Fabrice Fernandes no.1 fan

Think keeping him depends on his wages and expectations. If he is paid to be 4th choice, and happy to be featuring from the bench as a squad player then keep him. He offers some creativity at times, and can play both sides and in the middle if needed so is useful there. If he wants to be playing every game and is paid in the top 10 earners at the club then it makes sense to try and move him on.

I've heard their owners bought under leveraged buyout where they took on a significant proportion of debt for the club, and relegation triggers a repayment of that debt to the owners. Not sure exactly the mechanics of it, but to me they are a club who need cash soon. If they don't get 40m for Pope, an offer of 20m but lots of it straight away might help!

Agreed, I guess the thought process is that he's been in a training camp already, he won't surpass Walker, TAA or James anytime soon, and when fit Chilwell and Shaw are the preference at left back, so get someone different in for this run (James Justin) to see how he works in the squad. Still, KWP as a left back based on performances this season should be in the squad.

Linked below it makes good lunchtime reading to compare the opinions across the leauge. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61493522 Ours is done by Ray of In That Number Hard to disagree with most of it, but Kalvin Phillips really isn't a playmaker or what we need in my opinion.

I think this is wholly sensible. Really ever so glad we won and got promoted, but think about if we lost and had to basically do the same thing all over again, just to be in another play-off. As you say, Wolves won so many games this year, and clearly are a Championship level club, if not very close. Hopefully a fairer structure can be put in place over the coming years, to help those clubs further down the ladder too.

Interesting team choice, not what I expected! Griffiths and Collett must have impressed in training the last few weeks because they’ve not featured as much as most others. Looks like Kendall will play further forward, hope she still sees a lot of the ball, she could be the key

Everything about this is perfect. The horrific football played while he sings just makes it even better, and the way he slips out of the song when Drogba has a chance at the end. Ignoring what went on in 2005, a partnership of Phillips and Crouch, with Camara too was bloody fun

Think the issue might be counting 1992 to 2003 in "Division 1" as the top league, when actually it was step 2 with the Premier League coming in above it.

This is bang on, but also interesting to consider. At this point I think we need someone who can defend first, and play the right sort of angled passes second. Salisu does play nice angled passes with his left foot up to whoever is playing left back, but he also seems to love giving away penalties and scoring own goals. Playing Vestergaard on the left didn't create issues because of what foot he was, he could still play lovely diagonals to KWP, he just couldn't stop the ball going in our net, the same issue we seem to have now. The three examples you've given are interesting though because they give great examples of defenders complimenting each other, all seem to have some muscle and some grit, alongside a player who reads the ball well to intercept and can pass but both players could do a bit of both if needed. They may have all been right footed, but they did all also have their favoured side too. Cambell, Terry, Vidic and Van Dijk all seemed to favour the left side, with their partners on the right. The issue that made was if they needed to swap sides, it was unfamiliar, and changes defending angles and partnerships with full backs and midfielders around them. They didn't move very often for their club side, but Terry and Campbell at Euro 2004 didn't make the most convincing partnership compared to their club form, because they both were used to playing from the left hand side, and Terry was moved to the right in Ferdinand's absence. If we really want to address our centre back issue, we need to decide if we're sticking with Salisu on the left, and want a new right-sided partner for him. Bednarek and Lyanco both seem to favour the left side too, whereas Stephens looks most comfortable on the right. I do think something we lack is a consistent, dependable back line, where players know their role and their position, and others can slot in and out. Ideally we want to start next season knowing our best defence, and letting them build an understanding.

Really like this team, but my concern is their full backs would have acres of space before doubling up against our wing backs with their forwards. I'd play the same players as above, but Broja through the middle, A Armstrong to the left of him, S Armstrong to the right so they can split wide to the full backs if needed and form a 5-4-1. I'd also swap Lyanco and Salisu, I think Salisu would do a better job throwing himself in front of everything in the centre, and he's weaker on his right side than left, so Salah cutting back inside would be onto Salisu's weaker foot. The plan then is that we sit deep, give Salah Mane and Diaz no space to run into, make them play through us. Romeu and JWP sit in front of the 5, making sure their midfield have no time to make their little triangles. Then as soon as we win the ball, play it deep into the channels behind their full back, ideally avoiding VVD for Broja to chase, win and score. Then after 60 minutes when we're 1-0 up, we bring on Adams and Long for Broja and Armstrong to hold the ball up, waste time and generally be annoying. When is my interview for the upcoming vacancy?

Obviously we would cheer on the English club, we are all proud to be English. That is why I for one will sit on my Swedish sofa, eating my Indian takeaway, drinking my Belgian beer, watching my Japanese telly, supporting the team owned by Americans, spearheaded by an Egyptian and managed by a German. Ideally we want an enjoyable final, unlike most of the last few years

He plays more as a left wing-back too so probably unfair to put too much weight into end product. Also looks like he has bulked up while at Crawley, probably a decent championship or league one player in there, but probably not quite our level. Would be interested to see how he compares with Vokins and Small, we have a few players of similar tendencies there.

Make sure you've given all your favourite players fun nicknames too, like Hendo, Big Virg and Robbo. Also the highlight reel has to include shots taken of your own face from an uncomfortably close angle talking about how wonderful Jurgen's press is. As a bonus, while recording yourself, you can loudly get Saints players confused, like saying how good Ward Prowse would be in the Liverpool midfield after Armstrong has played a pass. How lucky you'll be!!

