TWar

Gutted about Weston McKennie, would have been nice to have a big marque signing which really improved the team.

Seems strange to buy a midfielder who has done ok from the German second tier for £10m and sell one who has done great in the English second tier for £8m, championship is a significantly higher quality league so why not just give Reed guarantee he is first choice and keep him. Unless the idea is to buy this guy as well as McKennie.

I'm not exactly raving about Hojbjerg myself, he is an average player, but as our former captain and number one in the league for recoveries from midfield, those are objectively his strengths.

I mean, ITK people do exist. That KBilly fella posted Angus Gunn's wiki page before a single press story had even linked him and a week later he was signed. You are right in saying that 90% of people on here who earnestly claim it are just completely bullshitting though.

I believe that the idea is that instead of having an under 23 team that is managed in its own way seperately to the first team they will instead be trained to play like our first team does in order to facilitate seemless transition between the two. Our under 23 side will now, from what I gather, play the same 4222 high press football that the first team will. This was discussed a while ago with regards to plans RH wrote during lockdown. Leaves us in a weird spot if we lose him though, given we would have set up not only the first team but the entire club around his style of football.

Wonder if they are planning to announce Salisu and KWP same time as the sale of Hojbjerg to keep spirits up. I would be fine with it to be honest.

Would people prefer we sign Cash or KWP? Personally ideally I'd see us sell Hojbjerg ASAP for max money and buy Cash, then use the money to sign McKennie. Stop messing about with spurs.

Seems incredibly steep for a player who managed 5 goals and 6 assists last season (for reference Armstrong got 5 goals and 3 assists with 300 less minutes and cost us 7m). If this is where they are going to replace Zaha I think they may struggle.

Presumably out of concern that spurs may pull out of a deal at the last minute and screw us, leaving us with a massive financial hole. Or if spurs are smart they could notice we have spent money and know how this means we must sell and use that as a way of getting Hojbjerg significantly cheaper.

Could maybe see a mass announcement of KWP and/or Salisu plus some contract extensions but I think if we had new owners or McKennie there would definitely have been more press surrounding it. Those are probably too big a thing to happen to just drop out of thin air.

If we get in Salisu, KWP, and McKennie in the first couple of weeks of the window I think I would be happy from there. No need for any further signings, maybe a back up lb or a cheap cb4. Just focus on selling the dead wood and getting that rumoured 20 man squad Ralph likes to work with.

Been a few sources, I believe Alan Nixon was the first one who tends to be pretty good for us. Normally don't trust the Sun but Nixon has been on the money for us over past seasons.

Well we have apparently wrapped up another signing (Jeremi Rodrigues) and I believe we haven't officially announced JWP's contract extension. Normally we tweet out our contract extensions and no news. Furthermore, last week it was heavily implied that Bertrand and KWP were locked down on permanent contracts. Maybe we are waiting to announce a bunch of things at once. Not sure why though.

This is the important bit from the president of Rennes - "“Unfortunately, we knew that Mohamed preferred the Premier League because he is English-speaking. We respect his choice. We had doubts about his capital to obtain the work permit in England. It seems he acquired it. We were his first choice in case of not obtaining the permit. The central defender position is the priority of our transfer window" (source https://www.footmercato.net/a3910090425056081055-rennes-nicolas-holveck-tres-pessimiste-avec-guirassy-et-salisu) confirming we have a work permit. Looks done and dusted!

Yes obviously it would be not a bad thing to have a better 4th choice CB, and obviously we shouldn't "stop looking for ways to improve that area". I thought that much was so blatant that it didn't need stating. The question isn't "should we choose a better candidate over a worse one?" it is "could £15m be spent somewhere better than on a position that likely will get 2 or 3 starts all season?". Stephens and Bednarek are quality defenders who, since they have come in as a pairing, have ranked comfortably in the top half of goals conceded. Bednarek statistically is one of the best CBs in the league for clearances, blocks and interceptions (see my statistical analysis post) You have to ask yourself, which of the following do you prefer: Double cover for CB with Stephens or Bednarek being 4th choice and barely getting to play or The competition/cover for Armstrong which is better than Smallbone, Bertrand which isn't Volkins, or Che that isn't Obafemi. No one is saying it is bad to have competition, you just have to realise if we have Stephens, Salisu and Bednarek all fighting for two spot then there is definitely multiple spots on the team that need the competition more. So again: competition - good; lots of competition in one spot at the expense of it elsewhere - bad. Surprised some on this forum really needed this spelling out with the sort of comments on here today.

