Upthemags

Optimistic indeed, mate.

We're stretched far too thin to be shipping off bona fide first team players who, when fit, could start in almost any premier league side, bar a few at the top, without batting an eye. Imo, Howe needs to just 'handle with care' for the next half year or so to build up his fitness slowly. Use him as a super sub next season or something along those lines.

Spors would be great - seems like smart business to bring in someone non-domestic, might expand our transfer appetite a bit beyond the PL.

Trips was tripping over his own two feet when he needed to defend on ball, and his head was in the clouds off the ball. Botman was an absolute shambles, although he has the injury justification. Schar was defensively abhorrent for long stretches, despite the odd effective defensive performance. Burn was alright defensively, to be fair. Dubs has been used as a kind of scapegoat, which, fair play, the backline is chock-full-of fan favorites. And it stands to reason fans won't want to be critical of first team stalwarts. A common refrain was that the back line performed so poorly because they had dubs' limitations in the back of their minds. To me, that's ridiculous post-hoc reasoning. Botman is, in effect, a non-factor for next season, and Schar is a year older. Think we'd be much better served paying a pittance for an unproven, young, non-domestic keeper hungry to prove himself (in the event Pope goes down for another long stretch), and getting a legitimate center half who can improve our first team. Upgrading our backup keeper isn't getting us from 7th to 6th. The teams that finished ahead of us will be upgrading their first XI, and we should follow suit if Europe is our true aspiration.

It was Trippier or Lewis Hall, so that's not a great point of argument. He can still pass in the final third, but facing his own net, and defending on the ball, and off the ball, he's been nothing short of a disaster all season long. He'll be 34 in September, and no one defeats father time.

Honestly it looks like his legs have gone - will never forget what he did for the club, but top clubs are ruthless. Take him out to pasture in Saudi Arabia, let him get a sizable pay day, and move forward with Tino, and collect ~8-10 million in the process for PSR.

We need to be honest with ourselves - if Nick Pope's fitness is so unreliable that we need to expend 30 million on a backup, it might be time to move on from Nick Pope altogether. The answer to the statement, 'What will we do if "X Player" goes down', is the same for just about every player in our starting XI... I'm beating a dead horse at this point but I do hope we'll see some actual upgrades and not just solid squad players. (And think we'll need actual upgrades if we want to compete for top 6).

Buy an upgrade over him if that's a concern playing on the minds of management

All the keeper fixation just confuses me. We have one of the best shot stoppers in the world back healthy, and we want to expend a sizable portion of our budget on his backup? We were bleeding goals long before Dubs was in with a nearing relegation-form back line, and for about half the season the attack looked nearing Championship levels. Just strange when you consider how far 20-30 million quid would go in upgrading on the wing, at striker (via a replacement who can actually meaningfully take pressure off Isak), at center half, etc. If you're gonna go get a keeper, get a keeper who is better than our current one, build out squad depth by upgrading on our current first 11, not by getting players who aren't talented enough to start for us. If that means recruiting from outside of England, then they need to be doing that. Utterly zero interest in a relegation side keeper whose price tag will be marked up since he's top flight tested, and who isn't good enough to play for us fully healthy.

Not convinced gallagher would fetch 50 million though I might be plain off on that - think Gallagher would be a tremendous asset for us, box-to-box with real defensive capability and energy seems right up Eddie's alley Edit to add I don't think Chelsea will be looking to move him

Absolutely

Time for Kieran and Almiron to take a journey to Saudi Arabia - will be disappointed if we don't get some clear-cut upgrades in this summer. No more depth buys.

Bears repeating we're gonna be a giant fucking headache to face in the PL next season. Methinks the Howe-high-press a la 2022/23 will be back on full force.

1 point from Forrest and Luton at home was never going to go unpunished

Feels a "cognitive thing" to think the team - circumstances accounted for - deserved to be in Europe next season.

No it isn't - we were absolutely dreadful for about half the season, and were near-relegation form away from home. To be frank, we didn't deserve to be in Europe.

Yup - hard as it is for many in here to admit. Performing when it matters is really all that matters, and Man U turned up when it matters. Only ourselves to blame for this.

Akanji is useless man

WHAT IS AKANJI DOING SHOOTING THAT

omg

On the bright side, barring Bruno or Isak demanding out, we're going to be a nightmare to face in the PL with no European comps next season

We threw it away man. They've finished their dinner don't get mad at them

Correct - remember Anthony Gordon's take from a couple months ago: the best ability is availability.

Definitely an interesting take - especially in a season where another win gets us European football. Both comfortably out-produced barnes, stayed on the pitch for the most part, and both would have offered upgrades in positions we needed upgrades in (as opposed to a co-pilot for Anthony Gordon). I'm all for glass half full assessments, and I agree transfer business has been (very) good under Eddie and co., but certainly room for improvement.

Just end the pain