Dr Jinx

I’d take those comments with a pinch of salt. They did make a bid for Alvarez after the Isak deal was done so there’s obviously funds still there.

Sounds like he wanted the sack. If he didn’t, all he had to do was play Bruce Bullshit Bingo with his quotes and he’d get a long career of one after the other compensation payments from the various clubs that love that shit.

9-0 and then shifting the blame to the owners was never going to go down well.

If you drill even poor to mediocre players how to defend as a unit, even the likes of Liverpool and City on top form will have to work hard to break that down, as Rafa showed here. He did that with Lascelles in the side.

7 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

Pedro himself didn't actually say that, despite how the Tweet appears.

Can you imagine him saying “It’s not over for the Joao Pedro transfer”

In the most nufc thing ever, Pope will end up dislocating his shoulder against Crystal Palace.

While we shouldn’t be trying to keep any player who wants away, I just don’t think the deal is good for us, like he didn’t have us over a barrel, we should be sure to have what we need beforehand and not firefighting to have a decent replacement? Can’t be Darlow, surely?

Makes perfect sense though for Dubravka, being no.2 for nufc this year will do far more damage to his international chances than being understudy to De Gea.. he hasn’t played for them in over a year iirc

5 minutes ago, TRon said:

 

 

We are probably going to struggle to sign him if Liverpool are after him, especially as midfield is probably the area which they are looking to bolster.

Liverpool won’t panic when it comes to transfers. They’ve set up a great system where they identify a target and have it all set up and agreed well in advance when it comes to replacing players in certain positions.

A couple of short term injuries won’t make them deviate from that.

Don’t think Bruno’s will be as serious as we think.

Liverpool echo had some different quotes.

“Guimaraes was scheduled to be involved for the clash against Wolves, but was withdrawn shortly before kick-off due to an injury. Howe later confirmed that the midfielder won’t be fit in time to face Liverpool.

“He has a slight niggle and I don’t think it’s anything serious,” Howe told The Chronicle . “We hope he won’t miss too much. Liverpool might be too soon.”

He was trying to do too much yesterday, in doing so lost the ball a number of times with loose passes or being tackled.

It was nothing that cost us but not his best game in recent times. Still better than most of the team but he’s held to a high bar these days.

He’s at his best for us when he keeps things simple and uses his skill to break the line and set up a counter. You don’t notice the bad things in his game when Bruno is around because he seems to be all over the pitch bailing everyone out.

4 minutes ago, madras said:

Maddison instead of Willock or Longstaff probably makes no difference but Alvarez playing probably stops their goal ? What's this based on  ?

 

 

Any way, as much as a few of you want a designated DM to allow Bruno to go further forward, I think Brunos most important role for us is that transition from defence forward, they can play it to him and we don't panic on losing it and he finds our players, often in great positions.

Well Willock didn’t close down properly and started from bad positioning to begin with, so there’s that. An excellent DM will have snuffed out that chance much earlier.

The few games we’ve played this season so far have made mention to missing Shelvey, well Alvarez is a massive upgrade on Shelvey, he does all of it and a lot better too.

1 hour ago, HaydnNUFC said:

 

Exactly that. Allows Bruno to operate in oppositions halves more often and provides a good passing range on top of defensive cover. Good in the air too.

 

Would be absolutely delighted with him and I'd probably implode if we got Pulisic on loan on top of Alvarez. Likewise if we got Maddison instead of Alvarez but I just can't see Leicester selling.

As good as Maddison is, you could have him in the side today instead of Longstaff or Willock and the result of the game may not have been any different.

Alvarez makes us stronger though, their goal probably doesn’t happen and we just have more overall control. It unleashes Joelinton who might have less of the dirty work to do and get more into the link up play. Bruno we know can do it all but he also doesn’t have to quite so much of the dirty work so way more structure and control in being creative.

Bournemouth were uber cack and the dippers made the most of it. Don’t be fooled into thinking they’ve somehow turned back into that form side from last season or the year before when they won it.

They'll be missing loads of players and we’ll hopefully have one or two back and Isak available.

It'll still be likely that Henderson and Milner will be in the middle for them, if we can cut out the supply to their forwards, we should have a chance to make an impression going the other way.

He’s still not quite 100% but he came on and did well.

I really feared for the result when the team news came out. But he did better than I expected, still not up to standard but we got away with it today.

You can’t really expect anything from him other than to close players down when we don’t have the ball. That’s all he offers, sadly.

I think a bit like Kyle Walker he’s marginally losing a step so he’ll be slightly vulnerable against wingers but for the most part his positioning and intelligence will make up for that. He reads the game so well.

I think Botman brings calmness at the back too so we may not be utterly screwed if he’s to miss any matches, but really hope that’s not the case.

Just caught up on this mornings festivities, you lot need to have a word with yourselves! Mentalists

1 hour ago, The Prophet said:

 

Unless we've agreed a fee which seems unlikely, surely he'll start?

He starts, so at least we can assume nothing even close to being agreed there.

I wonder if we’ll take a loan right back in as if Tripps gets injured, we’re fucked..

48 minutes ago, NWMag said:

Not seen much Alvarez talk anywhere today, was this another random rumour with no substance then?

Ajax are playing Utrecht tomorrow morning (11:30) so will see if he starts, they certainly won’t need to sell anyone if they offload Antony so we’ll need to up the bid by around 10m to get this done.

Agree with everything being said about Tranmere, they went too far too often in that game.

At one point Bruno was hobbling about after only being on a few minutes, one of their players left one on Trippier and then obviously Krafth got badly injured in what was a clumsy challenge.

The ref set the stall out, he let a lot go early doors so they just ran with it. Could see Eddie Howe wasn’t pleased at all by time the final whistle went, there was zero warmth to the handshakes after, yet he stayed very professional.

It was a costly win.

14 minutes ago, Beth said:

Muto was worse.

He was dogshit too but he cost less ?

We paid more than a 1/4 of what we paid for Bruno for this chap. Mental. Rafa’s worst piece of business here by far.

3 hours ago, Tiresias said:

It's funny isn't it, Tripps coming up, he's clearly basically club captain but no-one has the heart to take it off Lascelles. Don't disagree would be unnecessarily harsh on Lascelles, and the squad seem full of leaders who don't step on each others toes so what's the harm but still it's kinda clear he's the proper leader

Within seconds of being on the pitch against Tranmere, he was ordering the back line about to get forward, including Lascelles who did exactly as ordered. There is absolutely no doubt who’s leading this team.

Just imagine ASM running to the line.. normally 2 players running to gang up on him but Isak is waiting at the edge of the box.. panic, one of the central defenders steps out to cover leaving a massive gap in the middle.. ASM pokes the ball into the middle and Bruno arrives just in time for an easy tap in.

5 minutes later, the same situation, but now they don’t know what to do.. leave one on Maxi and he’ll get rinsed, let the ball be cut back for Isak and he’ll find the top corner. There’s literally any number of problems we are now posing teams. Even Almiron will have more time and space to make an impact.

The space this lad is going to open up for ASM (and vice versa) is going to be a sight to see.

SSN reporting Paqueta to West Ham is agreed now ?