tajjuk

Why not both for Edouard and Ajer? Doubt we'll be able to do any dealings with Celtic though until they sort their manager situation out who IIRC is awaiting a verdict from UEFA because he doesn't have the top coaching licence.

BBC's McNulty seems to think JWP or Lingaard - I mean the odd thing was he picked 4 right backs, so there is no obvious replacement to right back that was never needed anyway. If he was picked for his extra set pieces then JWP might get the nod. I'd presume more it will depend on the fitness of the currently injured or recovering from being injured and any new injuries.

Any professional footballer who is not playing regularly and wants to earn decent wages? He started 6 games for them last year.

Hope the Armstrong thing is true, exactly sort of player we should be after. Young but with a lot of pro games under his belt and seems to getting better year on year. Plenty of pace as well.

Is he? I don't see it, don't get fascination with Rice either, both of them look average to me. I mean if Phillips is supposedly good, how come no one picked him up for all those years in the Championship? But in terms of consistent form, distance covered, goals and assists, minutes played JWP basically matches them in all areas if not beats them in both, but also they are basically both the same player, they are sitting mids, JWP isn't, he plays in a two and is more like a number 6/number 8 linking play, so the only real player like him in the England squad is Henderson who has injury issues. Also 4 right backs. Only 4 centre-mids, one of which has been injured for ages. Like someone above said the TAA thing is the hysteria of him being left out, on performances and defensive ability he shouldn't be in there. Southgate was right the first time, but he's bowed to the Liverpool biased media having a hissy fit. Overall even leaving aside he left out Ings and JWP, it's not a very good squad IMO. Only two out and out strikers, and I am not really sure what role Calvert-Lewin offers because he's hardly clinical so not someone you'd think really want if you really needed a goal and he's not going to start ahead of Kane, an odd lack of depth in centre-mid and 7 full backs basically. He had a squad of 26 so easily could have had 2 proper players for every position, the 3rd keeper and then 3 people that offer something different.

LOL what? He's had ONE good season, largely because they fluked out on recruitment (I mean most people were laughing at the Lingaard signings, and two fairly unknown Czech dudes have become top players) and aside that has been utter shit since he left Everton. (and he was not much more than a steady eddie doing as expected) Failed horribly at Utd (don't give me the BS following Fergie rubbish, he had top players and huge budget and he got them 7th, that is crap and a good manager would have done way better) Failed horribly at Real Sociedad Failed horribly at Sunderland Just barely squeaked by in his first season at West Ham, hence why they got rid of him. Was still pretty woeful when they brought him back, winning just 5 out of 19 games, 3 of which were against Watford, Bournemouth and Norwich, all 3 relegated teams. His win rate before this fluke season since he left Utd, is 25%....... He's shit and he'll be sacked next season once their fluke season wears off and they have to deal with Europa league games. No one think Ranieri is a good manager because he won the league with Leicester and he showed it the following season and with Fulham that he was not very good. Moyes has been awful for about 8 of the 9 last seasons.

Do people lose their sense of player judgement just because a player is a free or something? Most of those players are not good enough for Palace so won't be good enough for us. Most free transfers are because the clubs don't think its worth re-signing the player, you get the rare one maybe where the player is looking to move up and doesn't want to re-sign with his current club but if a mid table club is releasing a load of players then generally its because they are not good enough. We need to tap the European market and the Championship, usually I'd say out £10-15 million sort of 'cap' would be crippling us, but this year not so much. The pandemic is going to cripple many clubs out there, even clubs like Inter are cost cutting and looking to sell. We still have the advantage of PL money and the now extended deal, whereas France's TV deal has collapsed, most Championship clubs are running wages at nearly 100% of turnover, Real Madrid and Barca both have around a billion in debt, I think our £10-15 million could be this summer getting players that would be usually in the £25 million plus bracket. There is value out there in the market without going after PL reject freebies. I mean some our better recent signings like Armstrong, Bednerak, and KWP have been the cheaper ones.

Seems pretty decent, fairly standard but with some nice little details. Solid 7/10 I reckon.

An Edouard/Elyounousi deal in the same way the Hojberg/KWP deals happened would be a decent bit of business. Also seen links to Danjuma, Gauld and Woodman.

