 25 slots next season.

I think he would have played more but first half of the season seemed a bit of a write off due to him having a string of small injuries that kept knocking him back. Haven’t got the stats to hand but felt like the majority of his minutes came after the WC break once he stayed fit for a prolonged period.

But if you’re adding 2-3 signings and not losing anyone significant, that’s giving you depth. There’s very little you can do about situations like the keeper one for the final. No-one has a third choice keeper that’s better than average. If Ederson and Ortega go down for Man City in the next couple of weeks, Scott Carson’s playing in the CL final.

No, sell 5 potentially. Kraft wasn’t in the PL squad second half of the season, so he doesn’t get replaced, or sell Manquillo and Kraft replaces him. Darlow wasn’t in the squad so he wouldn’t necessarily need replaced. Obviously if we were to sell a ‘big’ player like ASM or Miggy (can’t see it myself) then clearly they would need replacing. If you’re bringing 9 in, you’ve got to lose 9 out of the current 25 man squad, and that’s just not happening.

Loan - be surprised if it’s anyone from the current squad (bar a kind of loan that’s really a sale like Hayden and Hendrick this season). Maybe Miley I suppose, certainly not Anderson. Sell - Fraser and Lewis. Think we’d like to keep to Dubravka, but he might well want to go, in which case we’d let him. Manquillo or Kraft. Darlow. Other than that only someone who asks to be away, like Ritchie.

There’s absolutely no chance of signing 9 players for the first team squad.