TWar

Those two weren't good enough or struggled to shine for a CL level club. Often you can get underrated players out of big sides like Lingard, Ings, Bertrand as they haven't had a chance to prove themselves past vast talent playing ahead of them and often play off scraps minutes wise and can't get up to steam. Not being able to break into and make a name for yourself amongst a struggling torino team is a great deal more worrying.

I think showing I play fantasypl might actually give further fuel to my usual critics 😂

Redders looks absolutely incredible against even Championship oppo. He tore Swansea to bits in preseason, last year absolutely stuffed Bournemouth in the cup and got three goals in two games against Derby in 18/19. I have no doubt if he goes to the championship he'd look incredible and get like Danjuma/Buendia numbers, issue is as soon as he comes up against competent opposition he looks dogshite. It's very odd, I've never seen a player vary with opposition as much as he does.

Yeah bang on. Even 12/13 is way above average for starting premier league strikers. Last season 11 teams didn't have a player who scored over 12 goals including us and Man City! Teams like Chelsea, Brighton, Fulham, Sheffield United, and Wolves didn't have a single player who cracked double figures. Wolves stayed up comfortably and their top scorer got 5. It's our defence that needs a boost if anything, and our fans really need to have a better grasp of what "premier league level numbers" actually entail as Che is a perfectly serviceable option for pushing top half, let alone staying up.

Yeah we have 8 potential strikers and our starters will be Adams who got 9 last season and Armstrong who has similar stats to Ollie Watkins, sometimes I think our fans confuse us with a team the size of Spurs or Arsenal, what we have is plenty for our goals.

Adams is a fine mid table striker, that has been proven. Armstrong isn't proven but a team of our size isn't going to sign a proven prem striker, a 28 goal championship striker is a good replacement. Broja had a good season last year too, he's only been here like 2 weeks, give him another couple before saying he isn't enough, Tella is not our best winger at all, Stuart is far better, and Tella clearly is being played up top this season. Obafemi might be leaving but it isn't confirmed yet. Look at any other midtable prem side, our striker depth and starting players are plenty compared to that. Armstrong is clearly not replacing Long, that is mental. We don't spend £15m+ on a replacement for a player who is out on loan and barely plays. Armstrong is our Ings replacement obviously, Broja is our way of increasing depth, Tella is our youth player and Adams is still Adams. Thats the four strikers we need and it should be plenty. I agree we didn't have the best depth last season but if you think a team of our size is signing a proven prem striker to replace Ings and a 28 goal championship striker to be 3rd/4th choice off our bench you are being thoroughly unrealistic.

One of our stranger transfer sagas as Ralph basically ruled it out right at the beginning but it kept reappearing

Broja is being eased in. As it stands we have Armstrong, Adams, Tella, Broja and Obafemi. We have 0 need for a striker. Any other role would be more appropriate (except RB)

We could probably get Strakosha and Caleta-Car for a combined £30m or so, shame we are saving our money and bargain shopping for CBs

My Portuguese is a bit rusty unfortunately

I guess. Not worth making off topic arguments. On topic, sounds good to me. I think with all the young players we are bringing in this summer having a real focus on getting them first team ready is going to be very valuable.

Yeah they have made a couple of good ones (Coufal, Soucek) but I still think they have a "throw money at the wall and see what sticks" strategy. For example, last season they had five attacking midfielders in their team they had spent big money (£15m+) on in Lanzini, Yarmalenko, Bowen, Benrahma, Anderson (although loaned out in october) and still had to loan in Lingard in January. Similarly they had a £45m striker just sat on their bench (Haller) for most of it. They have some quite high profile flops, it just doesn't seem to matter as they seem to get a new attacking player for £20m+ every window. As I said though, yeah they will finish above us, they have spent over £110m more than us over the last three years and spend almost £15m a year more than us on wages. That isn't a mark of them making cleverer transfers than us, they are just rich.

Dunno why saints invested in a professional coach, why don't they just employ a fella to yell at them to be tougher and have a tantrum whenever anyone uses a statistic of any kind?

I think Djenepo has been good this season, he has real bite against the ball and playing next to Perraud has really helped him progress the ball as he now can play intricate one twos and offload the ball to someone rather than always just having to take on the player in front of him or pass backwards.

Maybe he flew in for a medical/negotiation then flew back to say goodbye and move, and now back again

West Ham. When people say "such a west ham move" they mean that West Ham spend a fortune but rarely well, which is probably accurate. Problem is spending a lot of money poorly still mostly beats out spending a tiny amount of money reasonably well.

At the top of the league! Probably will plummet now but at least I got one week in the top spot.

My thoughts exactly, imagine if we'd gotten Williams for a £4m loan fee or whatever it was and £60k a week wages instead of Livramento on a perm for £1m more and much more manageable wages, Semmens deserves massive massive credit for that.

I thought the same of Tino but some talent is too insane to bench. If Small is half the player Tino he will be a great addition to our steadily growing fantastic young core.

Easy son, Tino is setting a high bar for such praise.

Sweet, he looks decent. Reckon he will go straight into the first team or spend some time with the U23's?

Same question as in the other thread, is this a reliable source?

Is this a reliable source?

I think Tino is on a role and high on confidence, want to see him keep building

Forster Livramento simeu bednarek Valery Armstrong Diallo Redmond Elyounoussi Broja Tella Maybe A. Armstrong in the place of Redmond (with Tella dropping back to AM) if he feels like he wants the minutes and a nice confidence boost