TWar

No because he's bad. If we had spent 22 million people would ask "why have we spent 22 million on this crap squad player?" As is people ask why have we signed a crap squad player (albeit for cheap) when we have a big hole in the squad and should have quite a lot of money to spend?

Macca was the worst keeper in the league last season and it wasn't particularly close

Tackle % of 45% Pressure % of 30% 3.2 tackles+interceptions a game. Aerial duel % 59% This guy is bang average at best. Vast majority of his stats are the same or worse than Jack Stephens.

Unfortunately the prem has a lot of quick players, and 5 subs, not sure its a good excuse to be beaten for pace when you have a 5 yard headstart. Unless we have to sub him off before his legs get too tired.

He got smashed for pace on goal #6, had a fair headstart and was comfortably outrun. He also is at fault for #7 he moves his leg out the way and then tries some weird backheal well after it's passed him, no idea what he's doing. So we have one where he gives away a pen, one where he is too slow in the high line, and one where he shows he has a big mistake in him. It's like all the worst bits of our current CB's

End of last season was benched 5 games on the bounce, then started one, got battered 7-0 and then was back to being benched for the final three. That was the end of his most recent season. Fantastic saints, fantastic...

Can you watch the press conference live anywhere or do you have to wait for it to be on youtube later?

Also got a decent eye for goal and takes a mean free kick. When I saw him he looked less of a DM and more like a budget JWP. Holding mid, great passer, good shot on him, maybe a little lightweight in the tackle.

Probably out of our league given he was on the verge of going to Atalanta recently. Can see Villa maybe putting a bid in though having missed out on JWP.

Probably yeah. Big defeats against big teams won't bother the powers that be as much as lots of small defeats against teams around us, as they have little effect on relegation risk. I think he will get a chance with his newly updated squad to show we have what it takes to be a midtable side, which is probably the goal. Also the "but he won't" bit seems like something you can't really predict. We shall see. Also final question, are you SKD? If so why were you banned? It's fine if you don't want to say and get this acc banned too but SKD always seemed quite reasonable regardless of us holding vastly different views so would be a shame to see they got kicked off.

He isn't getting sacked 2 games into a season where he has just seen massive overhaul of his squad with 6 incomings (likely more coming). He will definitely get atleast 10 games to make his new signings work.

They could play a similar system to Leicester who fit in both Maddison and Tielemanns. Kind of a 4141 kind of a 433 with advanced 8s. Something like: ----------Partey---------- ----Odegaard-----ESR--- Pepe-------------------saka ----------new striker-------- Would depend if Partey can fill that Ndidi role, as that is the lynchpin of the side. I guess quite similar to what Arteta's mentor Pep plays with Rodri/Fernandinho sat deep and Gundogan/Silva/KdB/Grealish as two more advanced 8's.

Our best and most important player deserves a pay rise, no doubt, but I always find it weird when a four year contract becomes a five year. Doesn't seem like the club needs to give a new one with that much left of the deal and it doesn't feel it guarantees the players services that much more as if they are good enough they will be sold in the next two summers anyway for similar prices. Guess it stops the player agitating to leave, if that was a threat. Anyway, JWP is a top top player who belongs at a top side and this is a fantastic development regardless.

Better source on this. Looks like a decent bit of business.

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this but Neto is out till atleast February for Wolves, some saying his season is over. With Jimenez recovering, Traore linked with a move away (and not great anyway), a new manager, goalkeeper massively downgraded, and only finishing 2 pts ahead of us last season they could be in a bit of trouble.

Wow his value has dropped. I remember them asking for £50m from united or something not that long ago.

I think the big downside to Forster is he is crap at claiming crosses and we, arguably correctly, suspected their main avenue of attack would be running down the line and whipping it in to DCL. Issue is, if McCarthy can't claim a ball dropping into his own 6 yard box then he clearly isn't any better.

It's like watching a pensioner try to work a printer. "Err which one is the power cable, it's all confusing and new fangled, back in my day we used brass rubbing and we liked it!"

Were you aiming for isometric? I don't think isometical is a word.

Are you self-satirising at this point? If you are, fair play it is quite funny.

Why does this article call him "Thierry Small" in the title and opening line but spend the rest of it calling him "Henry"? Reckon they had an ex-Arsenal striker on the mind?

This is a fair point, although I think it is definitely worth noting we make the same tactical/individual error very often in that one of our midfielders/10s gives the ball away and then our high fullbacks can't get back in position as they were pushing up for the attack. You are right that if you look for a tactical error you will probably find one but I think the fact it is often the same errors means this is probably an issue. I agree with fitness and man management being big factors for avoiding individual errors too. Tired legs make bad passes and poorly managed players often make bad decisions.

This is a good point, I think it is important to not be too bothered with your own "identity" and to sometimes try and grind a result by any means needed. I think Ralph has done that before with our respective victories at City and liverpool 1-0 in the last two seasons where we pretty much parked the bus and absorbed pressure for most of both games.

My captain for 11's has been banging on about "pressing triggers" for a while. Basically just "if someone makes a bad touch, charge them". I think that's been a part of football for a while but calling them "automisms" and planning what every player does in the event of a trigger is quite high level and reasonably modern I think.

Yeah I think Ralph's biggest weakness is he is quite bad at noticing when a game is going sideways in real time. It would be good to have a second in command who can give him a kick up the arse when our attacking mids start to tire and tell him to use the wealth of attacking mids sat on his bench.