Possibly but you'd think Iheanacho's resurge might see them focus elsewhere, especially as Vardy still seems to be going strong as well. Also replacing a 35 year old with a soon to be 29 year old with a not great injury history seems not how Leicester operate. They haven't signed anyone over the age of 25 permanently since Evans, who was a free and that was 3 seasons ago. Maybe next year if he stayed with us and was free. But I think Leicester operate basically like us, sign up and coming younger players with an eye to selling them, they have just been better at it over the last 3-4 years than us and tend to put more up front than we do. You are still talking at least £20 million plus probably over £100k a week, and probably a 4 year contract on someone who is 29 and has the injury record he has. That's a £40 million plus outlay with virtually no re-sale value, that is the probably the issue Ings has himself, not many clubs in this current climate can afford that I reckon. Even a club like Chelsea don't give more than 1 year contracts to people over 30, so they are unlikely to give him a 4-5 year deal. Edit: Also the transfer rumours about Edouard seem to suggest that him going there he'd be behind Vardy and Iheanacho.

I think the issue he and we have is, is that is he basically many clubs back up plan. You could see him being in a list of potential strikers for Utd, Man City, Chelsea (Spurs if Kane goes) but like 3rd/4th/5th choice on that list so we'll have a summer of seeing if those clubs get their other targets.

9 of those were in one game, Palace finished with a worse goal difference than us even without that horrible result and Newcastle finished above us only conceding 6 less, didn't have that horrible result and were criticised most of the season for being too defensive. I don't think defensively we are that bad when the team is fit, issue we had is people were often not fit (Vestergaard and KWP were absent for quite a lot of games, Salisu missed 2/3rds of the season and Romeu was a big miss as he offers the best protection for the back 4) and we didn't have any quality cover, in some cases we had no cover AT ALL, which is just terrible planning really for a PL team with our budget, especially letting people like Valery go on loan. So that caused some problems, had we been luckier with injuries (and I will also say decisions) I think you can drop 10+ goals conceded right there. The other big issue is fitness, we suck in the second half and fade and have been the worst at losing points from winning positions for the last two years I believe, which IMO comes down to 4 things - 1. Again we lack decent depth to bring fresh legs on, I get the impression Ralph does not trust a lot of our squad to perform and do what he wants. That can only be fixed with signings. 2. There has to be some sort of fitness issue there as well, Leeds don't concede as many goals as us and are even more aggressive than us in pressing etc. This has to come down to the fitness coaches, physios, nutritionists etc. so clearly they need to do better. Possibly the rumoured shut cryo facilities played a role, but whatever the reasons if we are going to be a high pressing, high energy team we need the players the fittest they can be and more of them to last the 90 minutes. 3. Lack of experience and nous I think, we are still a relatively young team and at times lack leadership (another reason again Vestergaard and Romeu were a big miss) we had a lot of players I would say still not fully comfortable with their game/the league etc. and I think when players are not fully comfortable with their role or their form they become a bit introverted and offer less to the team in a leadership and togetherness sense. So when we were flying high and doing well we had players like Romeu and Vestergaard showing their best form, JWP playing well, Ings fit and firing, etc. and those players playing well drag the others along and the whole team gets more confident. Fast forward to the terrible run, no Romeu, no Ings for a lot of it, Vestergaard missing for many games and struggling to re-find form, you then have people like Adams struggling with a goal drought, Stephens battling to get into the team, eradicate mistakes and often playing out of position, Minamino as a new player joining the group who didn't have much football, Salisu adjusting to the league and finding fitness when everyone else has played 20 plus matches, so not only are you lacking some of your better players, your remaining ones are struggling with their own issues and you get a disjointed team lacking confidence. 4. We need to learn an ability to control games better, the 'lack of a plan B' criticism I think is someone merited but not in the way people use it, the way we play works and as we have seen it can work very well with the right players there, the issue more I have is when we are 2-0 up in a game we don't need to be playing at 100mph or trying to get another goal desperately, instead we should slow the game down, keep the ball, be a bit more compact and make the opposition find a way to beat us because at that point Plan A has worked, but now you need to see out the game. Ralph has apparently been working on a more fluid defense to help us score more goals but they also IMO need to work on game management a bit better. Offensively we are pretty good, but we need to spread the the goals out more and we have the same issue we have had for about 4-5 years, we struggle to break down deep defensive teams and don't have much to unlock them, of course this is hard for all teams, but it's where I think we need an attacking mid who offers something a bit different and is less the pacey dribbler we have multiple (if not great) versions of, but someone who can pick clever passes.

