Nine

Id see him as one of the front 2 in a 4-3-3 midfield as well, physically he’s probably not there to sit behind as the 4 or 6 but he has enough to actively press and come wide to provide cover for the full backs/forwards when needed. I’m not sure how well he fits into a 4-2-3-1 though which to me might be the favoured formation we go to long term. He’d be useful in place of Longstaff/Willock especially though, not saying that he’d definitely perform better than either of those in our system but he’d be a great option.

Out of those 4 Tielemans is the most likely for this window, knows the PL and would slot right into our side without having to be eased in for long. The questions are how is he mentally? Personally? I think it’s unlikely they sell as his contract is up in the summer, wouldn’t be suprised if the player wants to wait and secure himself a better signing on fee than he would now if a transfer fee was involved. I can’t see us signing a starting 11 player from outside the PL this window.

Yeah I’m not sure that was intentional

There’s alot to be had from Gallagher under our set up I think, I’d trust Howe to get the best from him. He’d be a pretty shrewd signing imo. Although id bet 99% of links this window are inaccurate.

As useful as he’d be in that kind of role I don’t think he’s the type of personality to be happy with it.

Players like Isak really open the door for us to be more versatile either from the bench or starting, I expected we might shift towards a 4-2-3-1 at some point as Howe does favour that formation. As good as the 4-3-3 is it’s nice to see us able to switch it up against certain opponents when the right players are fit and available.

Come on, great ball from Longstaff

The flip side of changing the plans for this window arnt to be taken lightly though. Like you say they plan 2, 3 or 4 windows ahead of the present, so is this squad ready for a push in the CL as well as all the other competitions after one more summer window? Let’s say we sign 2 this window, 2 more in the summer. If you want to aim high and go for CL worthy players then these will be brought in on the pretence that we will be competing in the CL going forward, but then next season the extra games on the schedule for this squad mean we don’t finish top 4.. could be a problem. I guess the question is that the squad was meant to be built over a few more windows to be ready for Europe than we’ve had so far, so will it be ready even if we alter whatever the plans were this window to sign players? The just sign players and push top 4 and that’ll be only be a positive argument isn’t so black and white. I think unless a big opportunity arises for the right player they will mostly stick to their guns.

Those videos of the Everton fans harassing their players, embarrassing. Really disgusting fan base in general.

That post match footage of Goodison park is beautiful

To be fair that was part of the point I was making. Neither of those players are out and out weak links, I think Longstaff is very under rated by our fans.

The Trossard thing just feels like he’s looked for the earliest excuse to ‘fall out’ with the club and chuck a tranfer request in after a good WC showing, he knows there will be takers now.

Not signing a player doesn’t necessarily mean the squad is standing still, playing this same starting 11 at this point in the season under the amazing circumstances we find ourselves in is not a negative and obviously we need more depth in quality to alleviate the stress on fitness but I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary now we are out of the FA cup. Jan is just difficult I think, if this were the summer I’m sure we’d both be talking about which player we should sign and where they’d play.. bedding in players mid season isn’t easy. You’re talking about enhancing momentum, there’s no guarantee a player we sign hits the ground running and dropping ‘weak links’ like Longstaff or Burn for whoever may come in might actually be a step back until new players gel. Of course if the right opportunity for the right player arises then we’ll pull the trigger. All I’m saying is if there are no big starting 11 signings I’d completely understand the approach from management, I think we’ll see a prospect or two come in for sure though.

Im not disagreeing that signing a player wouldn’t give us a little extra boost, but the question is do we NEED to take a risk and dent our FFP now instead of the summer? It’s not as simple as more good players = better result. And the comparison to last Jan is a pointless argument, the circumstances being entirely opposite. We had no choice a year ago.

So the accusations were false? Will anything happen to the accusers?

Some of the posts in here

Stupid thing to do. He’s young, famous and polluted with money so mistakes will be made.. hopefully he learns from it.

To be fair Diame for a spell under Rafa was immense, remember he was moved back into a ball winning midfielder and the ball would just seem to stick to him. He’d come out on top of every 50/50

Harmony can obviously be maintained while signing players, however it may narrow down the options we can look at because the wage structure for the kind of players people are expecting now is on the lower end. We can’t go signing 18/19 year olds on 150k a week because footballers have fragile egos and it would be a risk to the dressing room, I actually think where we are right now could make things tricky (although it does open up more options) because bringing in new first teamers and dropping a player that has played well enough that we are 3rd in the league has a good chance that it doesn’t go down to well. Competition is good yes but these players seem a tight group and I think management will be very careful about who they replace especially in January. As always there’s a balance to be had and fortunately for us the management have shown that they know what they are doing so any move they make we can all have faith in.

Stone cold vs the rock title match at St James

Didn’t they lose a final against City like 10 years ago? Did they not make a big deal of that? Seem to remember them trying to rub it in our faces even after they lost.

Won’t be 150k if it’s true we’ve approached which I doubt we have, step to far at this stage considering the other clubs interested. Another club might well offer him 150k or more.

If tomorrow isn’t to early to start him

Harsh to judge him as shit from what we’ve seen, I think there’s potentially a player there but if there is it’ll happen at his next club