sushimonster85

Agree on the above. I think Wissa does eventually get done, just reliant on Brentford bringing in a replacement. Think it won't be till later in the window where it will be clear if Wissa is going to be backup, or spend a season as the main guy. If Sesko falls apart I can see us going with Wissa for a season and bringing in someone young with a ton of potential from the continent to act as back up.

He & the players agent are clearly desperate for this to turn into a saga/war between us and Man U. You can tell by just how little Romano is talking about the Man U/Watkins link. When most other journos seem to be suggesting it's Watkins that's emerging as their first choice.

Do agree with this. But also think it's not as big a miss for us as it could be. Eddie has put together quite the team of massive bastards, none of whome are afraid to assert themselves in the area when defending set pieces.

Say what you will about the keepers we have looked at (and ultimately ended up with), but you can see the thinking behind us needing a keeper with this sort of range of passing. If he can reliably hit the runs of Gordon and Elanga like this then it's going to have a pretty big impact on being able to break teams down.

Now we have the trophy monkey off our back, and with it being a CL season, we should really be going with a team full of back-up's and kids in the league cup this year. Just not sure it's in Eddie's DNA.

Remember a few years back when Fulham came up, bought a shed load of expensive talent, and went straight back down?

My god, the social media meltdown will almost make it worth checking twitter.

Another positive to take from this. It seems we've done this whilst also being in talks with Sesko. We've graduated from doing only being able to do one deal at time!

Quickest/easiest way to think about it, in terms of PSR fuckedness, they're basically us last Summer. Maybe even worse.

This, I don't think much has changed on the PIF side at all. We're not as minor as their investment in like Uber, or Disney. But they're clearly no where close to as active as they are with something like LIV. She had her faults, but Staveley clearly new which buttons to press in order to get PIF moving. Guessing she wasn't afraid to cut around the bureaucracy and go to directly who she needed to to get something moving.

You can't in sport like football. Like, great. You've signed two players to replace that one in the aggregate. But what about the other player you're going to have to drop to make space for that second player. And the knock on effect all this has in the rest of the team. You can talk about 'replacing players in the aggregate' in baseball as, aside from the pitcher, and first base, all you have to really think about in the Moneyball example is their on base percentage. I'm absolutely not saying data/analytics play a massive role in sport in general. But you can't talk about replacing one player with multiple in the aggregate in sports like football.

Well, now this is happening time to back him.

I'm not talking about analytics, I'm talking about the moneyball 'replacing players in the aggregate' talk that doesn't apply football. The nature of football you can't look at the method of bringing in 2 players to make up one you're losing 'in the aggregate'.

It doesn't apply to anywhere close to every sport. It applies extremely well to more 'static' sports like baseball that can be broken down more easily into pure numbers. There's a pitcher, and the guy at bat. He has an on base percentage, he has a success rate against fast balls, curve balls etc. It doesn't work in sports like football, rugby etc. Where a teams overall style of play vastly differ, and therefore a certain player who is successful in one team can be a total dud in another.

I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure I heard talk of them wanting to see success over 10/20 etc.

Let's not use moneyball talk, it really doesn't apply to football.

I feel like this is the opposite of everything we heard early on. From the start I feel like we were cautioned that they are long term investors, and look at success over decades rather than short term.

Ben Jacobs (so take that for what its worth) saying on Twitter that Watkins is very open to a Man U move. Could do with them fucking off out the Sesko picture.

If we're going to replace Isak, which is looking lncredibly likely, there's no way to do that without spending this sort of money.

As others have said, in terms of replacing a striker widely seen as one of the best in the world, anyone is going to be underwhelming. I think Sesko, both in terms of his attributes and 'prestige', is the best available for filling that hole.

It does worry me that Romano seems to have gone from 'Sesko will make his decision imminently' to 'he will take his time'. Lines up with Laurie Whitwell suggesting yesterday that Man U are happy to wait till late in the window to move for a striker.

I know he has likely always been like this and its just this Summer we are noticing as we've had it non-stop all window, but Christ Romano really is just an agent/club mouthpiece.

From the above: 'Sources close to negotiations over Sesko currently rate Newcastle as his most likely destination ahead of United, but that is not to say the Manchester club are out of the race.'

If we do get him he will actually be coming in off the back of a better season than the one Isak had before we signed him.

He is a little like Isak was when we first signed him in that, he is raw, but he has so many of the physical tools you'd want in a striker. Sesko doesn't quite have Isaks dribbling ability, but he is stronger. Both tall, both quick, both natural finishers.