TWar

Definitely invincibility. Being invisible would suck, people would just keep walking into you.

I like it, easy to remember and sit down is a banger.

Not shit, just with a worse squad than us and an average mid table side that are way worse than the "pushing for top 6, similar level to Arsenal and Spurs" a lot of fans were pushing over the summer. And yeah, I still think we are better than them. Above them in the table, still in the cup. They had a good win when we had an off day when we had played three days before and had a couple of key players out, it happens. They did Liverpool 7-2 last season and they sure as shit weren't better than them either.

If he isn't hopefully we get good money to reinvest. Personally I think when this board get the chance to buy they usually do well. Even Lyanco was probably good business for £4m it's just a shame we only had £4m. Hope we keep Salisu and buy a cb, a 10 and a gk in the window along with a few sales. This squad is good but it needs some care to be at a top half/europe level.

I don't know if we did. Seemed pretty clear by the calibre of other clubs in for Salisu and how well rated he was that he would be a starter imo. Lyanco wasn't even a starter for a relegation threatened club in the Italian league.

We had a class summer but my one major criticism was that we signed a 4th choice cb when we needed a second choice one. I don't know why we did that and today it really cost us. Salisu plus Bednarek/Stephens is plenty for top half but take Salisu out and that is a 15th-20th cb pairing.

We looked knackered today. Bad day at the office, draw a line under it and move on.

Honestly if you actually think Claude Puel is anywhere near the level of manager Benitez is, I don't know what to tell you. Just look at what they have achieved.

Well yeah, his team sucked without DCL and Richarlison. Puel's didn't. He was just a bad manager.

Shows he made a poor career decision by taking on the job of a club in freefall. Less of a condemnation of his manageerial skill and more of his decision making. Admire his ambition though of taking on a challenge and also seemed to have been personally motivated by wanting to move back to the liverpool area.

Benitez moves around a bit, had underated spells at Chelsea and Napoli. His last couple of jobs were pretty poor, but they were not good sides tbh. Mou is just quite underrated. He has his peaks and troughs, he actually on paper did very well at united. Fans are just quite entitled.

I think Benitez did well to improve certain players like Townsend, Gordon, and Gray with a bang average team missing it's best players. I think Puel made multiple players worse and didn't improve a single player from a team which actually wasn't too bad if we had a competent manager who knew how to build a side. Also Benitez is a champions league winning legend of the game and Puel is a flop who kept flopping well after he left us. The logic is fine, good managers improve players, Puel did not. You just don't seem to be able to follow it. Tell you what, give one example of a player Puel made better? Ralph has about 10, Koeman similarly, even Benitez got a tune out of a few Everton players. Who does Puel have? He certainly had stars like Tadic playing at a miles lower standard.

I'll say, his win % seemed largely drop as his career continues (with the exception of Lille). Doubt he gets another job any time soon:

Yeah that makes sense. I think whether they will sell or not is dependent on a few things out of our control. If Lukaku improves and applies himself then they will want him less. If they struggle to retain two of Azpi, Rudiger, and Christensen they'll need to spend big on atleast two top class CB's. If they struggle to offload a forward, probably Werner, then I think they might struggle to make room for him and their forwards are on massive wages. If the new owner is skint they might need to sell. And finally financial fair play may come into play, they have stepped too close to the line before and their wage bill/net spend over the last couple of seasons has been massive. I don't think we are likely to sign him but there are some things working in our favour for them to sell.

I meant Abrahams value when he left. If we bought Broja he'd definitely have a buy back too. For me Broja is very promising but has definite weaknesses in his game and if his price drifted above £30m we'd do well to look elsewhere. Regardless of how attached we all are to him due to the loan.

I think he did by the end of his stay, because he improved his players and Puel made his players worse. I don't agree he did when they signed the players. Pretty easy concept to grasp... And I expect we just played with 10 men when Austin wasn't on the pitch then? Yet we still scored barely any goals. Puel played crap, that's why he got the sack.

Obviously Pelle Mane Tadic, but that is because of what Koeman did for them. - When they both joined Boufal had a lot more hype than Mane and was from a stronger league. - Austin had an 18 goal premier league season. Much more proven than Pelle. - Puel also had Tadic so not sure why we are pretending he was just Koemans, he played 33 league games in Puels season, so a pretty stupid thing to say really. Now we know Mane and Pelle as two of our best players of the last decade and Austin/Boufal as flops. They didn't come in that way though, Koeman and Puel had that effect, one massively improved players and the other made them markedly worse.

Or because Koeman built his team around the players he brought in and integrated them well into a positive progressive style. Puel did not. Mane, VvD, Tadic, Pelle, etc. weren't considered world beaters before Koeman signed them, he deserves massive credit for their development. Similarly, Ralph deserves massive credit for JWP, Ings, KWP, Salisu, Broja, Romeu, Bednarek, Stu, Adams, etc. who he has improved. Who did Puel improve in his limp, boring season?

Koeman also lost his top scorers, and basically everyone else, it didn't seem to slow him down too much...

I'd say it is incredibly surprising, given he has scored 6 prem goals ever. Would be surprised if he is valued more than Abraham is who had a 15 goal season in the league and proved his worth in the CL.

Yeah the two following him were even worse. Thank god for Ralph.

Puel absolutely was boring as all hell. We scored 41 goals, 5 fewer than in 18-19 when we finished 16th. Fewer than every other season since we've been back in the prem except Pellegrinos year which was only 4 less. We didn't even win many games, we got 8th because everyone else was rubbish that year outside the top 7. Saying people didn't like Puel because he wasn't a "big name" is nonsense. People didn't like Puel because we were shite under him and dead boring. We finished 8th because a lot of the league just happened to also be shite, that doesn't mean he did well. He then did a very similar thing at Leicester.

Yeah I think "it's annoying we were forced to rotate to avoid injury and then injury happened anyway" is a perfectly fine sentiment. Not blaming anyone, just rotten luck.

Wouldn't pay that too much mind. It's from a pretty unreliable source.

Might be interesting to try something a bit different with Salisu and Moi out. Given the lack of Salisu weakens us at the back then maybe a back three. Potentially: Forster Valery Bednarek Stephens Romeu Livramento JWP Stu Perraud Adams Broja Try a 3142/352 style formation. Failing that just play the usual with Redmond and Stephens in for Salisu and Moi