tajjuk

He's obviously somewhere between the two, but I think the disappointing thing last year was that we were signing a player we knew was slow but was apparently positionally aware of this, but would also dominate in the air and was good on the ball. So there was hope he could become a Mertesacker type defender, yes occasionally would get beaten for pace but generally good positioning and awareness would cover this. But last season that didn't really happen, he was in my opinion rash to come out and challenge the ball too far out of position, either getting spun by the attacker or leaving space in behind. He also didn't seem to be very dominant in the air and made some crucial mistakes with his passing. He has (so far) this season looked more what was described of how he was successful at Borussia Mönchengladbach, good on the ball with good range of passing, dominant in the air and solid in his positioning that his lack of pace. Let's hope it continues.

Lucrative for Gao maybe. Also they are 'apoplectic' apparently but I bet if either come knocking for one of our players they will happily deal.

If he had pace he'd have cost us about twice the price and probably would have gone to a bigger club. I mean he is very dominant in the air and good on the ball, if he was quick as well he'd basically be the complete package as a centre-back and you pay £80 million plus for those (well not Maguire) but that is VVD money and the sort of money it would probably cost to get someone like Upamecano Good to see him improve though, tough first year but he seems to have become a little less keen to go win the ball on the front foot as much, which was catching him out as people were just spinning in behind him and seems a bit more solid in his positioning. Maybe the haircut helped. Still a little worried about him pushing up in the high line as the Werner goal showed, first time punt over the top if he doesn't manage to head it then anyone with pace is in and there a lot of fast strikers in this league.

High scoring draw, key will be stopping the crosses in Calvert-Lewin and finding a way to shackle James Rodriguez who I have to say has surprised me, thought he was a spent force physically who would struggle in this league but is doing very well so far. Certainly think we'll create chances against them though, neither centre-back impresses me much, Pickford is an accident waiting to happen (probably a blessing for us he didn't get red carded and banned) and both their full backs bomb on a lot and leave space. Richarlison is a big loss for them as well. Plus always feel more comfortable when the team has a full week to prepare.

Was going to happen, they have been incredibly lucky with injuries to key players over the last two seasons. The likes of VVD, Robertson, TAA, Mane and Salah have barely missed a game, whilst City have had long periods without players like Laporte, De Bruyne and Aguero. Going to test their squad depth, especially as I have never really been that convinced of Gomez. Shocking tackle by Pickford though, how that wasn't a red I don't know regardless of the injury suffered it was reckless and always likely to cause an injury. If Liverpool don't win the title they are probably going to be talking about that Everton game for ages, winner ruled out for an imaginary offside and their best player injured for the season. ------------------------- Also got to be the season that Kane leaves Spurs if they don't win anything, he does everything for them and the rest still let him down.

Yeh I think it was pretty telling that Werners first goal was great play, apparently not poor defending by Bednerak. Yet us pressing excellently to rob Havertz and then Adams sliding in a lovely ball to Ings, was talked about more being a mistake by Havertz. I mean to be fair Zouma and Kepa had a giant shocker for Adams' goal, none of our defenders were close to being that bad for their goals but both balls were pretty similar, the only real difference is Zouma is way quicker than Vestergaard is so got to the ball before Adams and should have dealt with it, whereas Vestergaard easily got outpaced by Werner. The quality of the balls were pretty similar and I'd call them both hopeful punts over the top.

Defensively naive in the first half I think, particularly from Bednerak. We should have known all about Werner's running and pace as Ralph managed him but they seemed caught out by him, no idea why they were stepping like that and allowing so much space in behind them. But stepped it up second half, with some help from Chelsea's poor defending. The pleasing thing is we have Armstrong, Salisu and Diallo to challenge into that team and potentially improve it. Also pleased to see Adams get a goal, his pressing and link play with Ings has been very good they are going to cause problems to a lot of teams. Hopefully we can put the first two games down to rustiness and not up to speed with the fitness from the short pre-season and the last 3 games are more are level. Still defensively a little suspect (but who in the league isn't at the moment) but seem to be able to cause a threat to anyone.

