Ex Lion Tamer

Again hindsight. There was no knowing that Adams would kick on this season and get over his goal drought. With the Adams we had then, your list of strikers is very weak. I'd have rather given a one year contract at the time, but if two was the only option and the wage was reasonable, it was a decent way to hedge our bets. Also, Ings was absolutely not under any obligation to be that effusive in his quote, and the fact that Long was a regular starter speaks for itself

I repeat this from another thread: At that point he had started 12 of the last 15 games and had been credited with bringing the best out of Ings We simply couldn't know when his form would fall of a cliff. You could maybe say that we should have given a 1 year contract rather than a 2 year one, but it seems like older players simply won't accept that these days, so we were left with the option of giving him a contract and keeping a first team player, or letting him go and having to pay a transfer fee for a replacement.

Hilarious what's happening at Spurs. Levy is such a poor chairman. Where have all the good managers gone? I suppose in the past a lot of clubs would be resorting to the Pardew/Allardyce etc merry-go-round so it hasn't ever been easy. I'm quite glad we're not looking at the moment but there must be talent out there. I suppose part of the problem is that people like Conte haven't accepted that football is in a bit of a recession and can't spend megabucks

I wonder if they're trying to appease the fans for the imminent departure of Grealish

Who are they about to sell though? White, Lamptey and Bissouma all being linked with big money moves

Totally agree that VAR was never the problem, just the way it's been implemented here

There was an article which suggested Gao will be in trouble with the Chinese government if he sells at a loss

Poch's system and coaching brought the very best out of them. So many of his players failed to replicate their form once they left the club. The same happened once Eriksen left spurs too

Without being complacent, I'd like to see a fair bit of rotation in the next one to keep the squad fresh, especially in the wide forward positions

Fair play, it does seem they are not the team they once were. I can also remember us struggling against Trinidad and Tobago in a world cup though, so I'll take that as a good performance

I thought it was really good performance. People saying Croatia were poor but that was partly because they couldn't handle our pressing

We can only speculate but if Lemina didn't show the right application/discipline, then he was better off out of the squad, otherwise it could rub off on the other players. Of course, to us on the outside we only see a player with ability not being used which can feel strange

The German Klopp was out of a job when Liverpool took him. It does seem that the pressing teams fall apart when the system isn't working, but when it does work it can be incredibly effective. The question is whether the Alpine Klopp can get it working again or whether he's run his course with our players. We'll find out early next season, but if we let him go then I wouldn't be surprised to see him having success with the next club he manages

A proper journeyman footballer

So basically people wet themselves over something that wasn't true. Again. It's no wonder we have the government we do when everyone blindly believes everything they read/hear.

Tim Sparv is captaining Finland at the Euros and has written an article for the Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/jun/11/finland-has-waited-so-long-for-this-at-euro-2020-its-our-turn-at-last

I think we have to remember that McCarthy was brought in as a back up for a minimal fee. And he actually did a good job taking over when Forster has his loss of form. The issue is that he's now playing for the first team five years later because Gunn didn't develop as we hoped

If we get relegated then Howe can manage us

The first thing is when you're trying to force keepers to play with their feet who simply aren't good at it, it can be a recipe for disaster. The second point is it's a high risk strategy, so even goalkeepers who are good at it will make occasional mistakes and look very stupid. But those rare instances are still outweighed by the benefits to a team's attacking play of drawing the opposition forward

He's also not that good with his feet apparently, which I thought was one of our things we think it important: https://www.violanation.com/fiorentina-transfer-rumors-news-reports/2021/5/28/22457590/fiorentina-bartlomiej-dragowski-transfer-rumor-sell-gennaro-gattuso-goalkeeper He does look like a great shotstopper though.

I often enjoy MLG bringing a dose of reality to the debate but he also words his questions in quite an aggressive way (through lack of social nous rather than malice I think), sometimes takes on people who aren't regular posters and don't deserve to be held to account in that way, and argues relentlessly when challenged rather than letting things go

Good post. Obviously it would be great if someone came and pumped in money, but the reality is that most British football clubs have to be self- sustaining, and if we're one of them then so be it, we'll have to make the best of it and see if we can stay in this division with the resources we have

It's left out of that article but it seems like the original Sport article links West Ham as well, which could be a problem for us

It's very unlikely that a sentence would ever have two "haves" next to each other. Your first one should have been "how".

Everything I can see on my admittedly quick Google search is that he was on £100k-110k and that we were paying 50% of that https://www.footballinsider247.com/exclusive-southampton-agree-to-sign-theo-walcott-but-wont-pay-all-his-wages/ https://salarysport.com/football/player/theo-walcott/ https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/every-everton-players-2019-20-21242022