janpawel

Yeah I agree, I'm saying for the season after next where Schar and Burn will be 1.5-2 years older I know I know, we're not there yet etc... I'm just saying if we sell Kelly then we will probably need 2 more CB's in a couple years, on top of the RCB this summer Having said that, maybe selling Kelly makes sense if it's a good fee

I disagree, I think you need 4 good CB's if you want to go deep in Europe / the 2 domestic cups and not have a significant performance drop off Having said that, Burn is doing excellent at the moment, I was talking about the year after next where I imagine Burn won't be enough for a team with CL ambitions, and thus we'd need an alternative to Botman

Not realistic as it's Brighton, but would love Carlos Baleba for our LCM role

I just worry that we'd need to buy another LCB not this summer but next, with Burns age, and at that point as well Schar will be 1/2 years older too so could mean a lot of transfer activity needed to give us 4 decent CB's. Having said that, considering our FFP position, selling someone we got on a free for circa £15m who hasn't impressed in their cameos is good business I'm torn on it

A very quick look up and Leicester fans think he's their best player and there only chance of staying up, currently injured He also has the highest 'goals prevented in the league' at 5.8, ahead of Onana in second with 3.1 Only 24 as well

I know Trafford is the rumour, but are there any good, established goalkeepers we could ambitiously aim for? I don't know many goalkeepers tbh, I checked Mike Maignan and he has 4 years left of his deal As much as I love Pope and what he has done for us, I can't help but see how much Dubravka's calmness / ball playing helps us, however prime Pope was an elite shot stopper, so imagine someone who has both will already be at the very elite clubs

Agreed, though Huijsen was outrageous value, wasn't he wanted by Barca etc? For £13M he would've been worth a punt, even if he was squad player / midtable level after a few years, we'd surely be able to sell him to a foreign club for what was paid. I know what you mean about Newcastle prices, but since he went for 13, I'm sure in the area of this is what he'd go for regardless But like I've mentioned before, we had our Guehi goggles on, we'd have probably rather have gotten Guehi over prime Maldini last summer

This 👏

Disagree for me, he could have done better for the second and fourth imo

His pace at DM is so helpful Reminds be of Fernandinho at city years ago

His first stinker after being one of our top 5 players this season, hopefully back to BAU next game

They're congesting the pitch so well, we're playing as if we weren't expecting this

He proper rubbish?

How do we develop Osula if we have DCL as our 2nd striker? Surely next year Osula is more developed and better prepared to give some breaks to Isak I previously liked the idea of DCL as it would give us another way of playing, and with everyone high pressing these days, it's important to have the option of going over the top. Plus, our 4-3-3 could morph into a 4-4-2 out of possession if Isak and him ever played together, Arsenal do it a lot and they seem to be the strongest team defensively But he's supposedly a crap finisher which wouldn't cut it if we are aiming for CL places, as well as likely getting in the way of Osula

Completely agree with you RW, RCB and keeper are essentials in summer imo, and we'll have to allocate funds wisely Our centre mid situation is interesting, and I think it's because Bruno and Tonali are so much better than the rest. Joelinton/Willock are good LCM options and cover for each other, but now the drop off to Longstaff from Bruno is huge, and Miley is still too raw to rely on for 4 competitions Willock did play on the right side recently ahead of Longstaff, so I guess we could go with this. Either way I can't see is making an addition to CM, unless 1 goes Keeper as well, assuming Dubs goes, Pope and a new keeper, do we go for a Trafford to build as an able deputy, or someone to start ahead of Pope etc

First time properly watching Dibling, he saunters round a hell of a lot, but looks super talented

Can see Tonali and even Hall getting some goals from outside the box Tonali often seems to be in that danger area, and we seen what he can do in the cup game against Brentford Hall, I've noticed he isn't shy to shoot and has a great left foot on him

Agreed, or if we have a left footed, Mbueme type winger, then using Tino as the wide option who can overlap and get a cross in Part of the reason I think Tino hasn't done as well offensively, is having Murphy there doing his thing

He showed an incredible burst of pace against Cunha towards the end

Botman was rapid there

Can't see Burn being at this level in 1-2 years time, surely Kelly is marked to be LCB back up, unless internally we don't rate him

Honestly for the fee that Huijsen went for, I csnt believe we didn't go for him I know we had our Guehi goggles on all summer, but he went for such a low fee, and seemed a low risk transfer too

I know that's overly simplified and assumes we make linear progress on the pitch, all singings come good, we can sell fringe players like miggy, Longstaff etc. just wondering what the way forward is that isn't selling Isak for £100m, or the club pulling their finger out and boosting commercial revenue drastically which seems unlikely @The College Dropout you have a good understanding of this type of stuff

Can we review and increase sponsors every year, specifically when we make Europe? Just trying to think of how we can make significant progress that doesn't involve getting a £100m sponsor like the top 6 teams, or selling our best players every year. Say for example this year we either make CL or EL (not guaranteed, I know) , making Europe for the second time in 3 seasons, could we - Increase our sponsors as result - CL is probably worth 20-40m for group stage participation / making it though? - Assume we make 20-30m in sales/wages saved - Sign a RW, RCB and Keeper Then I assume we'd start next season as we started this season, pretty much maxing out our FFP allowance, but with a reasonablely improved team and squad So we go again next season, and hopefully make Europe again, with my question then being, can we bump up the sponsors again, and soon have them as big as the lower end of the top 6 teams, as soon as we can show we are 'established' in those positions?

What a disgrace Chelsea are. Imagine that phone call to Chalobah, after banashing him in the Summer