Armstrong will be back, he was only serving out his coronavirus quarantine period I believe, but was already back in training. Walcott has at least shown he seems to understand Armstrong's role, so hopefully we have at least a solid replacement for him now. Smallbone hasn't looked comfortable playing there, but I think unlikely Walcott will get in ahead of Armstrong if he is fit.

Isn't Ralph just very particular about the level of fitness and preparation the player have? If he had an injury or illness that basically kept him out of most of pre-season, then it would be understandable it would take him a while to get back to full fitness and Ralphs standards. Plus if it was an injury then they probably didn't want to rush him and risk aggravating it again for no reason when we have 3 fit centre-backs.

An Athletic article on this that broadly talks about 'winners and losers' mentions they think we are against it.

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The sad thing is the £250 million is a decent amount less than the yearly wage bills of Utd, Liverpool, City and Chelsea. What they pay to have international players sat on their bench and too hoover up young talent so they can horde it and sent it out loan, is enough to bail out the ENTIRE Football league. Literally the top 6 alone could foot that bill with ease and it would barely impact their finances. It's basically about half the cost of another Man City Defender. As someone above pointed out, whilst they are proposing basically the ability to raise themselves more money by selling off their own games and negotiating the TV deal more in their favour, this bailout to the EFL is supposedly coming from the PL as a whole, and not proportionally based on income but just equal shares so Man Utd with their near £600 million turnover would pay £12.5 million essentially 2% of their turnover. Whereas for someone like us it would be more like 10% of our turnover. That is how greedy they are.

The sad thing is the £250 million is a decent amount less than the yearly wage bills of Utd, Liverpool, City and Chelsea. What they pay to have international players sat on their bench and too hoover up young talent so they can horde it and sent it out loan, is enough to bail out the ENTIRE Football league. Literally the top 6 alone could foot that bill with ease and it would barely impact their finances. It's basically about half the cost of another Man City Defender. As someone above pointed out, whilst they are proposing basically the ability to raise themselves more money by selling off their own games and negotiating the TV deal more in their favour, this bailout to the EFL is supposedly coming from the PL as a whole, and not proportionally based on income but just equal shares so Man Utd with their near £600 million turnover would pay £12.5 million essentially 2% of their turnover. Whereas for someone like us it would be more like 10% of our turnover. That is how greedy they are.

The fans of the big have all come out unanimously that they are against this, be interesting to see how sway they have or how far they would be willing to go. Also a potential litmus test on how much the Big Clubs actually feel they need their local fans. I have worry they just think they can steamroll them and any that give up or boycott or whatever they can fill with more corporate or 'football tourists', especially if they 'go on tour', and start playing games in other countries like the NFL does which I can imagine is part of their plans. I mean matchday income for clubs like Man Utd is not a huge proportion of their income anyway, they can probably easily cover that loss of income with the more money they would make from negotiating their own TV deals which is a clear objective of this 'plan'. Would they really care if 20-30k Mancs didn't turn up if they could go to one of those 80-90k plus US NFL stadiums and sell it out with inflated prices? I doubt it. Still annoying me that our club has said nothing on this, neither has Everton yet. West Ham have come out against it and from what I have seen most of the other PL clubs like Fulham, Brighton, Burnley, Palace etc. have come out against it. Also why are we even in this group? Haven't the likes of Villa and Newcastle been in the league longer than us?

Not true for Arsenal and Spurs, I think last full season Arsenal's match day income was about 25% of their total revenue, its also really high for Spurs in their new stadium I believe. It's actually less important for smaller clubs like us because we have smaller stadiums and less corporate stuff (not many business people are coming from other countries to entertain clients at St Mary's but they will at places like Arsenal, Spurs, Man Utd) so TV money makes up more of our revenue. The big 6's matchday income makes up around 73% of the total match day income of the whole PL, nearly £500 million between them in 18-19 season.

