Holmesy

Don't care what happens. We won the cup! Strange feeling actually - i feel really relaxed about the rest of the season. This must be what other teams that regularly win trophies feel like. Surreal!

That's just his face. Insufferable!

About 5 minutes before he scored, I said to my mate “Dan Burn is so fucking good but he’s absolutely shite at attacking set pieces”. Goes on to bag one of the best headed goals I’ve ever seen! Talk about saving it fir the right moment

It looks a bit of a mess. But, maybe he's using the first squad against a weaker opponent to test a few new options out - can't really criticise him for that. Obviously you can criticise him for Hendo because that's a mingin' decision on all levels but other than that, happy to wait and see.

I was thinking exactly the same the other day. I imagine he'd have his pick of plenty of teams though. Champions League football could be a clincher

How is it possible that a man of Burn’s height is so impotent from an attacking POV?! It’s like he’s got a 50p head!

No idea. My knowledge of world football is pretty poor these days but if you have goals all over the pitch, you don't necessarily need someone as potent as Isak. Look at Mateta at Palace as one example - i'm not suggesting we should buy him (before someone chips in with Mateta followed by a laughing emoji). I'm just highlighting that value is out there - he has roughly the same number of goals as Isak, is playing for a tinpot club and cost £11m. Kudus at West Ham has looked decent in spurts, Jhon Dhuran looked more than handy, Liam Delap has made an impact in the PL. There doesn't seem to be a shortage of players who can score goals at this level. It just takes decent scouting, which apparently we have (and Man Utd definitely don't). And that's not even mentioning the likes of Oshimen, Sesko and David. If we had 10-12 goals coming from the left, the same from the right, 15-20 from our main striker, 10 from our backup striker and a couple of midfielders chipping in with 5-6 we'd be in far better shape than we are now. The fear in losing Isak is 'where do the goals from?". But if Isak got injured this season, God forbid, we'd be in exactly the same position. It's far more risky putting all our eggs in one basket than it is buying multiple baskets and sharing the eggs out. As I said, if we can keep him, add goals from midfield, both flanks and a decent backup striker, happy days but where does the money come from to buy those players? Maybe Mitchell can unearth some cheap, Mitoma-style gems. Time will tell.

Currently we're almost solely reliant on Isak to score our goals, with one or two players chipping in with high single figures. Gordon had a standout season last year but he doesn't look like equalling those numbers or even getting close. IF we sold Isak and got rid of some of the other expendables - Barnes, Willock, Wilson, Longstaff, Target, Trippier, Murphy, we could potentially have as much as £300m to spend (assuming we have a kitty already). We could add more goals from the front 3 and from midfield, which would negate the 10 goals we lose from Isak leaving, and overall we're a more potent team. Plus, greater squad depth. However, if we can add more goals from wide players and midfield, and improve squad depth while keeping Isak, that would be ideal. But we would have to do some serious player trading to make it happen.

I said exactly that in my post - Spurs squandered the money but they could've/should've done what Liverpool and Villa did.

It's not just under this current PSR handcuff, it has always been a thing - Liverpool with Coutinho, Spurs with Bale and more recently Villa with Grealish. Liverpool used the funds to pave the way to where they are now, Villa did the same and Spurs did what Spurs do - squander a load of cash on cheaper players willing to accept Levi's measly wages, but they should have used the funds to catapult themselves forward. We shouldn't be afraid to sell our star players if Mitchell is as good as people say (still yet to be proven). It'll be gutting to lose the likes of Isak and Bruno but if we can recoup £200m and rebuild the squad Liverpool-style, it'll be worth it long-term

The mystery that seems to remain is how could we bid £60m odd for the lad from Palace? I’m not going to pretend to understand PSR but how can we bid that much for a player and then just sit on our hands for the remainder of that window and the one just gone?

When I say the board, I include the previous iteration that overspent. We haven't made a major first team signing for what, 18 months? There is some serious mismanagement in there. The first transfer window when Mitchell was brought in, I think the club released a statement saying they were waiting for the new DoF to be installed before making any moves. We made no moves. None. We did absolutely fuck all, and that trend has continued. I get that signings don't happen in 2-3 days - they take months of planning and negotiating, but it seems that no one was doing anything after Ashworth had made it clear he was leaving. No transfer committee, no one fronting the transfer effort. We can all play Football Manager with signings and oversimplify things, but look at some of the loans, free transfers and low ticket signings that have happened involving teams in and around us while our lot have been holding their peckers and letting Eddie battle on with the same group - Malen, Asensio, Diego Gomez, Trevor Chalobah, Joao Felix, Carney Chukwuemeka, Carlos Alcaraz, Mathys Tel, Evan Ferguson, James Ward-Prowse etc. From a pure footballing POV, new signings do more for the squad than they do to it - competition for places, a new face around the training ground to energise everyone, a different dimension for the opposition to suss out etc. Do our board even recognise this? Do these conversations take place behind the scenes? The first team players have seen nothing different for a year and a half. The ones that play know they're starting every week, they see the same faces every day, probably do roughly the same training and hear the same voices. I mean, it could be Eddie not wanting loan signings but surely he’d rather have them than absolutely fuck all for 18 months?!

He always had poor end product but his energy, work rate and ball carrying suggested if he could add it to his game he would be a huge asset. But he hasn’t and I guess he can’t - if anyone could’ve improved him it would’ve been EH but there has been no improvement. I don’t think he’s any worse than he was before, he’s probably just the same but because we’ve seen it for years now, it’s more frustrating.

He has to be given some of the blame for certain things: - Not improving our set piece prowess at all during his tenure (and I include not being able to coach the tallest defender in the league to pose any attacking threat at all) - Persisting with players who no longer offer anything at this level - The substitution debacle - A seeming inability to inspire players at half time But the players have to take some of the blame as well, and the board take most of it for not supplying Eddie with the tools he needs to move us forward. It’s a huge summer ahead for us. Let’s hope we’ve got European football so we can keep hold of some of our gems and attract more.

Got exactly what we deserved - fuck all