Dig Dig

Agree that Koeman can't do much at the moment. There is no scope for much change as there is no competition for places and not enough flexibility for formation changes. This whole season has been a struggle for him so far.

It certainly is no where near the level of investment in the team needed. And to think that some clowns on here thought that we were setting ourselves up to win cups and sit comfy in the league

Losing 8 good players in just over a season never ends well. You simply don't get away with it, not in this league

Sorry, just seen this is already posted.

Is this a fair assessment of our summer signings thus far? Southampton Total outlay 35.2m. Average rating of all summer signings 5.4/10 Ronald Koeman had to strengthen both his best XI, after more high-profile departures, and the squad, given the team’s qualification for the Europa League. He got eight new faces in but apart from the centre-back Virgil van Dijk, their impact has been underwhelming. DH Virgil van Dijk £11.5m, 1,339 minutes played The significant success. Strong, composed and even offers a goal threat, he has compensated for the loss of Toby Alderweireld. 8 Cédric Soares £3.6m, 1,300 minutes played The biggest problem for the Portuguese right-back is that he is no Nathaniel Clyne. Solid enough but nothing more. 6/10 Cuco Martina £3m, 288 minutes played Difficult to judge. The utility defender has made only three substitute appearances in the league. 5 Jordy Clasie £7m, 444 minutes played Set back by injury on his debut against Vitesse Arnhem, the midfielder has struggled to come to terms with the pace of the Premier League. 5 Maarten Stekelenburg Loan, 1,890 minutes played The goalkeeper has been unconvincing, at times, and there have been mistakes from him. 5 Oriol Romeu £5m, 909 minutes played Scored crucial equaliser against Aston Villa but has generally failed to impose himself. In and out of the starting league team. 5 Juanmi £5m, 305 minutes played Still to start a league game, the skilful attacker has found the intensity of English football to be a culture shock. 5 Steven Caulker Loan, 561 minutes played Has struggled sorely and endured a personal nightmare in the big Capital One Cup quarter-final defeat against Liverpool. 4 http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/dec/17/premier-league-transfers-summer-signings-club-by-club

Expect a loan or someone unwanted and available on the cheap. We are operating on a bottom 4 budget after all.

That he is fat and lazy

OP seems to be a bit of an insecure oddball.

On average over time though, they are the anomalies as very good teams usually win the cups. There isn't any team any where who plans for or prides themselves on being a cup team.

Our home form based on all competitions must be pretty bad going back to the turn of the year. I haven't looked it up but assuming it's relatively poor overall if anyone has this info to hand?

I think that's the point re this thread isn't it? Palace are 6th due to their style of play, players they've retained and players they've now added to their team. We were told in the summer that we had little to be concerned about because what other clubs were doing wasn't great and what we were doing was.

Plus the fact that we were clearly better than palace last season and took 6 points from them.

Koeman has said that Austin is too expensive.

Wouldn't say he's lost it but he's working with poorer players and he knows it. It's not in his interest to get dragged down the table because of our transfer strategy. Good time for him to distance himself from it as he has recently been doing.

Talk about meltdowns...

You'd hope that we are focusing on the FA cup about 4 games before we even play in it? Christ. No one aims to be a cup team as much as it would shatter the hearts of so many on here.

You don't seem to have anything to say about the team, good or bad. Just about posts on here. What do you expext when we haven't won a game in a long time?

Just a matter of time before palace score. This fixture was an easy 3-0 last season.

Looks like we'll be sitting back and countering, playing palace at their own game.

Looks a bit strange....5 at the back ane mane ane long up front?

Before Mane we did well because of Lallana and Rodriguez. One we don't have any more and the other isn't likely to be back and contributing to the same level for some time if at all. Ultimately it will come down to how well we replace but essentially we'll always need high quality attackers in order to be a good side. Replacing something like Mane with a "couple of wingers" wouldn't really suffice IMO.

It's quite simple. Once the boarders are closed, any Muslims in country should firstly start wearing some kind of badge so they are easy to identify (not all of them are brown) and then slowly start moving them into segregated areas. After that you could then start moving them into camps until a final solution is worked out.

We already had a chance to do this in the summer but we probably didn't do enough.

I don't know but we supposedly have a top class scouting network so identifying a midfielder with these attributes should be doable. Kante at Leicester is a good example of what we are lacking.