saintwbu

Thankfully we’ve stopped giving away soft goals and switching off defensively all the time, since he got banned. Long may that continue, as he is the reason for all that is evil in the world etc.

Be interesting to see what his attitude would be to leaving the club (at any point) given his short lived spell at Chelsea. I wonder if he’s a talent we’d be able to hold onto for a bit longer…

Lesley looking very casual out there, in a good way

Wonder if ABK on the bench is partly to send a signal that he is fit and well, should any clubs be interested..

Sugawara..

Most fans find Charly exciting, but it’s pretty difficult to find a place for a player in a possession based game when he constantly gives possession away..

Loving the mix of ‘we need to be more like Brighton!’ vs ‘why are we spending all our money on Goztepe!’ as we take an approach that is much more Brighton… A multi club model is not going to reap success overnight, and i’m sure instant relegation for the flagship team (us) was not part of any strategy, so it’s going to take some time.

We are all agreeing on doubts over our ability to score goals, because we seemingly all doubt Adam Armstrong’s ability to score goals at this level. However, he was our top goalscorer, so I guess the hope from the club will be that he will be again, and BBD/Archer can add to his goals rather than replace them. If (a big if) Arma can hit 10/12 goals then the numbers BBD/Archer put up last season wouldn’t be far off being what’s required with us this season, although you’d hope BBD in particular could add to that given that he amassed them in only 14 games.

Assuming you’re talking about Che Adams, but not sure i’d class him or Archer anything close to ‘tall’…

New GK and attacking midfielder, with these two as well, and i’d probably say i’m pretty happy. That’d be 12 signings, probably 9 of whom could end up being regular starters throughout the season - not sure we could expect much more than that realistically. Whether it’s enough, only time will tell, but i’d be satisfied with the effort. Would also hopefully leave room for Dibling in particular, but also Sam Amo, to be involved as we haven’t added too much competition in their positions - particularly in wide areas, where i’d say there is an opportunity to cement a place across the season.

We’ve tried ‘player for now’ with Tall Paul and that didn’t work. Imagine we won’t want shot of Archer in 12 months as he’ll either have been good and we stay up, or not and we go down, at which point he will be good because he’s shown it in the Championship. On a related note, a front 3 of BBD/Archer/Arma could be the greatest Championship attack of all time 😂

Greaves was brilliant at our place, but other than him I agree that I don’t find their business particularly enviable

I don’t refer to Puel season as a negative, i’m saying that’s where they are if you parallel them with us - Adkins, Poch, Koeman has been very similar to Hughton, Potter, De Zerbi. If this new manager isn’t as good as De Zerbi, and the football not as exciting, will their fans get restless and the club take a punt on a really, really shit Argentinian manager who did an alright job with a small Spanish club? We’ll see. Without wanting to re-open the Puel debate all over again, he did an alright job, it just wasn’t that exciting - what followed was a hell of a lot worse and we’re still paying the price for those couple of summers now. Clubs the size of us can’t afford to make many mistakes - history suggests Brighton will be due some, we’ll see how well they handle them.

It was winning the Premier League that made them enviable, no one lauded them as a recruitment success story prior to it. They then followed it up by making some shrewd moves in the transfer market (Maguire, Tielemans, Maddison) where they became the club to emulate. But like everyone, eventually they started to get it wrong (not selling at the right time, signing the likes of Musa, Daka, Iheanacho over the years) and got relegated.

Erm, he played 36/38 games in the league, 4 of which were at fullback but 32 were in midfield. He played every minute of their 8 Europa League games on top of that, and he captains them in Lewis Dunk’s absence. He got his first caps for Germany and made their Euro’s squad, getting himself a move to Borussia Dortmund. Not sure which Groß you were watching, but it’s not the Brighton one. He also won their player of the season..

Caicedo? Mac Allister? Cucurella? They’ve just lost probably their best player in Grosß, and i’m sure Dunk (their captain) would go if he was in demand by anyone. Mitoma is back from injury so if he’s anything like he was 18 months ago he’ll be off come end of the season. We’ll find out if their replacements this summer are any good, but they’re already trying to shift Gilmour and Dahoud who they only signed in the last season or two. Evan Ferguson the next £100mil striker that everyone thought was the next coming of Alan Shearer has not scored a goal for almost a calendar year. They came 11th last year and amassed the same points as Everton, had they not had 8 deducted. They’ve had a great few years, but it’s been done before, and i’m sure one day they’ll be looking at someone else who are the supposed best run club in the country.

This is their Puel season, third manager since promotion after two successful improvements. One day the progress will end, all these same gushing statements were said of us once upon a time, Swansea before us and Leicester after us.

We’ve spent the best part of £60mil because you’re choosing to ignore THB and Downes

Used to think this guy had good sources but he was all over the shop with the Lavia saga of last summer, and some others since.

His career seems to be following a similar pattern to fellow very tall striker Alexander Sorloth. Both had success at Midtjylland before eventually ending up at low end PL clubs - Palace in Sorloth’s case. Neither scored a goal and both were loaned to Trabzonspor where they resumed their prolific goal scoring. Sorloth then got sold to RB Leipzig and has now found his way to Atletico Madrid via Villarreal. Tall Paul doesn’t seem to be getting the RB Leipzig-esque move but perhaps there’s a second chance for him here instead…

Charley in an Old Firm would be worth a watch

Was he? He completely hindered us in several games, particularly Hull at home, i’d say we would be better using somebody already at the club even if they’re playing out of position.

Why do I keep seeing people using Rothwell as a player we are worse off without? He was absolutely crap apart from about 5 minutes of the season when he scored two against Huddersfield and one against Sunderland. If we hadn’t gone up and we’d signed him i’m pretty sure everyone would’ve been disappointed.

You are right, albeit Mcginn’s quotes were mid-season, but yes appreciate you can’t always rely on fans’ opinions especially when a player is departing.

According to Villa fans and McGinn seemingly - suggestions of being a bit of a nightmare round the place as well as ‘liking’ content on social media about him moving to Chelsea a few months back. Looks a good player though.