verlaine1979

Lavia every time. I know JWP can't dominate a midfield in the premier league. Lavia hasn't done it yet either, but looks far more likely to be capable of it.

Future adoptees are cut off.

Bloodlines, apparently.

Bednarek is by far the worst of our CBs on the ball.

Steady on - he's had one decent but injury-disrupted season in a team that got relegated. You don't get a move to Real or Barcelona (or even City these days) off the back of that - he's nowhere near proven himself enough to play at that level yet.

Yeah, I wasn't seeking to apportion blame to Shields. Just counter the idea that his departure is what fucked our season. It clearly wasn't. On the other hand, I think we should probably avoid contorting to pat ourselves on the back over identifying the likes of Gakpo, Ramos, Colwill etc. Starters for Benfica, PSV and an extremely highly rated England youth international hardly count as undiscovered gems.

How? Shields was there the entire summer. January is last-chance saloon recruitment, and hardly any teams manage to buy their way out of relegation at that point, regardless of who is doing the scouting.

He's only got a couple of years left at the top of his game. I wouldn't waste one in the championship if I were him.

Wonder if his agent managed to get a relegation fee clause put in. There was competition for his signature when he decided to leave Chelsea, so he might have had enough leverage to insist on one.

Agree with this - he's very, very good, but he's still a long way off the level that Morgan was for us when he could legitimately run the midfield against top opposition. Lavia keeps the ball exceptionally well and everything else about his game is very good, but at 19 he's not a dominant No. 6, so we're not going to get record breaking money for him.

The only player in the squad as reliably frustrating to watch as Che. Just as you could almost always rely on Adams to hit it straight at the keeper, you could almost always rely on Ely to fritter away a promising break by being too slow off the mark and getting caught. No animosity towards him, but I'll be happy to never have to watch him play ever again.

He scored 22 in the Championship the season before coming to us, but there were a lot of terrible finishes in there (as several people said at the time). He just can't strike a ball properly except through his laces - it's a huge weakness and he's far too old now to fix it. It's irrational, since I'm sure he'd probably get at least 15 goals over the longer champ season, but I just don't want another season of watching Che's terrible finishing. It's been one of the most depressing things about watching us over the past few seasons.

He's a slow terrier who hits a great free kick but is otherwise fairly conventional in his passing. That's why he never nailed down an England place (a team that has generally prioritised physicality) and why he's never been poached by a more technical team competing in the Champions League. Free kicks are his only elite skill - everything else is just pretty good.

Well written and insightful. There's no place for that here. Be off with you.

Wasn't that before they paid 100m for Fernandez? Chelsea are obviously crying out for a new DM and have shown a capacity to burn money like no one else, so I can see it being them. But I don't see many other clubs being willing to pony up 50m for a 19 year old who only played 65% of the minutes in a relegation season. Would expect Newcastle, Spurs et al to want a bit more experience for their money.

Not entirely convinced that anyone will offer what we want for him yet. He had a few injuries last season, and while he looked several steps above anything we've had for a long while, he didn't dominate games so much as glide through them doing the intricate stuff well. I suppose Chelsea are really the only team likely to gamble on paying what we want, even though he's still quite a way off the standard of a prime Kante/Fabinho/Casemiro etc.

Our attack has been overdependent on the full backs for about the last five seasons. It often seems to be literally the only idea we have about where to move the ball in open play.

Semmens did not get to choose who his boss sold the club to.

Bah

We didn't lose out on Gakpo and Ramos because of poor negotiation. We lost out on them because, rightly, they both concluded they were already better than us. The clue there is in the fact that Gakpo got bought by Liverpool five months later and Ramos is already among the most sought after strikers in Europe after lighting up the Champion's League and World Cup. The failure of management was in not targeting realistic options and being left with nothing at the end of the summer window and Tall Paul at the last minute of the January window. We've been shit for three or four years - it was absurd arrogance to assume that the lure of the PL alone would be enough.

I think it's more that JWP generally lacks the dynamism to receive the ball from our CBs, turn and drive into the middle. They have to pop it back and forth between them for a couple of exchanges to get us to the halfway line. Compare with McAllister & Caicedo yesterday, who took the ball off the Brighton CBs constantly and just scampered forward with it.

What's come out?

I want him gone, even if we can't find anyone better. Four seasons of watching him trundle about and hit easy chances at the keeper is enough for anyone.

There's no point talking about anyone "ditching" Ankerson. He's not an employee, he's a co-founder of the company of which Solak is the main investor. Solak could probably force him out/buy him out if it came to it, but that's a lot more complicated than just firing an employee.

Fab, Fornals, Lanzini, Cornet and Ings for sure. Downes would also get plenty of games for us, Emerson too.