TWar

This season Redmond has 2 goals and 3 assists in league 1620 minutes. Armstrong has 4 goals and 5 assists in 2594 league minutes. The means Redmond gets 0.11 goals per 90 and 0.16 assists per 90, which actually isn't dreadful but also isn't great. Armstrong on the other hand gets 0.14 goals per 90 and 0.17 assists per 90 so tops Redmond in both regards. Furthermore, Redmond has played a lot of his games this season as a forward, where you would expect his stats to be better as he is closer to the goal. Armstrong has played mostly at an attacking midfielder but has also recently played as a holding midfielder. Owing to this, him having better goal scoring and better assist stats than Redmond is all the more impressive. People also rate Armstrong because of his ability to progress play, his safety on the ball, and his positivity, all of which can be proven statistically should you have the inclination.

The Cash handball really annoyed me. Probably more than it should have.

People are too black and white about these things. Redmond is a great depth option for a club of our size who gets played too much because Theo and Minimino have both been pretty average, Armstrong is needed in midfield, Tella is our only good youth product, is pretty average as a 10 and much better as a forward, and Djenepo hasn't really kicked on. With any luck we won't need Stu as a 6 and we can sign another attacking mid and Redmond won't be needed as much. He's definitely not shit and I'm happy to have him in our squad, he just isn't good enough to start for a top half side, which is fine. I will say Redmond starting over Adams up top drove me mad, but fortunately that period seems to have come to an end.

I wouldn't even say I dislike it. Staying sustainable and hoping to luck out on a couple of good cheap transfers and having a good season or two (like 2014-16) is not the worst deal. Some clubs have it better and can really push on but equally some clubs have owners who drain them dry. I'd say I am ambivalent on Gao. Personally a takeover makes me more nervous than excited, with the quality of other recent takeovers like Burnley.

One more after this against West Ham.

It's because its a reasonably short-termist view. We were better than them for over half of the season until we nosedived after injury. With full team fit and firing we are better than Leeds. They are very overrated. Be handy to test this theory on Tuesday but I doubt Romeu will be back, and Bertrand is obviously out.

I actually think with all players fit our first 11 is of a similar quality to theirs with us maybe edging it. They have some big pluses in Raphinha, Meslier, Phillips, Dallas but I think players like Ings, JWP, Vestergaard, KWP, Armstrong would walk into their side. I also think Bamford is quite overrated, the way leeds play gets him an absolute tonne of chances but he is a very poor finisher, statistically pretty similar to Adams. Also last season in the championship was one of the worst finishers the championship has ever seen statistically in terms of underperforming xG.

Hard game. I'd keep basically the same side that has been playing well for the last two. It's Maccas turn to play (IIRC they get two games each) so I'd have Macca Stephens Vestergaard Salisu KWP JWP Armstrong Redmond Tella Ings Adams Obviously can flexibly turn into a 4222 with Salisu at LB, and Tella dropping back to attacking mid next to Redmond.

Yeah we need a 4th for both. Happy for the no 6 to be a 4th choice as I rate JWP, Romeu, and Diallo. The only number 10 I like is Armstrong so we need a 2nd choice. More pressing due to that imo.

Yep definite issue, only Armstrong is good enough, Tella looks much better as a forward. Best case scenario we sign one of Danjuma or De Frutos, sign another player to cover CM and play Armstrong and Danjuma/De Frutos with Walcott and Djenepo as back up and Redmond as back up up top.

United spend £41m a year on wages more than City, wages aren't necessarily predictive in a vacuum. Things like transfer fees matter a lot too. They are low on those too to be fair, so definitely doing well. Just saying "big 6" is kind of a bad place to draw the line.

In that post I give pure squad value, which I think is a pretty good measure. I do agree net spend has massive flaws. Not only does Coutinho inflate things but so does getting £100m for Brewster + Ibe + Solanke + Ward + Sakho, and getting like £40 for Benteke. Their selling is insane.

Wage bill-wise Arsenal are £53m ahead of Leicester a year, but then they are £47m off United so they are pretty equidistant between the two. On the other hand Arsenal spent £137m more than Leicester assembling their squad, but £175m less than United. They are certainly the richest of the "best of the rest" on paper, but I wouldn't say they are closer financially to the likes of Chelsea, United, and especially city than they are to Leicester, Spurs, and Everton.

Liverpools net-spend is famously tiny because they make mad deals on outgoings. Infact as of last summer over the last 5 years they are 14th for net spend behind brighton, watford and bournemouth. It's not a great measure tbh, net spend, when you are selling well over the odds. Their squad value is 5th in the league (Arsenal are 4th, but by less than £1m), £70m off Everton in 6th but £120m off Chelsea in 3rd, and a full £356m off City. So they certainly haven't spent that big on their squad.

I think nowadays teams like Everton and Leicester are on a very similar level in both size and spending power to Spurs and Arsenal. The north london clubs are certainly a lot closer to them than they are to City, United and Chelsea. So I think the big 6 as a concept is falling a bit. The big three will be United Chelsea and City based on spending power and then Liverpool, Everton, Leicester, Spurs and Arsenal will all be pretty close money-wise with Liverpool and Arsenal trending higher and Spurs and Leicester trending lower.

Yeah I know, I was saying that winning the league was a phenomenal achievement and people still think of Leicester as the relegation threatened side who beat the odds and won the league, but now they are a top 8 side in squad and funding around the level of Spurs and Everton and winning the cup is still an achievement but it doesn't prove that Rodgers is that great a manager, at their size they should be looking to win things. Was pretty poorly worded I admit.

Yeah this was my thoughts. Rodgers is definitely doing well but Leicester winning the league was amazing given the squad they had and money at their disposal, this Leicester team winning the cup isn't that crazy considering the money they have invested. Definitely not favourites by any means but the 8th most expensive team in the country beating the third most expensive team in the country isn't that big an upset. Leicester's 25 man squad cost almost double the money to assemble as ours.

That's not VAR, thats the ref. VAR can't overturn handball decisions which are more than one pass before the goal, used to be able to but people cried about it and it got rid of. That mistake is on the anti-VAR lot.

It was the right decision and stopped a worthy winner having a first FA cup stolen from them by an incorrect decision. Don't see the issue personally.

Also, what do we reckon that formation will be? Is it as simple as Stephens/Salisu at lb or are we trying some sort of 352 like we did at the end of last game?

I heard somewhere we make money off Minimino starting. Can't remember where though. I guess another explanation could be we are on the verge of a cheap offer for him if we see enough potential that we can train him out of his more rubbish tendencies and need to check him out. Personally I think any more than £5m would be a poor choice.

He has changed tactics around a fair bit, some of our fans still think we play a 442 so I don't know if most fans would even notice. Redmond in the side instead of Che changes us pretty majorly, makes us play with more of a false 9 style rather than a little and large esque strike partnership. Armstrong over Diallo is a big change too. He pushes really high and forces the 10s to play a lot deeper so we almost look like a 442 diamond.

He'll presumably have to take a pay cut soon being in and out of a relegated Fulham. When on loan I doubt wed pay 100%, might be a 50% deal like Walcott

I watched it. He was really good to be fair. A couple of decent games at international level doesn't guarantee much though, maybe he's been not up to it in training. Obafemi had some quality games last season and then got dropped from the squad for not bringing it in training. Tough but fair perhaps if you don't know what's going on behind the scenes.

I wonder if Salisu, Djenepo, and Diallo will get more of a chance now post-Ramadan. We did make a point to say that they were not 100% due to fasting and not sleeping enough.