verlaine1979

Did you ever actually see Xavi play? 'Neat and tidy' perhaps undervalues the contribution of one of the most incisive passers of the past twenty years or so. As someone said above, JWP is important to us and very hard working, but you never see him running a game. Xavi didn't run games because he had better players around him - he ran games because he read the play better than anyone else, and he could keep the ball as long as he wanted until a pass opened up.

Seems to have the knack of just quietly getting his foot in and stopping an attack dead. A sort of anti-Bednarek, whose finest moments have all been last-minute lunges to block or clear.

Spot on. We know what we're going to get from Redmond, and we know it's not good enough.

Slightly depressing that our most impressive striker is a kid on loan from Chelsea, rather than the £30m of Championship strikers we've acquired over the past couple of seasons. If RH wants to persist with one up front, Broja is pretty much the only option, and on today's evidence he should also start when we play two up top. Redmond was dire after a nice cameo against Newcastle. Not at all predictable. Would rather have Tella in the side for pace on the break, since Redmond is both slow in terms of flat out pace and no more likely to do anything useful with the ball once he gets where he's going.

Very few sides have bullied us like West Ham over the past few years. They generally make our midfield look paper thin.

For the last four years, West Ham have dominated us home and away, and generally make us look like a bunch of asthmatic children wheezing about against a team of giants. Not sure I see that pattern changing in this game either.

So if he carries on that xG all season, we should expect Che to get around 3.8 goals over the 38 games? Sounds about right.

I still find it absolutely mind blowing that we've gone from a club with zero debt and enough money to invest in infrastructure to one where we're happy to believe that giving our goalie a long contract was almost enough to bankrupt us.

Gunn coincided with the moment when keepers started going for serious money (Kepa was over £70m that summer I believe). Club clearly looked at his age, his name and his club pedigree (plus the fact that he could be De Gea's twin), and assumed that £15m + two years in our squad and he'd be a £50m asset.

As we've seen over the last few years, £150m is peanuts at the elite level. The very top clubs are spending that kind of money on individual players, not their summer squad overhaul.

Suspect West Ham will prove to have had a good window. They were already a solid side, and have added strength throughout their spine at GK, CM and AM. They're a striker short, but suspect that will be less of a problem for them as they'll be very hard to play against and have plenty of goals elsewhere in the side.

Bizarre. There is no way Lyanco is replacing Salisu. The other two half-wits he may well do, but Salisu already looks a different class and will be more or less the first name on the team sheet after JWP this year.

Finnegan is 17. He'd have to be absolutely exceptional to be making a dent in the first team in the next 3-4 years playing in central midfield.

Why would Lille let Sanches go? Wasn't he a regular in their league-winning side?

When we play Ralph's system with Djenepo and Walcott, both ostensible 10s spend the entire game hugging the touchline. That leaves all the central attacking threat to either come from JWP and Romeu (who are both too conservative to play as 10s) or from Adams dropping deep (which he's decent at, to give him his due, but I doubt he'd anyone's idea of a first choice attacking midfield). If Redmond hadn't already had his one good game for this half of the season, I'd say him and Elyounoussi seem more capable of coming narrow and finding the right pass. Then all of that aside, I still think our squad is far more suited to 4-2-3-1 than Ralphball as our first choice defensive midfielders are both so lacking in pace for both recovery and transition.

Adams showed a bit of strength at one point, but aside from that we got very little from our front two that half. Ings always seemed quite good at reading a defence and finding space as the game went on - hopefully Armstrong has that in his locker too.

When was the last time we actually looked purposeful on a break like that?

Romeu's touch so far has been dire. Looks a second off the required pace (and it isn't even a particularly hectic game).

The only place up for grabs would seem to be Walcott's, and as Redmond only seems to be able to play off the left, S Armstrong injured, it's either Moi, Tella or rejig the backline with KWP and move Livramento forward. Any of those three changes would be interesting to watch and leave good options if it doesn't work out. The main thing is just DROP THEO.

Didn't we have three senior keepers on the books as recently as 2018/19? Gunn was signed in July 2018 and became second choice behind McCarthy. Fraser didn't go out on loan until the start of the 2019 season. We've done it before, and I think the arguments that it's worth doing again now for a year are pretty strong (assuming the right candidate is available).

Their keeper likes his near post even less than Fraser.

That's a lovely finish.

I see Torreira is leaving Arsenal on loan, probably to Fiorentina. Could've been worth a punt at DM.

Watford woke up a bit in the final 20 minutes, but rarely threatened to actually score. Brighton had a *lot* more movement and interchange up front than I've seen from us in recent seasons.

Stuart Armstrong is a decent player, but I doubt fans of other teams are looking at him covetously. We paid a small fee and got a slightly better player than we paid for. He's been a relatively bright light in a very dull team, but that context is important.