Shadow Puppets

What a peculiar statement. A few musings… - The players knew nothing about this until early July (confirmed by several of them). You’d think if he’d made his position clear to the club, he wouldn’t have… - Spoken to Elanga several times in June to sing our praises. Elanga briefly mentions this in his welcome video, and I’ve since checked and had that confirmed. He also wouldn’t have… - Hearted and liked all of Elanga’s welcome videos etc. - I’m not sure why people are reading into that statement as if it’s a dig at Eddie… I don’t see that at all. I suspect he’s having a dig at the supposed promise made by Staveley, and then Mitchell backtracking on it. - The absolute cheek of saying that the silence has allowed narratives to run wild. YOU ARE THE ONE WHO STARTED IT AND REMAINED SILENT YOU FUCKING WEAPON. - Even if his statement is 100% true (which it’s not), it’s still no way to treat a fanbase, staff and teammates who’ve been nothing but supportive of you. He’s a fucking prick.

It’s on his Instagram 👍🏻

When has Osula ever been a “focal point striker”. He’s absolute pish.

Find this mornings reports hard to believe. Still think a deal will be done in the next 48 hours, probably for around £45m

The best striker on display this weekend, in my opinion, was Mateta. I thought he was outstanding.

ASM was injured for Isak’s debut. But I understand your point. For me the fundamental difference between Isak coming in for his first game with not much training time and Wissa doing the same is that Wissa hasn’t kicked a ball in any form of match since May.

It’s been like that in spells during away games for as long as I can remember. There’s always a lull, especially in a drab 0-0.

Forgot about him 👍🏻

The feeling of the players is that they are 100% together and behind Eddie and the club. They want him gone / it resolved as fast as possible.

Yeah, potentially. Fingers crossed. I think if it’s done by Thursday and he’s training with us by then he’ll play.

We didn’t have Barnes or Gordon then, so he literally was the only option.

No I didn’t. I believe the plan is… Wissa + Another midfielder for depth + If Alex is going, another striker I don’t think that other striker will end up being an “Isak replacement” as such… just someone of good quality that can provide competition with Wissa for the season while we keep our powder somewhat dry and look for the “next Isak”. It’s becoming pretty clear that there are no absolute top quality strikers available right now. I was told that’s the plan. But fuck knows if that’s what will actually come to pass. There’s a chance that Downie is right and they try for another defender, but I think that isn’t necessarily part of the plan, but might happen if an opportunity presents itself. My personal opinion is that we’ll get Wissa, another midfielder, and Alex will stay and be reintegrated.

I was told we want a striker and midfielder after Ramsey… 2 strikers if Alex goes. I assume he means midfielder.

I wouldn’t.

He already briefly talks about Ramsey in the press conference, so I think he’s referring to Wissa + another.

He DID break the story about him exploring his options when he didn’t get on the plane to Korea, to be fair.

I would have no way of knowing about next year… but definitely not this year.

Certainly not this summer. 100%.

Eddie reiterates regularly that every decision and every signing has to be the RIGHT player for the LONG TERM benefit of the club. He, rightly (IMO), would rather wait for the right player than sign someone he doesn’t really really want, even if that means some short term pain for the first game or two.

When Isak came in, we had literally no one to play up front. Now we have Gordon and Osula who are options (albeit not very good ones). Anyway, it's a pointless disagreement... he's unlikely to sign in time anyway.

No... I think if Wissa signs this week (in time to be registered), he'll play 15 mins max at the weekend, 30 mins max vs Liverpool, and then he'll start after that.

Bruno. Gordon. Barnes. Tino. Hall. All were eased in to one degree or another.

As far as I'm aware he's played literally no football this summer, right? So the chance of him starting a game in the PL is near enough zero. 15-20 mins max from the bench I'd imagine. Isak and Wood had both being playing competitively in the lead up to their moves. And we have 1 full day of training left before the Villa game.

He is obviously not going to start against Villa man... why even give yourself the hope of that? Knowing everything you know about how we work, how Eddie needs to drill instructions into players, how we'll have been working on the gameplan for Villa all week, and how little football Wissa has played this summer... IF he signs, he'll get 15 minutes at best. And that's fine and completely understandable.

I was told last week that we wanted two midfielders, but whether we get them both is another question.