Nine

People actually click on that shit man..

I wonder if we adapt our strategy this summer to targeting more non PL players, we take on more risk that way but the upside is also potentially far higher not to mention the absurd value that can be found outside the PL (think Bruno and Botman). It will come down to who the targets are and the confidence management have in each individual one but I feel we might break the trend we have seen so far of the majority of our incomings having prior PL experience. The fact we are in Europe likely won’t change the planned financial outlay in terms of fees/wages, but it will change the targets and amplify the need for depth across some of our key positions. Dipping into the European market may be a way of balancing that out.

Yes Bruno will surely be around that figure on his new contract, what I mean is I don’t expect we’ll bring in any new players that will match his wage this summer. Bruno and Isak (if he carries on at his current trajectory he will get a new contract) will be our top earners for the foreseeable imo, with the rest of the core of the squad a step below that. I don’t feel we will take the approach of ‘let’s agree to offer player X 200k because Bruno earns it’, players like Bruno and Isak will remain outliers for us. Real elite, 200k> players won’t be coming through our doors like that yet and I’m not convinced we will ever actually adapt to the buying already established elite approach. The core of the wage structure will be linear with the rest of the squad and not the most valuable assets.. that being said if a player steps up to the level of our best players there’s no reason they won’t be rewarded.

Yeah no chance we push our wage structure north of 200k at this point, the top end will remain around 150k I expect.

Imagine this place if we are ever top of the table with 4 games to go.. holy shit

Botman?

Yeah, everyone expects us to sign a LB but to me RB is far more a priority. There is just no depth in quality there at all, if Trippier goes down the other choices are of an unknown quantity where as LB is far more consistent between Burn/Targett.

You’re right, but their high press has not been working for some time. Their players are burning themselves out for no return, and a passive style is easier to execute than an intensive press. But they don’t have the time to implement a new style anyway, I expect Allardyce will try and find a happy medium between what they already know and what he would like without changing to much. Oh and then getting his pay off.

If Allardyce comes in for Leeds there is every chance they could skank a win at home to Spurs on the final day or grab a a point away at West Ham, end of season results are inconsistent enough without the new manager factor. They really rolled the dice with him but who knows, it could as easily pay off as fail at this point in this season.. it was worth the shot imo. And don’t get me wrong, Allardyces style has always been depressing (if not effective). But Leeds have been so shit for the last 2 months there really is nothing to lose at this point.

This is far from over lol, it’s a complete shit off. Hopefully Leicester can sneak it at the end.

There’s more goals in this yet, really could go either way as both sides are shit

The unflushable turd just started circling the bowl again

Sadly a lot of people had made up their minds before he even stepped on the pitch for us

Mr right place right time strikes again

As I’ve said before, how people can offer judgement on this kid already after seeing the vast improvement of players under this management as time has gone on is mental to me. He’s had such limited minutes, and he was lively for the first 20 mins today. Linked up well with Isak a couple of times by making good runs that he got on the end of, had that have gone in off the post no one would question him this afternoon. Fine margins between emotions swinging one way or the other for some. For me it’s a mental thing, when he’s had minutes he’s lacked composure because he seems so desperate to impress and get a goal/assist for himself.. looks like he’s feeling the pressure a bit to me. He probably reads what the fans are saying and wants to prove himself. Outside of that, if you can’t see the natural ability and potential here then you don’t know what you are looking at. I have massive faith he will come good, probably next season when he will get more game time due to the European fixtures.

There we go

An adjustment and we look dangerous as fuck again, we’ll win this comfortably now

They have afforded Bruno so much space (besides when he got robbed for the goal). We looked dangerous early on with Isak and Gordon clicking nicely, Gordon needs some time in the team to adapt mentally.. he’s lacking composure and looks to keen to impress. Tried to beat his man 1 or 2 times more than necessary on left before he and Murphy switched. There’s a good chance we win this in the second, they will tire and get punished for not being tight enough on Bruno.

That was pretty tidy from them, Armstrongs movement lost Trippier

Gordon needs to compose himself a bit more, a goal or assist would do him a lot of good right now

The missing context is though that our first choice back 4 have been very fortunate with injuries so far. Next season we might not get so lucky, Botman/Schar to Lascelles or Trips to Manquillo is a massive step down in quality. Where as on the left you have pretty solid quality and consistency in who comes in should Burn or Targett go down for any lengthy period. You have a point on tactical flexibility, an attack minded LB would be covered well by Joe on that left side. Having said that I just can’t see Burn being replaced as first choice LB this summer, he’s consistently performing well enough that replacing him at the moment just isn’t Howes modus operandi. I agree the position is an issue in the mid term, but short term (1 more season) I think we are okay there. Having said that, if a long term LB target becomes available for the right price there’s every chance we pull the trigger this summer. I just feel the priorities are elsewhere first and foremost.

I personally don’t see him having the physical attributes to play in one of the two forward CM positions in our 4/3/3. As a #10 in a 4/2/3/1? Hell yeah.. but who knows if we plan to deploy that formation consistently going forward. On the surface it makes little sense right now.

That makes sense then, I’d not heard before that they originally had huge demands.

Lampard has aged so badly since he became a manager, the stress clearly gets to him. Doesn’t come across like he’s cut out mentally for it.