Nine

Fair point and yeah luck does usually balance itself out of a period of time but I still feel it was in our favour alot of the time since January

I've said that we had some very fortunate goals in some of those games, Shelveys free kick vs Leeds was lucky as was Trips deflected one vs Villa to name just a couple. Like you say a few of those results could have easily been draws.

4-6, the nature of football suggests that we will meet bumps in the road.. you obviously must think it will be smooth sailing and every player we sign will be a hit, no one will ever get injured again, Howe will beat Klopp and Pep in their own back yards every season. How are we better than Arsenal?? We had better form than most teams at the end of last season but that does not mean we are a better side.

Its going to take 4/5/6 seasons to transform this squad into a side that can compete for top 4 let alone compete in the CL, what the hell

Following 14 year olds, thats not weird or anything

Im buying one

In an ideal world that is what will happen but I think we have more priority positions to address before we sign a new starting striker as the fees no doubt would be massive for a player like that, need to use our wiggle room with FFP wisely on upgrading our weakest positions in the squad first.

Usain Bolt levels of fast

We all know about his injury record, but tbf the season before last he managed 28 starts. Point I was making is he is our starting striker IF he is available and you wont convince a player like DCL to come here without the guarantee of starting games which he wont get while Wilson is our no. 9.

Hard to compare the 2 really as they are different types of strikers, Wilson is more effective in our side than DCL would be given our set up and some of the players we have.. ASM wouldnt be putting many crosses on DCLs head. Wood is much more comparable to DCL than Wilson and is the reason I dont think we will look at buying him seriously (along with the fee Everton would want).

Insane how he was all Rafa was given to lead the line after winning the Championship, a Stoke bench warmer More insane that Rafa made it work though

Why do people think Wilson isnt going to play?

Agreed, I'd say thats highly unlikely. I just hope there isnt going to be to much of a bad reaction if this does happen, some people are getting a little carried away after the run of form since January and making noise about a 6th place finish might add unnecessary pressure onto the management and squad. We need to remember where we were just 7 or so months ago, this is still the building block level of our growth as a club. I just want to see progress on the field and around the club for at least a season or two, a top 10 finish would have me very happy.

And you cant have both those players in the same squad when using 4-3-3 as one of them will on the bench most of the time, just wont happen

Yeah exactly. Unless we want to play him inverted on the right? Doesnt really add up like.

Yeah pretty much what I meant, the player would have wanted the PSG move

Reckon the agent got wind of PSGs interest and tried to rinse us of whatever he could knowing they had that deal to fall back on. On to the next.

I think it was mainly down to our horrific injury record during that time that Nobby played RB as a needs must situation at first. https://www.nufc.com/html/2006-07html/2007-03-18charlton-a.html The state of that team man, Duff at LB to Edit: Against Pardews Charlton as well

We wont be gambling on it, its calculated and they will know its unlikely that he hits the 30 games played mark. What you've said about how much faith Howe will have in Wood and a new striker will be what it comes down to but not only that, ASM and the RW position you'd expect to have higher numbers than last season to. The form of 2022 was far to consistent to be flash in the pan however the variables of a new season and football in general could easily change that.. I think its a little naive to expect us to pick up right where we left off (not saying we cant, just not expecting that either).

Of course we could but its probably not the most sensible decision to make at this point in our growth, I dont think its worth putting a massive dent into our FFP when we could use that same money to address weaker areas of the squad first. I think Wilson will be our first choice striker for another season at least, depending on how next season and the new signings go we may well shell out for an elite striker next summer but I'd expect it more likely to happen 2 seasons from now. Bring in a young player with potential this summer as second choice to Wilson and see how they do, you never know they might hit the ground running and then we wont need that big money signing as quickly as we thought.

The landscape of football has changed a fair bit since the first and second city takeover, besides the obvious bits I dont think its worth comparing to way they did it.. its going to be harder and a whole different ball game for us.

shouldnt be that funny

Not sure how I was putting him down? He was just clearly a second or third choice behind Botman, I think hes played well overall (might be a tad over rated by some) and he seems a great lad that will more than do his bit coming in when needed.