Checko

Feel like this game could be anything. They play a high line, which suits us, but they're also good at moving it forward through the middle of the pitch, which is where we can get caught out. They've just beaten Man City and we've had three good performances, so both teams will be full of confidence. Will be interesting to see how our updated set-up performs against one of the better teams.

Craig Hope was saying they're prepared to let him go this window if he wants to (and it sounds like he will) but he thinks it'll be nearer the end of Jan so Pope can come back first.

Reported in the Daily Mail as well: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-14222339/Sporting-Lisbon-set-sack-head-coach-Vitor-Pereira-just-one-month-replaced-Man-United-boss-Ruben-Amorim-following-Old-Trafford.html Though given Vitor Pereira is the new manager of Wolves and Joao Pereira is the manager of Sporting I have my doubts.

The fact he managed to piss off miggy makes me think we should sign him just to get opponents sent off.

If we bump the Roflham Lolspurs thread it could be The Other 17.

Yeah, particularly strikers who are more reliant on the rest of the team to give them service and get them in the game. Top teams are generally gonna make more chances so helps a lot.

Reminds me of when I was young and would sign Uwe Rosler on CM2/3 whatever year it was, because he had 20 for shooting and heading & I didn't care about anything else. That said Haaland's such a physical beast as well I'm sure he could fit into just about any team.

Crazy compared to Haaland's stats. He seems to be brilliant at shooting and in the air (as if we didn't know), and does actually fuck all else. He's in the 4th% for passes completed and 1st% (bottom) for passes attempted... in a Guardiola team.

Had a little look at his stats on FB Ref. Vs strikers in top 5 leagues he's in the 92nd percentile for dead ball passes and 89th percentile for throw ins taken. Also he's really good at shooting, passing and dribbling.

Watford have Italian owners and I think they own Udinese too (and Malaga?) and they just sack their manager one or two times a year or it seems. Checked it the other day actually as I noticed Tom Cleverley's manging Watford now. When players you bought as a hot prospect in Football Manager are managing teams themselves it makes you feel old! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Watford_F.C._managers Looks like they're on their 10th permanent manager since December 2019. Just bonkers.

Yeah fair point, no idea how the new rules will work, though it would still minimise this year's PSR spend and give Soton extra income for next years accounts. However it works. Anyway, it's assuming we want him, they're willing to sell, we can agree a fee, he wants to come here, no-one else he'd rather go to bids as well.

-10 potential on FM 2008. What a waste.

Why would anyone get anything else?

If you haven't got an image of Tino Asprilla cartwheeling tattooed on your cock you shouldn't be allowed to enter ticket ballots IMO.

Or maybe if PSR is tight agree to a sale to take place on 1st July? A second £70 million loss year will have dropped off our books then.

I feel the issue with Mbeumo is he's probably peak value right now: 25, premier league proven, having a really good year, Brentford sold their other star attacker this year too so aren't desperate for cash, full-on pirate beard. He'd cost a lot of doubloons.

I think it should be 69k, just because even the most hardcore stay at SJP would have to admit...

Also has to be mentioned that the interviewer said in the question 'so do you put that down to the fact you're so short of your first choice defence really' - He literally gave Ange an out in the question, then Ange was a bit of a dick to him.

Yeah but over a short period of time. Personally I'm not worried. Take Isak for instance: in 2021/22 he scored 6 goals in the season from 9.8 xG. Should have had an extra 4 goals that year. He'd scored 17 league goals the year before (16.8 xG), 9 from 7.3 xg the year before that and 13 from 11.7xG the year before that. Every other year before and after he's generally scored slightly more then his xg. Sometimes you just have a year, or run of games where things don't go as well as normal. The pattern I see with Gordon over the last few years is that he's scored pretty consistently about much as many goals as expected. Goals often come in clusters, he'll probably score a few in a couple of games at some point and be back to baseline. So yeah, of course he's not been clinical so far this year, but I'm not worried about his finishing over the long-term, I think it's fine.

Since the 21/22 season he's scored roughly what you'd expect from his xG every year, his finishing's fine. He's a bit below this year but that's just natural variance. At some point he'll grab a few and all will be well. With the header, yeah probably should have scored, but really the issue there was that because Murphy had lobbed it up to keep it in play it was dropping fast. Combined that with running onto it at high speed with a defender by him & you only need to be the slightest fraction out. It just dropped a tiny bit too much and he got over the top of it. Think Isak's one on one chip straight to the keeper was worse tbh. Also, watching the highlights, his pass to put Barnes through at the end was class.

As does him managing Genoa three times in a row between 2016 and 18!

Build a new stadium and name it after him IMO.

Very good performance, very good result. Pressed high man to man and forced errors. Made plenty of chances. Saw it out in second gear at the end. Thought Murphy was excellent. Bruno was bossing things. That outside-the-foot, first-time, volleyed crossfield ball to Gordon was sex on a stick. Isak getting a hat trick finally! Also nice to see Miley back and I thought he looked good, albeit we were in see-out-the-clock mode by then. Obviously vs newly promoted team etc. I appreciated they still tried to play at 4-0 down and didn't just go into a deep block. They just didn't have the individual quality. Anyway, a few tougher games coming up, but for now, merry fucking Christmas everyone!

They're a newly promoted team who hasn't won at home all year and missing their main attacking threat. We're an established top half team off the back of a couple of good performances. We should be reasonably strong favourites here IMO. Just hope we go out and play like it, I'm tired of us always playing like the underdog away from home.