Ok so assuming that Salisu is being brought in with a mind to start for us. We have Bednarek, Stephens and Salisu all competing for two positions, all seemingly good premier league quality players. Bednarek and Stephens would get into most sides outside the top six (and probably Chelsea in the top 6) and we have to assume Ralph rates Salisu as good enough to compete with both of them. Given this, why on earth would we spend £15-20m or whatever Disasi has been touted as on a 4th cb?! That is madness. There are so many better places it can go: At LB, RB and RM we have youth players as our back up. Surely improving on the quality of competition for places like right mid where Armstrong and Smallbone compete or LB where Volkins and Bertrand compete is a better use of money than competing for who gets the honour of sitting on the bench most of the season. Some clubs don't even put 2 cbs on there bench so we may not even have this player in the matchday squad some weeks, you want to drop 15-20m on that?! 3 quality cbs and an up and coming player is perfectly fine for cb depth. Don't try to overcorrect our team balance problem and swing the pendulum all the other way. I hope this second cb is a young lad worth less than 10m who can improve over time. EDIT FOR POST LIMIT: Since game week 14 when those two took over as first choice we would have finished 4th in the league with joint 6th least goals conceded. People should rate our defence a bit higher.

Don't want Salisu and Disasi personally. With Jack and Jan doing well at cb it is a completely unnecessary amount of depth, would make our 4th cb comfortably the best in the league (maybe second after Stones at City). If we are spending the 15-20m on a player which Disasi would cost I would prefer us take a punt on a young promising 10 to compete with Armstrong on the right as I think Djenepo plays similarly to Redmond and if Armstrong is out we don't really have anyone who does what he does (except maybe Smallbone but not sure he is up to it yet).

Guess the big transfer announcement will be put on ice for a bit... Unless we are going to get a half time announcement, doubt it though.

@LeG and @Earthworm Jim is this the player you guys were expecting, says he's an lb not a cb?

If we can get anywhere near the numbers quoted for him I think wed be crazy not to sell. We aren't a team who should ever have a 4th cb worth £10m+ let alone £20m+. For a team of our size cb 4 should be a promising kid or a retiring club legend who isn't really up to it anymore. Liverpools 4th choice cb is going for 12m and they won the league!

Directly before the game is pretty specific. If he said "in the next few days" then it would likely be just someone bullshitting but if it happens between 9am and 4pm tomorrow then I will buy this guy might have a source. In other news, someone should compile a list of ITKs and the things they have gotten right in order to keep track of who to trust. I hear LeG is good and he is saying positive stuff so am choosing to believe that one haha.

Do we have a new ITK in our midst? If something happens before tomorrow's match then you can look forward to a long summer of people pestering you for snippets of info.

First 19 games: clearances+interceptions+blocks: 78 errors leading to chances: 1 errors leading to goals: 1 tackle %: 67 aerial dual %: 50 pass %: 70 Latter 18 games: clearances+interceptions+blocks: 95 errors leading to chances: 0 errors leading to goals: 0 tackle %: 66.7 aerial dual %: 36 pass %: 72

This covers the most of it. Every company has slightly different models for calculating it. So Ings is much further ahead on understat than he is on opta for xG-G. The algorithm is kept secret mostly so that people cannot use it and there is still usage for these websites.