Watkins and Calvert-Lewin have played more than him. He got in the England squad scoring 20 goals and playing regularly, do that again he'll get back in. He's probably the most natural finisher out of all them bar Kane.

Yep, because also Nathan Ferguson is out with the same injury for 6 months, a young player they were hoping to play an important role. 14 first team players who's contracts are ending, 2 loans ending (Michy Batshuayi and Mateta), the manager leaving and two of their remaining players on long term injuries. All during a global pandemic, with not much sale value in the squad aside Zaha, who is going to be 29 in November. If they don't re-sign some of those players then their first team squad is going to have about 8 senior players left, at least half of whom are already into their 30s. Their whole current first team squad only has 4 players under 25, and two of those have just picked up bad injuries. We have issues, but we have a solid first eleven with some gaps and contract issues, plus a few decent younger players. We are in a way superior position in comparison. Basically us, Newcastle, Wolves, Palace, Brighton and Burnley were in a group of shit but not as shit as the relegated clubs. Out of that group Wolves have a new manager incoming so that is an unknown, Burnley are probably more cash strapped than us and also have a bit an aging squad, Palace are in a mess and Newcastle are Newcastle, they have a shit manager who struck lucky with a loan signing who had a purple patch and pushed them up the league. Brighton are an unknown quantity, if they find a good striker they could easily push top 10, if they don't then they are likely to be down there again. Then you have Watford, Norwich, and one of Swansea or Brentford. Can't see much coming from Watford to be honest, Norwich may be better than they were before in the league I reckon but there is talk of them losing their best players like Buendia so depends on how they invest, Brentford I think could do a Leeds if they came up as they are a well run club, you'd think Swansea would be favourites for relegation. So we need to recruit better than those clubs (I also reckon if Villa lose Grealish they will be down there as they sucked without him when he was injured) and arguably with our full fit first eleven probably have amongst the best first team out of those clubs IMO. Huge amount depends on Ings, if we have him (or can miraculously produce a recruitment gem to replace him) then it stands us in good stead as he's a stand out player for a bottom half PL team and you can see how Wolves missed Gimenez or how Villa missed Grealish how much those sort of players make an impact. Add in two decent first team signings and some more depth so we don't collapse with some injuries like we did after xmas and I think we can easily finish ahead of most of that group. Loads of other clubs around us have issues, managers going, injuries, out of contract players, important players potentially going, the bottom 12 ish teams of PL are a much of muchness to be honest. Big players staying fit and some key signings will make the difference.

Hoedt was what like 23, left footed, around the dutch national team, good on the ball and doing decently but was not a regular for bigger club than us who I think at the time were playing Champions League football, and was available in the £10-15 million bracket. He pretty much fitted the profile of signing we wanted, where he would have hopefully improved and developed into a player with a much better value, whilst he got to play more regular football and probably earn more money due to the richness of the PL. On paper it looked a very good signing but it just didn't work out. Not sure it had a lot do with Van Dijk, though I am sure he was probably mentioned to Hoedt along the way.

Disagree completely. JWP has basically made himself irreplaceable over the last few years, he is easily on par in ability IMO and is actually worth more to us because of the fact he is always available and so consistent. The simple fact we struggle without Ings shows one of his problems, he is too often not actually there to contribute to the team, whereas Ward-Prowse IS and consistently performs relentlessly, he even fills in other positions if needed and STILL plays well. In 3 years Ings has started 80 games for us and played 6,584 minutes. In the same 3 years JWP has started 96 games and played 8,692 minutes, he hasn't missed a MINUTE of football in 2 whole seasons, that is incredible levels of fitness, consistency and professionalism. You haven't seen us without JWP because he never misses a damn minute. His set piece delivery is basically unmatched in the league, he is worth it alone for that (and has pretty much matched Ings for goal contributions this year), his work rate is massive, he is our captain but also the guy that basically interprets the manager's instructions on the pitch, he links the midfield excellently, his progressive passing is massively important to how we play, he is excellent at breaking up play and starting attacks. If we had to replace one over the other, I actually think it would be more difficult to replace what JWP offers in one package than it would be Ings, excellent player though he is there is plenty history of teams of our level finding good striking gems out there who score 15+ goals in the league with breaking record transfers. We've done it enough times ourselves - Beattie, Pahars, Pelle, Lambert and Ings himself.

