Useful Idiot

I agree completely about Bednarek- his first thought is to clear it and most of his forward passes are hit and hopes down the channel for the wingback/attacking mid to chase rather than attempts to pick someone out. Vestergaard isn't really like that, though. He tends to look for a low pass forward first, he actually has a better pass completion rate than Stephens (although nowhere near as good as Yoshida, probably because most of Yoshida's passes are sideways shuttles between the two wide centre backs). He does hit long passes, but a lot of them are attempts to switch play diagonally. He is also slightly better at dribbling than Stephens (statistically about twice as good, although that's saying very little). Vestergaard's main problem is that he sprints as if he's giving a sumo wrestler a piggy back.

Is a wave drop something to do with surfing?

If that's true, then whoever they got to do the print is an idiot. The outline of the backing layer should avoid any sharp angles as they create weak points that tear under stress. The outline of the vinyl should follow the red lines I've added here. It's really easy to fix, too. About a 30 second job on any cutting software. I'd probably fix the nodes above the 'L' in LD Sports as well, just to be on the safe side, although they're not quite as bad as the others.

I think he's just doing banter or something. I thought Djenepo went down on 65 minutes because he got an elbow dug into his upper back when someone jumped into him. Didn't watch much after that so I didn't actually see him go off.

You can tell Hassan used to be coached by Dave Watson with keeping skills like those.

I think Moi's main problem is that he makes Tadic look like Usain Bolt. Apart from that, he doesn't have Tadic's strength to pin a fullback, his eye for a pass, or his occasional moments of absolute brilliance. He's got decent enough ball control and he has a trick or two, but even when they come off he can't ever get away from anyone because he can't run. He can occasinally put in a good cross, and his movement to find space is pretty good, he just fluffs his lines when it comes to playing a dangerous pass or having a shot.

Maybe they're willing to sell at a lower value to a non-Premier League team?

Looks like a very cheap versacamm print on very, very thin vinyl. They've also messed up the angle of the cut where the part where the logo joins the text. That will split in half really quickly.

^^ for some reason the quote didn't work... that was a reply the Ben Gibson post.

His aura might dazzle our other defenders. They have enough problems as it is.

Yeah, Vestergaard was £18m or approx. €22.5m. We can't be expected to match the unsustainable outlay of footballing titans such as Watford, Bournemouth, Fulham or Palace, after all. We'd instantly be ruined if we even attempted to keep up with them.

Who is talking about buying squad players? I've not seen anyone suggest that we should. However, the club only has so much cash and there are more important positions to spend it on than right back. I expect Maehle will be out of our price range now with that lot allegedly looking after him, anyway.

I'm not sure we'll be able to get in the right players to play 4-2-2-2 against teams in the top half. I expect we'll probably alternate with 3-4-3. I just don't think we'll have a pair of centre backs who can cope, or central midfielders who cover the ground quickly enough, to be able to play four at the back all of the time.

Doesn't that make them both eligible to play for Scotland?

He's a good wing-back with a great cross. He's also a pretty poor full-back who is generally easy to get past 1v1. With a system that uses 3 central defenders he can be an asset. In a back 4 he can be a liability.

and Vokins is between 5'7"-5'8"

Seems more like a young Bolasie than a Mane to me. Excellent dribbler, fast, and strong but hasn't ever had anything close to Mane's goal return yet. Mane managed about 1 goal every 2 league games before he joined us, Djenepo is on about 1 in 5 with a lower number of matches played I'm excited to see what he can do, though! We've not had a properly fast player who can actually control a football for a few years now.

I think Targett is pretty much as good as Bertrand if we play with 3 central defenders. Targett has a better cross than Bertrand (I don't think there's much between his delivery and JWPs to be honest) but Bertrand overlaps more effectively. Bertrand is still miles better in a back 4, though. He's far less likely to be done for pace than Targett is, and he's far better at winning the ball back. Sort of depends on the system Ralph actually wants us to play next season, I suppose.

Mings is certainly good at getting ahead.

That is true, however we have a lower net transfer expenditure than any other club currently in the Premier League apart from Tottenham and Norwich. In fact, of the teams that have appeared in the Premier League during that period, we have a lower net expenditure than all but 7 out of 33. During that time, we've received the 4th highest income from player sales (£362m) while being the 8th highest spenders (£391m).

Yeah, but Ralph didn't play a back 4 very often did he? Even though it was his favourite system he mostly went with 3 centre backs because of their weaknesses and when we switched to a back 4 due to injures we didn't win a single game. Hughes played a back 4 pretty much the first half of the season. That worked well, didn't it?

Any combination of 2 of our current centre backs is bad. Bednarek's touch and composure isn't up to regularly playing out from the back with him as one of a pair, we'd have to kick long and we don't have a big target up top to aim for. Bednarek + Vestergaard also lacks any pace to cover if we ever play a high line. Probably the best pair we could go for is Yoshida + Vestergaard and even then I wouldn't be confident. If we are going 4-2-2-2 we really need a CB. I have a suspicion that we won't be after a RB in this window. I think with all the attention Valery has been getting in the Echo and Ralph's comments on how hard he is working to improve his weaknesses I doubt he'd be after someone to reduce his first tram opportunities. Ramsey has also looked pretty good for the u23s at RB towards the end of the season. In the games I watched he seemed to start putting in some decent crosses and making a lot more forward runs. I expect he'll be the backup next year. Seems a pretty bright and articulate lad as well. Of course, I could be totally wide of the mark, but that's how the situation seems to me.

Just like he moved to China to get away from them again.

So aware that he repeatedly wanders infield off the wing to be closed down by 2-3 players around the centre circle and refuses to offload the ball, losing it and allowing the opposition to counter for a free goal. Incredibly aware and astute. He is probably worth what we paid for him in today's money, so mid/lower championship level.

That's still not how it works. Any club that bids £5m gets to talk to him. If one club bids £5m and the other £7m then WBA can't choose who he signs for at that point. Bidding £7m would just be p1ssing £2m up against a wall for no reason at all.