tajjuk

Poor start to the season by Leeds, wonder if they will have second season syndrome?. Drew with Burnley, drew with Everton at home, trashed by Utd and comfortably beaten by pool at home.

Both Fernandes and Mount are attacking mids, Mount has played as one of the attacking front 3 IIRC for Chelsea quite a lot, but both will have 2 other centre mids behind them most of the time. JWP operates in a double pivot, which means on average he will be deeper than almost anyone in that chances created list.

I'd go currently with a 4-2-2-2 of this - Much of muchness GK Tino, Stephens, Salisu, Perraud Romeu, JWP S. Armstrong, Elyonoussi A. Armstrong, Adams. Then a 5-3-2 against better sides of this - Much of muchness GK Stephens, Bednerak, Salisu Tino, Perraud Romeu, JWP S. Armstrong A. Armstrong, Adams. Don't know enough about Lyanco to put him in, and KWP unfortunate to miss out but prefer the left footed width, but he could easily get in there on either side depending on form/fitness. I'd also reckon Diallo might end up pushing Romeu out. In the 4-2-2-2 then I think the 'no. 10s' are going to be S.Armstrong if it plus 'another', basically whoever is in the most in form from Djenepo, Elynoussi, Redmond,

Gunn was like one of the most highly rated younger keepers in the country, had just had an excellent season for Norwich in the Championship, played at all youth levels for England and wanted to move for more football. IIRC Man City also wanted to keep him and possibly had a buy back, I don't think anyone expected him to regress as much as he did, the 9-0 pretty much destroyed him.

If he does he could legitimately score 1000 goals without counting like friendlies and exhibition games like Pele did.

He is insane, only needs 15 more caps and he'll be the most capped men's player of all time and if he plays most of this season he'll over take Roberto Carlos for the most appearances by an outfield player and he's done pretty much all of it at the highest level.

Barcelona loaning Greizeman back to Atletico after signing him for over £100 million has to be one of the worst transfers in history.

6/10 for me for this season, I think down the line with the young players we've signed the better financial position the clubs I think in a few years we'll be looking back at this window as both an excellent window and probably a turning point for the club. BUT we have to stay up this season, from there I think we can progress and will be back on track.

Van De Beek is such a waste, apparently he wanted to go and a loan to Everton was being lined up but Man Utd wouldn't let him go. They are so stupidly rich it seems they can let very good players basically rot away their careers.

Yeh that table is wrong, transfermarkt has it as + £18 million without the fee for Small or Simeu, which likely adds another £7 million or so and they also seem to have the Ings and Vestergaard fees higher than reported. So it's less £10 million.

BBC is saying they need to sell Aurier first to get Emerson Royal. They have also sold about £30 million and got some big wage earners off the books like Alderweireld, Sissoko and Rose

I do find it funny the Everton 'project' has gone from Moise Kean & James Rodriguez to Andros Townsend on a free.

The transfer market is currently baffling imo. Real Madrid apparently willing to pay like £140 million for a player with a year left on his deal, PSG apparently not willing to accept it. Willian has just terminated a two year contract on £225k a week to go back to Brazil, I mean fair play I suppose turning down like £20 million basically. Leeds wanting to pay £30 million for a guy who had what one good season in the Championship? and then has basically sat on Utds bench for 2 years. Valencia releasing a wonderkid Korean player apparently just to free up a non-EU spot in their squad for a new signing.

Ings was basically offered to be our highest paid player of all time and it was believed to be around £100k a week, and JWP has basically just signed that contract. Also likely both would have been on similar wages before and amongst our highest earners around £65k a week.

As MOTD2 pointed out, Mike Dean winces when he sees it, so how he hasn't given that is beyond me, and Pogba even said it could have been a red, its definitely a foul and probably a yellow. Makes no sense that he wasn't asked to go look at it again.

Both in the Champions League I think so yeh.

That has now basically gone to JWP.

Kang-in-Lee, the Valencia wonderkid they released and we were linked with by Nixon is supposedly joining Mallorca sadly.

Always thought he's been pretty inconsistent and over rated imo, one of those players who should have all the ingredients to be a very good centre-back but never puts it all together and makes too many mistakes. He's had two loan spells at PL clubs and never looked good imo and always been in and out of the Chelsea team. -------------------------- Sabitzer is apparently going to Bayern for just £13 million, shows how much value is out there in the market, hope we get at least one more in before the end of the window.

You know they usually say it looks worse on the replay, well to me this one was the other way round, in real time I thought it looked really bad, but then Sky just seemed to focus on his delayed reaction and not the actual contact.

Yeh wondered the same, it was a clear cross and took a big deviation to go into the goal.

Yes basically Tadic, though he was nowhere near his best in his last years for us. He could possibly I think, maybe not to the level we need but he does like you say seem to find good space and have an eye for a pass.

I think it is by design but is more designed to have an impact in transitions or against less deep defences. In theory it should create some space for the no.10s to break into, hopefully dragging the centre-backs out of position. Breaking down teams like that is just generally hard whoever you are and Newcastle have been like that for a while, I mean you can see why despite results being ok the Geordies are so unhappy, if we played like that at home to another lower half team I would be livid and they do it all the time. We have generally been better away than at home and probably more effective against teams that try to play rather than teams like Burnley, but yesterday Newcastle basically played like the away team. It's an area we have struggled with for ages though, even pre-Ralf, teams that just camped in against us, we struggled to break down. Its why I have said we need a 'no.10' who is more like an actual no.10 rather than a wide player, someone who is able to pick clever passes, put good quality balls in, rather than just someone who attacks their man which is what most of our players in those positions do. Also having some sort of target man option also helps because it means you can go a bit more direct and just put more crosses in, which is something I think Broja offers us and something we haven't had since Pelle.

Eh? All professional football clubs train their players to use both feet, watch any video of a training session and you'll see ball work where they need to control and pass with both feet or shooting drills with their wrong foot, but there will always be players who are just very one footed. They will have some level of competence to control with both feet and do simple passes with their weak foot, but often shooting people will always try to use their strongest foot wherever possible, you see this at all levels of football. But then Djenepo is right footed, its not his weak foot that was the issue it was his confidence in front of goal, he missed a sitter from a yard and then the next chance we he should just be shooting on his strongest foot he for some reason decided to cut back into the defenders. He needs a goal basically.

I think he really wanted to prove a point at his old club for releasing them and probably tried too hard. But honestly its tough for any striker when a team basically plays a back 5, but he won the pen with good movement and his pace.