I have recently got access to full opta statistics for premier league sides and was surprised at how much we appear to be on the extrema of different stats. I know some people will say they don't like xG/xGA/xGC stuff but this is for those who do. If this is too long for you (likely) then I have bolded the most interesting facts. For note: xG = Expected goals scored xA = Expected Assists xGC = Expected Goals Conceded. Goalkeeping This was the most surprising one for me. McCarthy is statistically having a superb season. He is 6th on goals prevented (xGC- GC) which is excellent given that he didn't play all season and 4th in goals prevented per minute. Only behind Foster, Ederson, and Leno. His save percentage is pretty middle of the pack, slightly lower than Ederson, but slightly higher than Fabianski and Mat Ryan. On a more negative note, he is joint second on errors leading to goals with 3 alongside Ederson, Pickford and David De Gea. Another negative is that his distribution is terrible. He is near the bottom for passes completed. Gunn has dreadful stats in almost every area, props up most tables. Defending Again starting with the good stuff. Bednarek has the second most interceptions in the league, second most clearances, 5th most headed clearances, and second most (clearances+blocks+interceptions). Both Bednarek and Vestergaard have good aerial duels won, both being high on the table. Strangely Volkins has a 100% tackle percentage having succeeded in both of the 2 tackles he attempted. This is true of 6 other players. In an attacking sense, Bertrand has been excellent. He has the 6th most successful crosses in the league and 6th most xA. So why doesn't he have more assists? Bertrand is the highest in the league for expected assists minus actual assists of any defender. He is an excellent creative force but people are not reliably finishing his chances. On a more negative note Vestergaard has one of the worst tackle success rates in the league. Furthermore Bednarek has the worst (3) errors leading to goals in the league! Midfield We all know the famous one that James Ward-Prowse has covered the most ground this season but it isn't the place he exceeds. He is also second for goals from set pieces and third for successful (finding a target) corners, only after Trent and KdB fully cementing his label of set piece specialist. Ward-Prowse is 3rd for tackles won by a midfielder in the league and Hojbjerg is 7th. Amongst midfielders, he is 6th for interceptions, 8th for recoveries, 6th for blocks, 3rd for clearances, and [JWP] is second for (clearances+blocks+interceptions) in the league. Amongst midfielders, Hojbjerg is number 1 for recoveries in the league. JWP is also 5th for most successful crosses in the league and 7th for chances created. Crazily given how short he is, JWP is also 9th for aerial duals won amongst midfielders. Redmond has 8th most successful take-ons in the league, more so though Mane, Salah, and Son and Martial. He is also near the top for successful passes in the final third. Armstrong is joint second for goals outside (3) the box, JWP is joint 3rd (2). For who is joint first, see the next section, you can probably guess. On a more negative note. Djenepo, Armstrong, Hojbjerg, and Boufal are low down on the table for pass completion %. This isn't necessarily as bad as it sounds given our strategy of many high risk passes into the final 3rd then recovering the ball high. Hojbjerg is 10th for errors leading to goals in the league. Ward-Prowse has the lowest expected goal contribution vs actual goal contribution in the league. The majority of this is that his expected assists are significantly higher than his actual assists, similarly to Bertrand. And the (stastically) worst finisher of any midfielder in the league (lowest goals per xG) is... Hojbjerg. The guy just can't shoot! Forwards (or "Danny Ings is ridiculously good!") Danny Ings is statistically the best striker in the league this season (or one of, but I like the hyperbole). His expected goals vs actual goals (on target) is number one in the league. His expected goal involvement vs actual goal involvement is 3rd only after Aubamayang and Greenwood. And that is, as previously established, alongside other players who cannot finish chances. He is number 1 in tackles for forwards and number 2 in tackles won (behind Ayew). And number 6 in recoveries. In expected assists vs actual assists Che Adams is pretty high, this means the people he passes to (Ings) are doing better with the chance than would be expected. Also finally when it comes to expected goals vs actual goals Ings might be first but shout out to Obafemi who comes in 10th above some top strikers, must be a good finisher! Conclusions (especially for those who didn't get through this massive post) - Macca is great at shot stopping but can't pass - Bednarek is a great blocker and interceptor but has an error in him - Bertrand is one of the most creative fullbacks in the league but no one finishes his chances - JWP is an incredible player both defensively and attacking especially from set pieces but, again, struggles with people finishing what he creates (and has some finishing issues himself) - Hojbjerg has the most recoveries in the league but couldn't finish a dinner - Redmond is great at taking players on and accurate passing in the final third. This is likely why he often gets the assist before the assist. Way underrated by the fan base - Danny Ings is amazing