Nine

He won’t

HUGE

https://mobile.twitter.com/i/web/status/1641749967990652928

Yeah, he’s clearly not in the squad to play at this point. With Burn staying as fit as he has and Targett back we shouldn’t see him get minutes.

If it was feasible to replace the likes of Dummett and Ritchies positions within our transfer outlay in the short/mid term then they wouldn’t get extensions. We obviously have other priorities to fill first.

The accumulation of injuries will always catch up to Wilson and he’s getting to that kind of age now, hopefully we arnt there yet

Won’t be their fault as he was on loan at Lincoln at the time

After the insanity of the summer Cooper did a pretty good job by mid season gelling them into a team that’s picked up a decent amount of points considering their circumstances. I thought there was a good chance they’d be be cut adrift early, still think they go mind.

I mean, I’d like to think that we indentify targets on a little more basis than hoping Howe can turn them into world beaters alone. And tbf while the evidence so far would suggest that he’s capable of taking players up a level, management arnt just saying ‘let’s sign this bang average plodder and hope we can turn their career around’.

Yeah, not disagreeing on that approach at all. Its just that if we look at our business so far you can see a pretty fair balance between British, prem experience signings and the foreign prospects. Expect this next window will be no different.

Agree that those two would be more exciting signings however with Mctominay I feel that the prem experience and being able to settle/integrate faster into our squad and system shouldn’t be overlooked either.

Defo a potentially elite player there, harsh to judge him from this season alone like some do. Not worth 70m currenty though and Chelsea know that.

Signed it having just turned 19 as well (oct ‘21).. yeah no wonder Barca ran into financial issues

Isn’t he on something like 200k? And has a contract until 2027, would be huge money all round. Talented player but I think that link is just another random link.

I’d say there would be a 50/50 chance of him getting injured. But if you added in Samoa Joe as well..

He’s kind of a genetic freak (big poppa pump) when you consider how many kms he puts in over a season yet seems to avoid any muscle injuries.

It’s the recency bias that most football fans follow, if he has a shit game on Sunday he will be back to being shit Personally I’d like us to sign him and think he’d fit in very well within our squad and system, a good option to have. If the price is right of course.

Bruno single handedly pushing up the wage structure, what a guy

Yes it does, but their overall record so far (from what we know) is pretty decent I’d say.

Said it before but if there’s one thing we’ve learnt under this ownership is that we are good keeping our actual targets under wraps until it’s almost done.

Given the choice between Mctominay and JWP I’d honestly chose the former, with our system a midfielders physical output and general fitness is arguably more important than any other attribute.. JWP undoubtedly has more quality yes, but he wouldn’t fit into this side physically imo. I think the current squad is stronger as a whole with Mctominay over him.

Can’t sleep so I’m here to get my 4am thoughts off of my mind Should we qualify for the CL I think we might see a hit to both our league/cup form next season. I think a reasonable expectation is we sign 3 good first teamers in the summer, let’s assume they integrate quickly and hit the ground running in the mould of Bruno or Isak (Injury aside). Even so, the depth still wouldn’t be there to sustain a serious push in the league and the CL, on three/four competition fronts our physical output in the current system would test the best club squads in the world imo.. which leads me to the Europa league. So let’s forget the FFP/sponsorship and attracting players by finishing in the CL spots argument for a second, imo for our stage of development that isn’t vital yet. If we finish 5th/6th we’d be able to be much more flexible system wise as the group stage of the Europa is a far lesser beast than that of the CL, we’d be able to step off and adjust more often than not to retain more of our domestic form but still the added schedule of the group stages is not to be overlooked. It concerns me a bit that the standard set so far by Howe and the team is high enough that general fan expectations have significantly been raised over the last 12ish months, not to mention the owners publicly stating that we aim for the trophies to be flowing in sooner rather than later. The realist in me expects us not to perhaps struggle in the sense of the word next season but I think we’ll see rocky patches due to a huge number of games on our hands, a less than ideal level of depth for that type of campaign and an under mature squad in the aspect of European football/chasing a high end PL finish all at the same time. All I can say is I hope the fans can keep their cool should the above happen, im worried that should we hit lesser than expected runs of form or exit Europe early that the negative emotion will surface quickly and it’ll be the old ‘thanks for everything BUT’ and there will be calls for a big name (Conte, Tuchel etc) to take us to the next level. Perhaps Howe and his team will continue exceed my expectations as they have done so far, I thought this season would be transitional and we’d be anywhere from 10th-6th depending on the performance of the current top 6 sides.. in my own personal ideal world Howe would get the chance to build his squad for a extended period and learn with us as both club and manager adapt to heights that neither have experienced before. It’s been an amazing run so far and I want to keep enjoying watching us grow under the current set up.

Gallagher more of a priority than Maddison imo, that balance shifts slightly though if we are looking at deploying a 4/2/3/1 more often going forward

Some did before he even signed tbf

As long as Ed Sheeran or Sam Fender don’t show up