TWar

It's annoying when booking tickets for guests on the website it says you don't need to put an email in unless they want to be able to buy tickets and then doesn't let you go on unless you input one, especially since you have to do so for small children as well. Why would they have an email address?

He partially answered this in the other thread, but he said Macca did and was all ready to be announced but then the media stuff was pulled for reasons unknown

That's interesting, thanks. Castagne comes to mind, I think he might have been linked at one point and is a position we need around our price range.

Hey Dan, Cheers for coming on here and answering a few questions. You mentioned on the Tifo video recently that we narrowly missed out on Cucerella due to our budget constraints. I realise giving the inside scoop on here about current targets is probably not something you'd want to do but could you say any other past targets we narrowly missed out on? Thanks!

Yeah me too. I think at the time we had a couple of longer unsuccessful contracts but given how cheap his wages were a 5 year contract feels low risk and high reward.

Yeah I think £60m is reasonable, not sure why I said £40m. He is left footed too. Although for the record I also do think Ben White is pretty good.

Yeah maybe £40m is low. Pretend I said £60m 😂

I think if we don't get Sali to sign a contract by the summer then we should consider bids around the £40m mark. His value will drop after that due to contract.

Lukaku is poor, his level has massively dropped since Everton and he was made to look good by playing in a wank league in Italy and with a ridiculously stacked Belgium side. Either way, I said it in the other thread but I'll say it again. I really think it is very boring for us both to keep rehashing old arguments at each other. Why don't we both agree to just stop doing so and move on from this point a fresh? Would make the forum much more enjoyable, and I'm sure people are sick to death of us rehashing these old debates which go nowhere.

I said Armstrong had a higher chance to succeed than Broja. I stand by that. If I said "this dice has a much better chance of not landing on 6 as it does of landing on it" and then it didn't, I wouldn't have been wrong. Broja defied reasonable expectations and that is great but that doesn't make the initial assessment wrong. The issue is, you say a tonne of inaccurate things and if one of them pops up as correct (as they will through luck) you cling to it. Have you noticed you are saying this in a thread about Ralph? Your take on him was pretty wrong, and JWP, and Adams.

1 - Neither were tested at this level but both had been tested at similar levels and one did a lot better. Why not judge off their last season when you are like 5 games in to this season for each player? It is a much more accurate thing to base on than a handful of games. 2 - Most said that Armstrong was more promising and slowly changed their minds as more evidence was acquired, as they should. You guessed early, guessed right, and are trying to pretend that made it obvious. It didn't, it was a lucky guess. You also said you didn't rate JWP and Adams, which are both outlandish takes, you just selectively stick with the one that happened to come true.

I think, for us, probably initially a spreadsheet (or some method of conveying numerical data, maybe a nice graph). I imagine we narrow down our targets through statistical analysis and those judged to be good enough will be watched by well trained eyes, and they probably watch numerous games rather than just 20 mins. If the initial phase was watching them that would take forever, you can't personally scout every major team in the world and keep an eye on every single one of their players.

Against the likes of Hungary and San Marino. He has been excellent this season, I won't disagree with that, but to say he was equally highly rated or likely to succeed as Armstrong at the start of the season is very incorrect. Armstrong has underperformed (so far, I think he has time), and Broja has massively massively overperformed expectations.

I think he could watch worldclass strikers for 200 years, it still wouldn't give him the ability to accurately judge someone off 20 mins of football because it's not about the quality of the watcher it's about the sample size. A 20 min snapshot is basically meaningless. Broja kind of proves this as in his second game against Sheffield United he was shite and was roundly called out by most including Ralph who has said he "started slow". If I showed you his last two games I think you'd probably think he wasn't so great either, with a lot of misses and poor decisions. You need a longer time to judge. DMan didn't take that time, had a punt, and turned out to be right. It makes him look very clever till you remember he doesn't rate JWP and Adams so really it was probably just a lucky swing.

He had played significantly more senior football at a higher level and had come off the back of a significantly more successful season. Judging a player on 20 mins and making your mind up isn't something to be proud of, even if you did happen to be right on this instance. It shows your judgement is based on the bare minimum evidence and any accurate observations were probably luck.

Werner is way above our level, would love to see him here, but wages are far too high.

We have a complicated system, it takes a while for newer players to pick it up. They have been here a while now and they are nicely gelled and are doing great. As for Broja vs Armstrong, ofcourse Broja had to wait to take his chance, he was much less proven coming into the season. He also had a poor cup game early on which probably set him back in claiming the spot. He fought for his spot and he claimed it, as it should be.

It might not be a moot point. If Liverpool win the league Cup, City win the FA Cup and prem, and United win the champions league but miss out on top four then 8th gets you conference league, I think. As I said though, pretty unlikely.

Yeah I mean, we couldn't play one up top before Broja as we didn't have a striker who played well alone. We couldn't really do 3atb most of last season as we didn't have 3 fit CBs and a back up on the bench, we couldn't do a 3 man midfield as Diallo and Romeu weren't often simultaneuously fit and Smallbone was injured. We couldn't have an attacking formation where both fullbacks pushed on and Romeu sat in the back three as we didn't have two fullbacks who could meaningfully contribute to the attack (Bertrand was poor). Now we have three incredibly talented fullbacks so not only can we play like that but we can do so consistently as we have someone to step in if one gets injured. We mix up our tactics and formations now, but I don't think it's because Ralph has suddenly realised thats a thing he can do. It's because now we have the players to do it effectively.

In modern football people seem to always blame the manager. People moaned about Benitez and now Lampard looks just as poor, people moaned about Dean Smith and now Villa fans call for Gerrards head due to one win in 9 and losses to Brentford, Watford and Newcastle. Eddie Howe is another example. Newcastles form barely changed when he took over, suddenly they are now looking a lot better, was it a new manager? Absolutely not, they just spent £80m+ on players (probably north of £100m when add ons are considered). New manager bounces I think trick people into thinking a "sack first and ask questions later" mentality is right. People don't stop to think maybe the players are the issue, lack of quality, lack of depth, freak injuries etc. Our board did and they deserve massive credit for it. The easy answer of "the buck stops at the guy picking the team, why didn't he simply pick a better team to play today?" is rarely correct.

Bingo, also glad we didn't sell JWP like some of the anti Ralph lot wanted. He has been amazing of late.

Some thought he didn't need to change, we just needed to back him with a better and deeper squad. These people were correct and have been proven as such.

I thought that was changed and now we can have 5 teams qualify for CL, hence 2 for Europa and 8th gets conference (assuming the domestic cups are won by the big boys)

Erm, MLG is probably better placed for such things but I believe it would require 5 CL teams which would happen if a non top 4 team wins either the CL or the europa league. Could be wrong though.

Why can't he just do the honorable thing and disappear completely, like Duckhunter?