TheBrownBottle

Depends. What part of the statement isn’t true?

I would always want to see us bring better players in than we have, and the limitations are there for all to see, but it isn’t panic stations if the window closes with no more signings for me. I do actually think that Guehi will end up here, mind.

Yeah, I want to see the club sign players as part of the progression, but there does seem to be a lot of outright panic. We’ve got a capable squad and a good manager even if no-one else comes in (though my preference would be to get more quality in). Can’t say that transfer ins and outs get my juices flowing generally speaking (other than the very rare ‘superstar’ signing)

I agree, I don’t think they’ve done anything to date which would lead to their characters being questioned (though I’ll add myself to those who have winced a bit at Eales a couple of times, but they were hardly transgressions). I’d urge caution re being overly critical or overly defensive of any of them.

There is a middle ground to be found tbf - I don't think that the current club management has done anything to deserve vitriol, but no club management should be immune to questioning nor to criticism - even if a shitload of trophies are won. Bollocks to Ashley and Llambias; plenty of us remember the failure to question the Halls and Shepherds because we had a good team and we had been in the worst condition in our history (far, far worse than that Ashley left us in), until it was far too late. They don't need to be obvious pantomime villains.

I don't think that Eales was out of line nor Mitchell tbh - it was daft by Howe more than anything. Why should the manager expect to have that level of power at the club? That's not how other top clubs are run. I hope Howe has settled and is working well with them, but I don't think that the manager should be consulted on those sort of appointments.

Got you. We wouldn’t be spending 20m in this window

Christ, you really don’t like the lad

Likewise - it is an area which could obviously be improved, but we scored more goals last season than we’d ever scored in the top flight in my lifetime. Don’t see the desperation.

We didn’t really spend 20m on a keeper tbh - that was an FFP fiddle. The lad is barely worth 10% of that.

The fee wouldn’t concern me at all. The only thing that would slightly annoy me if we do end up signing Guehi for 70m is why we fucked around for so long in the first place if we were always prepared to go that high - it leaves us with very little time to do anything else.

Got to give the bloke some time - the window hasn’t even closed yet

I’m perfectly fine signing a really good no. 2 keeper, but you’d hope that if he signs we’d immediately be offloading Dubravka to any willing taker and seeing if we can get old Ulysses out on loan for a fee at a minimum

Haha fuck me what are we doing?

That is based on the assumption that it was simply bad luck. I'd withhold judgement until next summer on that.

Almost no chance would be my guess

I still think we'd have got something for Almiron last summer. We weren't ruthless enough

Just need Salah to claim that Almiron's mam lets opposition left backs finger her in the changing room. That'll dee the trick

Charlotte reduced their bid to finance his wage demands which was then rejected Tbf we're the ones who put Almiron on his current salary

I still think signing a RW was reliant on getting rid of Almiron. And the lad won't budge.

Yeah, they were tightened up back in 2020 - so intent plays no role anymore. I understand that intent is down to interpretation, so it opens itself up to inconsistencies - but I'd be devastated if we had a cup final winner chalked off on this basis

The lad is unlucky because it doesn't appear to be deliberate in any way at all - but it is still a handball. VAR is shite and ruins the sport, but that doesn't mean that the decision is wrong

Football is the only sport that I know of where 'pundits' will talk about 'common sense' - and talk about the laws of the game as they think they should exist, and often because they literally don't know the laws themselves. They then rant about referees making the only decision that can be made under the laws of the game as if the referee has made a mistake, rather than considering that they should probably have an idea of how the rules work. Which you would think would be a fundamental when you're getting paid six- and seven-figure salaries to understand how football works and then relay it back to the audience.

Funny thing is that the owners are eminently criticisable - it isn’t necessary to make things up; you’d need to be an ostrich to be unaware of just how horrific the KSA govt is. Yet make things they do.

Yes. The problems stem from the back line and its need to be overprotected. That wasn’t close to a top half back line which started today.