Ralph calls them no.10s because they start wide and drift into that position, most modern attacking forwards these days can usually play across the 3 positions behind the strikers anyway, but basically an attacking mid with some quality to pick passes rather than a pure pace/dribble merchant.

This, Tella, Redmond, Djenepo, even Armstrong to an extent are players who tend to run at people, their delivery (aside Armstrong) is erratic, what we need is someone with some passing and vision to pick those through balls and crosses especially against deep defences. Ward-Prowse is good at it but obviously plays deeper and is more often playing the pass into the no.10 areas. Probably our best person at this is actually Adams, which is why he probably has the most assists I think in the team from open play, he seems to be able to play through balls in tight situations and with a very good weight of pass, as seen for his assist against Palace. Tadic is pretty much what we want, but the younger version and undiscovered. Personally I think this is a priority area along with left back (and striker depending on Ings). I think losing Romeu to a long term injury was unlucky but actually JWP.Romeu, Diallo and Armstrong able to play is a good centre-mid with good depth, centre-backs are decent, Ings and Adams have a good partnership and KWP is a good right back. So the obvious 'gaps' in our first team are left back and no.10

As predicted the old farts who are scared of stats are out in force..... A load of Harry Rednkapps, think you can win football games with a can do attitude and the odd bollocking, it's not the 80s and 90s anymore. Reminds me of all the fat old scouts round the table in the Moneyball film.

I am sure some old farts will moan because I am using XG but his expected goals for the season is 10.77 and he's scored 8 goals. Ings as a contrast has an XG of 7.95 this season but has scored 12. So you can see the clear difference. But interestingly if you look at Bamford, Calvert-Lewin and Watkins, all other non 'big 6' strikers who have done well this season (15, 16 and 13 goals respectively) all of them are below their XG as well. Which just shows how good Ings is, he's a world class finisher and we are going to find it hard to replace him. I also think it shows clearly we don't create that many chances if the likes of Watkins and Bamford can be at a similar level of finishing to Adams but have more than 50% more goals so clearly we need another creative force. Those teams have the likes of Grealish or James Rodriguez or Raphinha creating chances and we really lack a creative force like that.

Adam Armstrong scored his 28th league goal today, back to back hattricks, all for a lower midtable Blackburn side, got to be worth having a look at IMO.

Yeh considering how awful they were against 10 men and against Newcastle I would have fancied our chances for a win, they seem to be a team eyeing a cup final and going through the same falling out of the top 4 bottle job they did last year

Balbuena's absurd red card got over turned as well. You'd think a spate of embarrassing failures by Ref and the VAR team getting overturned would prompt some sort of reaction from the referees group but it won't.

They have been relatively (for them) woeful at home for a while so there is a chance, but we have also been in relegation form since the new year so I don't hold out much hope. Just hope they actually give it a go and don't play as if they are on the beach, otherwise we will just play Liverpool into form, put them under some pressure and they might crack.

I like our badge it's quirky. Yeh it's probably not very 'corporate' but do we really want it to be? Plus it's still very distinctive, I am not sure the club has ever particularly had much issue with club identity, we've been the clear 'kings' of the red and white stripes in England for a long time as other pretenders come and go (like Sunderland, Sheff Utd) etc. We're known for our youth production, though the that reputation these days is probably a little less deserved, and still plenty of people around who remember Le Tiss in his hey day. I'd say relative lack of success not the club image hinders a more global reach than anything else. Plus what other football team in world has a halo in it's badge, a tree and an old school football? I would also say a lot PL badges basically fit in two categories - 'Traditional coat of arms style' ones like Liverpool, Newcastle, Everton, Utd etc. or more 'clean corporate logo' style like Wolves, Fulham, Spurs, West Ham etc. Ours is neither really and I like that.