mayubeproud

I think we should sign a world class GK and a world class CB to upgrade our defense massively. For midfielders and forwards, I think almost every new signing in the last 4-5 years failed to make an impact immediately. Here is the long list: Bruno - fared the best but even he was benched for most of his initial half season Isak - made some impacts early on but not very consistent, got injured almost immediately and not an undisputed starter vs Wilson, becomes our star player later Wood - never good for us, but played well anywhere else... Gordon - had little impact upon arrival, had an excellent 2nd year and average thereafter Barnes - unconvincing at the beginning, then become a useful rotation option Tonali - supposed to be a marquee signing but spent more than a year to get into the starting XI regularly Osula - you may argue that he is young and raw, he clearly didn't make any impact in the first year anyway Woltemade - showed some flashes of brilliance but not consistent enough Wissa - terrible start Elanga - terrible start Ramsey - unconvincing start *Anderson (recalled from loan, like a new signing) - never made any significant impact with us *Miley (promoted from academy, like a new signing) - still not consistent but had some good moments Just splash the money to strengthen our defense radically, then punt a bit of money on some cheap young players who got a bit of potential like Osula, wait at least until 27/28 for them to make any real impact. I can accept random names like Aluso, Salou and Lusao as long as they don't cost more than £20m. Expensive midfielders/forwards rarely work for us no matter how good they were before signing for us.

Mixed feeling about this transfer. I always think Gordon is one of the players who don't give 100% every game. So it's good to let him go and recoup some money. On the other hand, when the likes of Garnacho or Elanga cost something like £45-55m these days, £69m for Gordon doesn't seem that much. I know Gordon isn't going to be a Balon d'Or contender but he's only 25 and a regular in the England NT so you have a feeling that he should really worth more. Indeed, we bought Gordon for £45m three years ago and if you factor in inflation, we only made a very small profit trading him. After all Negrelona/Uefalona is also the non-English club that I despise the most so I don't want them to buy anyone cheap.

For me, winning the Europa League is definitely a better achievement than FAC/LC. One has to go through at least 15 games to win the UEL, versus 6-7 games in FAC/LC. Most of the teams in the Europa League got a reasonable standard. Look at the teams who can't even get into play-offs this year, there are teams like Feyenoord, Rangers and Nice that could stand a chance surviving in the PL. You probably have to go through at least 12-13 not-so-easy games to win the UEL, versus 4-5 in FAC/LC as one would typically face 1 or 2 lower league sides during the process. You need to perform well rather consistently over a long time against a lot of decent teams to win the UEL, which makes it very risky to tank in the league to try to win it and when you do decide to tank in the league, it could mean end up getting 17th like Tottenham last year. Those who argue that one have to compete with the very best teams like Man City/Arsenal in FAC/LC, these teams tend to field a slightly weakened side even in the later stages of the competition. Even when they do field their very best players, those players may not be as determined as in the league or UCL. Thus even in the last 1-2 decades where football got much more commercialized, many lesser teams like us, Crystal Palace, Leicester, Wigan, Birmingham, Portsmouth and Swansea were still able to win either one of FAC/LC. You'll never witness upsets that frequently in any top leagues or UCL. In terms of the reward, UEL is clearly better than FAC/LC as it offers more prize money as well as a ticket to next year's UCL.

The math for 8th to be possible: 1. Obviously we have to win vs Fulham, and Brentford to lose vs Liverpool, and overcome the goal difference. For instance, if we end up with the same GD and same number of goals scored with Brentford, then we'll still finish behind them due to h2h record. 2a. If Chelsea wins vs Tottenham, then we can't finish 8th, because Chelsea (52 points) will face Sunderland (51 points) on the last day, so at least one of them will get at least 53 points. 2b. Given Chelsea's massive advantage of GD, unless some crazy scoreline happens, if Chelsea couldn't win vs Tottenham, then we must need Chelsea to draw vs Sunderland for us to overtake both of them. 3. Everton cannot beat Tottenham by a margin of at least 3 goals more than our winning margin vs Fulham. Having all of these to happen is too unlikely, I'll just forget about it.

Luis Diaz is much better than him so I don't think he'll start too many games in the CL knockout games. But we've seen he can bully weaker opponents with his pace and physicality, which makes him a very good rotation option in Bundesliga.

Asked ChatGPT and there could be scenarios where 9th or 10th could qualify for Europe via league position: - If Villa finishes 6th and wins UEL, then 7&8th will qualify for UEL and 9th will qualify for UECL (not very likely but far from impossible, Bournemouth are only 3 points behind Villa) - Furthermore, if Palace finishes 9th and wins UECL, then 10th will qualify for UECL (this one is very unlikely though) Man City is assumed to win the FA Cup in all cases. That being said, I don't think we will finish in the top half. Edit: Confirmed that ChatGPT is wrong

Btw just found that Nottingham is on a 10-game unbeaten run despite still having the distraction of Europe with a rather low-budget squad

Football is not a rocket science, you can never prove something using the "if X then Y" logic, so I would be very happy if my feeling is wrong. My feeling is that, under EH, many players are not properly used, some of them are low on confidence, some of them are already thinking about opportunities elsewhere. Thus many players have their market values massively plummeted because they are playing badly. Well, again, football is not a rocket science. So at the end of the day, there's no definite answer who is at fault of our current situation. Maybe someone else, not EH, should be blamed for the past failures. I'm not running the club so I don't know. Maybe EH made the mistakes in the past but he will be able to reflect on himself. Who knows. What I said is the reflection of my intuition towards our 'pattern' and my believe that this 'pattern' will continue.

Probably an unpopular opinion here, and I would be happy to be proved wrong. I think keeping EH is a mistake and we're very likely to finish in the bottom half next season. Many of our current players will be sold undervalued, and a lot of them (even the likes of Wissa or Elanga, if they're sold) will find greater success at other clubs. The reinforcements will be as disappointing as this season.

When you got the talent to win a Ballon d'Or, but you aren't trusted by your manager......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVJQAvu3gDU

6 goals in 1075 min if you want to be precise.

My gut feeling: 16th, we'll finish below Leeds & Forest West Ham & Tottenham will grab a few more points each but not enough to catch us up. We may still get 1-2 points in the remaining 4 games.

Callum Wilson also has 0.5 goals per 90 this season......

EH said he played Burn vs Arsenal because of his height on the other day. If height and strength is the only thing that he would consider, I wonder why he didn't simply sign some NBA rejects?