I actually have quite a good understanding thanks. Both of our strikers are expected to create for one another, and to finish too, and to press. I literally did mean the striker who scores second most, which is a reasonable expectation of Broja this season. You would hope for more goals from Adams but 6 in a season isn’t a bad output. What are you expecting from them, what is a reasonable amount of goals from a striker before you think they’re good?

Actually Obafemi scored 3 goals and 2 assists in 658 minutes, the 957 figure includes his FA Cup, EFL cup and Premier League 2 minutes. Please get your statistics correct. The season you are quoting (19/20) was one where Obafemi showed promise beyond being championship level, and at times was the preferred partner to Ings. Since then has played another near 2 full seasons and shown himself to be of starting chamionship level, and could well play premier league minutes further in his career. Regarding Broja, he has 6 goals and a goal created (away at West Ham he won the penalty, some people will call that an assist, others won't). Adams is our main striker, Broja has been number 2. Looking at the league most second strikers are around that figure (Lukaku, Jiminez, Wood, Lacazette to name a few). He has added to the squad nicely, and offers a different set of attributes to the other strikers we have with some added physicality and height. If I were picking the team, he would continue to get minutes alongside Adams, in the hope he can perform again as he has shown earlier in the season he can.

Such an odd team shape to just persist with, so much of the game they’ve had 2 men (full back and wide midfielders) doubling up on our wing backs, or we’ve used our 10s to cover them and had 9 behind the ball and still done nothing

Great game, and great atmosphere too! Saints have some really good players in that squad, 17-Kendall looks like she could have real quality, played some passes to switch play I haven’t seen at St Mary’s since Schneiderlin was at his best. Interested to see how we fare against Wolves, haven’t kept up with the northern section so no idea how they compare

What about the rest of my post? You have ignored the fact that I have called what you did childish, and ignored me trying to reasonably explain why what you have done is something you should reconsider. Also, if your post is neutral, and you are not, then you're not even posting your own actual opinion, so how the fuck is anyone meant to understand you. Post your actual opinion, or simply just stop with this ridiculousness altogether. Glad to see diatribe is your word of the day, but I don't think my post to you was particularly attacking? Time to step down from that high horse

I'll happily be a new sample then. I've definitely disagreed and agreed with @Turkish on various subjects, and with you also, so can be quite certain I don't have an agenda. The thread Turkish started is one of respect and one where many members of this forum have shared personal experiences. To then decide to come onto a seperate thread and unpick his wording is childish, overly critical and unneccesary. You may think what you are doing is clever because you've somehow caught him out, but to the rest of us it comes across as being anal. You may not have mentioned the thread by name, or remarked on Ronaldo's circumstances, but that doesn't mean what you have done can be considered in a completely seperate sphere. You have also said yourself to be neutral on the matter, which is frankly bizarre given the individual lost a very young child. Any decent human would show some empathy or sympathy. What you have done on this thread comes across as being childish and cold, and if I were you I would reconsider carrying on this.

It is quite tongue in cheek I have to say. I was convinced he was a wizard of a footballer at the time but I think I was lured in by a few wonder goals!

Good player but not sure where he fits for us, can't see him with Romeu or JWP as part of that 2, and not sure he does the job ahead of that. Good option to have though if we can afford him on the bench. Was only saying recently, he reminds me of David Prutton and Richard Chaplow (not in play style), not sure if he is a centre mid or a right mid!

This is painful to read, you're arguing different things here to be honest. XG is a good useful metric. It allows an individual chance to be given a value, by which you can measure if a team has created what should be considered good chances of scoring a goal. Under this measure Chelsea created chances worth 4.4 goals. There might be occasions where we have let teams create more chances expected to lead to a goal. What XG doesn't tell you is whether a specific striker in a specific instance should have finished their chance. This is because there obviously isn't enough of a dataset to work with. Even someone who has taken as many shots as say Cristiano Ronaldo hasn't shot enough to even have a useful dataset. If you try and use stats and metrics to explain things they aren't designed to cover the result will always be flawed. What the above doesn't include is how easily Chelsea were able to make the chances, and have players in space high up the pitch. The chances they had were good, and so 6 goals is quite a reasonable return for them. We were shit.

It depends on what statistical model you use. If you're looking at an xG site where each shot is taken into isolation then it doesn't factor in those. But you can look at the passage of play as a whole, and aggregate the xG of the previous shots with the final shot. I've heard it discussed on a tactics podcast/seen it on the athletic (can't remember exactly where). Essentially you aggregate the shots, so in that instance the likelihood of Chelsea scoring one of the 3 shots is very high. Also, xG is exactly for what you say above, if someone gets in the way of a shot, or a keep makes a worldy save, that doesn't effect the xG. It just shows how good the save was, or how important the block was. If we have a chance that is 0.7xG because it is essentially a tap in, but the keeper makes an exceptional save, then the stat shows how important that save was.

The prices and renewal functions are already on the website, under the ticket tab.

There is a podcast, through the Athletic but available on Apple Podcasts, called the Athletic Football Tactics Podcast. This week they talk about free kicks and include lots of interesting statistics on the number of free kicks taken, percentage scored, and percentage on target. They do sadly then talk about whether JWP would be suited for a top 6 team.