The European Super league is a dead in the water idea because all the big European clubs know their fans don't really want it or have much interest in it, they lose their away days, they lose the tradition of their leagues, their local derbies, interaction with fans etc. Juventus playing Man Utd in the Champs league as a one off is interesting over two legs, doing it every year not so much. That is what I imagine is one of the main the driving forces behind this, that and they know the likes of Real, Barca, PSG, Juventus etc. get to negotiate their TV deals separately rather than share the pot. Plus the desire to stop any more PSGs and Man Citys, now the FFP they forced UEFA to introduce failed (which never had anything to do with saving clubs from going bust but all to do with stopping investors investing in a team and competing with the big guns). The EFL low down will be for this because they are desperate and going out of business, they need a bail out and see a bail out, but I doubt it is as clear cut as Parry is making out, because there are a good 8-10 Championship clubs that will be looking at getting promoted in the near future who won't be for this. As I have seen mentioned in an Athletic article, one EFL chairman has said it won't do anything for the massive financial gap, it will just move it, it will essentially create an EFL 2 and leave league 1 and 2 very far behind. A bail out needs to happen, but it needs to be led by the PL as a whole, the FA and the Government, not 3 clubs looking for it to be a smokescreen to cover what basically is their attempt at a coup. Get the bail out sorted and you can remove that bit from the proposal, which then leaves you with basically big clubs wanting more power and less games. There is literally nothing in it for the other 14 PL clubs or the group of championship clubs that are looking to get promoted.

As others have said having voting rights is pretty irrelevant as the big 6 can steamroll the other 3 in the list. Smacks IMO of American owners wanting US sports rules to come in, give themselves the power to basically never get relegated and stop any more takeovers that would threaten them, we all know that the likes of Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal, and Spurs are unhappy that Man City and Chelsea invaded their space, its why they tried to get Man City screwed under FFP. Even though Utd spend more and have a higher wage bill than anyone, but still fail they have the cheek to complain about City paying big transfer fees. Any future Abramovich type takeover would go nowhere, they wouldn't be allowed to take over a club because the big 6 would basically say no with these powers. Less games because they are always in Europe and don't want to drain their squads. I mean they already play youth teams in the league cup so why does it really impact them, those games are valuable for lower league clubs just like the FA Cup is and for clubs like us to have a chance at winning something. If the PL has any sense then the other 14 clubs should vote against this. They already have one of the richest and most watched leagues in the world, they already get extras millions from the Champs league and those greedy bastards want more? Disgusting frankly.

Your post is a very sad indictment of the state of the world, 'I am going to spout random opinions with nothing to back it up and how dare you challenge me for such trivial things as facts and evidence'. Congrats you sound just like a Trump supporter, a great intellectual crowd to be in. If you are capable of making a 'rational opinion' as you claim, then you are equally as capable of explaining what its based on and why you have said what you have said, hardly very hard to say well he did X, Y and Z at Bordeaux and thus I think he might do this at Saints is it? Or if it is hard to do that then you are very likely talking bollocks. I generally if find someone makes a shit claim on the internet, its common practice to ask them to support said shit claim, that is generally how I find life works as well. Call him names all you like (another great sign that your opinion is baseless) but asking for evidence of asset stripping when it has not been explicitly mentioned anywhere by anything I have read, seems more than fair.

Yeh this doesn't sound very promising, lots of talk and plans but no real money behind it, investment groups wanting a quick buck. People criticise Gao but honestly he mainly seems to get criticism for not throwing money into the club and running is sustainably, he's also taken no money out of club and generally let the football people run it. Could be a lot worse and this looks potentially a lot worse. Football clubs generally don't generate big profits unless you are Man Utd or very lucky with transfers (which we were for a bit but its hard to sustain over long periods as a few dud buys wipe out your returns) so where this investment group thinks they are getting the money back quickly I don't know. Generally its only worth buying a club if you can increase the value long term, and then sell it for a lot more down the line.

