Matt1892

Fair enough.?

There is a difference between expecting a top four finish and expecting to challenge for a top four finish though.

We were 8 points away despite having a tough champions league group and the worst injury list in the league. Worth remembering that despite the above we still had 4th best home record in the league. Injuries don’t show our squad isn’t there yet, it showed that if you have an unusually high level of injuries then your performances on the pitch will suffer.

If you can demonstrate that something is achievable for 2 seasons in a row, there isn’t anything wrong with expecting to be challenging for it in the third season. Obvious caveats in that with injuries etc.

Nothing wrong with going in to the season having an ambition of 4th or thinking it is achievable, we did it the year before last and only finished 8 points off last years despite the worst injury record in the league and a tough CL group.

They still owe £190 million on players, including £73.6 million which needs to be paid before the end of June. https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/sport/football/leeds-united/leeds-united-still-owe-ps190-million-for-andrea-radrizzani-era-transfers-as-annual-accounts-details-revealed-4587025

I doubt it as they have just qualified for the Champions League, the same way nobody was saying it about Howe last summer.

I think so too if we go overseas.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we moved for Antonine Semenyo, he is coming off the back of his first full season in the Premier League where he scored 8 goals, he is capable of going up a few more levels too. He played well in both games against us and was probably the best player on the pitch at SJP. He is capable of playing in all of the front three positions too. He is unlikely to cost silly money either.

In unsurprising news…

He will be under pressure to achieve next season, as he should be but that goes with the territory of managing a club that now has high ambitions. If he can sort our away form out then we will be up there pushing the teams at the very top. However, if he doesn’t or we have another season of mass injuries then the club will make the change. I am on the side of him sorting our away form out and I hope he can do it.

I think it was Kieran Maguire who said for most clubs that any extra they make from the Conference league is lost due to players contracts having a European football bump up.

I am not going to lose any sleep that we didn’t qualify for the Conference league. Hopefully it means we focus to quality over quality this window.

They deserved it on their performance today.

Fair play to Man Utd.

City getting what they deserve.

Dreadful by City

Boring this.

We would still laugh at them if they spent £25 million on DCL. It isn’t about exotic by the way, Howe prefers players with Premier League experience unless they have a high ceiling and I don’t have an issue with that. What I would prefer is that we buy someone that can cover out wide and go through the middle to offer that depth all across the front line, at least that way we can interchange during games too.

We were buying untapped potential with Gordon and Isak though. Signing DCL would be similar to signing Antony Martial from Man Utd, it is a signing that if any of the other clubs pushing for European football were to make we would be laughing at them, instead we are hoping Howe can work some magic with him.

The same Sean Dyche that got double figures out of Chris Wood in his four full seasons in the Premier League before joining us… Calvert-Lewin’s is in an awful run of form and has been for years, Howe might turn that around but the risk is all on the club, as if he can’t we are lumbered with an injury prone player that we will struggle to move on.

He has 14 league goals in 67 appearances for Everton over the last 3 season, with 5 of the 14 goals coming from the penalty spot.

The comparison to Wilson is a strange one as his injury record in the 3 seasons before joining us was pretty good, as was his form.