Ings has a got a lot competition, that goal will have done him a world of good, especially as I'd imagine he was probably a bit frustrated first half playing from the right rather than through the middle but he still worked very hard and showed some nice touches. Looked a lot better through the middle though. He'll struggle to dislodge Kane though who is looking to be back to his best and you'd probably think the athleticism of Calvert-Lewin might put him in prime position to be his back up, with Sancho and Sterling playing off him. But JWP has good chance I think of establishing himself in that midfield because I think the competition there is not great. Winks didn't look much cop and Phillips looks similar to Henderson.

Kind of makes sense from that, shows the value that managers, players and coaches put in off the field influence, tactical intelligence etc. that probably fans don't value so much. Interesting comments about Elyounoussi there, he'll be 27 by the start of next season, seems interesting that they think he can improve enough to earn a place in the squad.

Top half just, if everyone stays fit maybe a cheeky run at 7th if we can show the form after the re-start or generally the 2nd half of the season. I have a sneaky feeling that Diallo might turn out to be a bit of a star and we might be fending off bigger clubs for him. Honestly though its very difficult to make any predictions from here, just look at the results that have happened. I think this extends to team's current form. People are raving about Villa for example but their other two games have been against an underperforming Sheff Utd and a terrible Fulham, plus they did well no doubt against Liverpool but Liverpool were uncharacteristically terrible and 3 of the goals were big deflections. For me their defence still looks poor, same with Everton, good start and run yes, but their defence still doesn't look much cop with a very dodgy keeper behind them. Whereas we've seen previous years teams like Palace and Burnley start terribly but finish comfortably mid table (as did we last year). (Didn't Palace lose their first 7 scoring no goals in the process only for Roy to come in and take them to like 13th or something?) Everyone was raving about Leicester but they got easily beaten by West Ham, Man Utd are a shambles but could easily sack Ole and go on a run. Man City look shaky but have had Laporte, Aguero and Jesus missing for the first two and have add Dias who looks quality, so you could see them get Aguero back, look more solid with their new centre-back pair and they win 15 on bounce again. We've all been here in the summer raving about other team's summer signings, only to see many flop or start well and fade. Whereas we know from our 2020 form we have very clearly a solid first eleven that is a good organised team, with potentially more balance and depth now, one of the best strikers in the league and IMO one of the best managers in the league. Will say though I think an Ings 3-4 month injury and we'll be flirting with relegation.

I am pleased he seems very up for it and I certainly think he adds some squad depth. The cost involved are very low risk as well. But remove the sentimentality from it, he's basically a player that can't get in a team that last year were basically the same as us, and really it would have been nice to see some further upgrades on the team. But I suppose financially we can't do that and we got the reinforcements in where we really needed them.

I seriously doubt anyone but maybe Danny Ings and Danny Ings' mother thought he'd be as successful as he has been. Certainly no one on here was very optimistic and understandably, we'd just signed a guy who had spent the last two years battling through multiple knee injuries and barely played more than two games in a row, and had agreed to pay £20 million for him. I was a little more optimistic the second season when he'd managed to get through most of the season with only I think one hamstring injury and managed to put a few goals away. But let's be honest, Ings was at least before he went to Liverpool on an upward trajectory in his career, he was unlucky and clearly has the talent to have probably established himself with that club and at 26 still had plenty of years left. Walcott's career has been a downward trajectory for like the last 5-6 years, the last time he scored any meaningful amount of goals was 4 years ago. He might come good, he might find some form under a new manager in a less chaotic and more stable environment that he is more comfortable with (presumably many of his friends and family are still here) and have a little indian summer in his career but I seriously doubt it. He looks to me like a player who is on £100k a week and has been phoning it in till retirement, we'll have to see. Just looking at some photos of him he looked a lot more bulked up and stronger in photos for Arsenal in his mid 20s than he does now for Everton, which makes me wonder how much effort he is making.