verlaine1979

Elyounoussi's big flaw from what I remember, is that he had no acceleration. Whenever he received the ball it took him an age to get moving with it, and there always seemed to be a man on him immediately to nick it away. Maybe memory is playing tricks, but it feels like I saw him get reeled in and dispossessed literally every time he tried to dribble forward.

Leaving aside the relative merits of those three, which have already been hashed over endlessly, I'd suggest that the last thing we need to add to the squad are players lacking physical presence or pace. Games against the likes of Leeds, Wolves, Newcastle and even West Brom have shown we get absolutely bullied by teams with a bit of size and speed, and we don't have the ability to do it back to them. We practically walk forward on the break.

Collectively is the only way it *would* work - after all, there are 19 other clubs offering a PL platform. Businesses that announce they are only going to pay half the average wages of their competitors tend not to last very long.

Sell Vest anyway. Like the club as a whole, his performances over the latter half of the season are a far more accurate reflection of his capabilities than the brief flurry of good reviews at the start. He's a good passer of the ball, but a sub-par defender. Bin him, Bednarek and Stephens and buy a new partner for Salisu - it's not like our wealth of PL experience has yielded any real benefit defensively this year, so either bring in a couple of old warhorses or a few promising young CBs - they're unlikely to do any worse than our first choice pairing and at least offer the hope that they might do better.

We look like a team of midgets compared to them. A team of technically inferior midgets. If you're trying to follow the Guardiola-era Barcelona template of not caring about pace or strength, you do have to make sure your players are actually good on the ball.

Agreed. If we keep those two but can't buy anyone else, there's only one direction of travel for the club. Might as well roll the dice.

Not devaluing JWPs contribution, and there may be stats that prove me wrong. But I'd say he's actually the least progressive passer in our midfield? I notice Romeu and Diallo both looking for a forward pass more often than Ward-Prowse, as does Armstrong when he's playing in the middle. Aside from his lack of pace, it's probably the one thing you can hold against him - he's so determined to protect the ball that his body shape often demands a sideways pass rather than a forward one.

Maybe Ralph is thinking about JWP playing further forward. Though if that's the case I'd rather keep JWP where he is and spend the £9m on a genuine attacking midfielder.

In both games, Leeds had pace, power, a quality final ball and good finishing. When Ings is playing well, we've got one of those in the side. When he isn't playing well we've got none of them.

Entertaining half, but it's not a great sign for our attacking play that our best players in terms of regularly beating their man are the two CBs.

Which aspect of Kick It Out obliged fans to confront their own complicity (or overt racism) before each and every game?

He was already close to the top of our price range when B'mouth bought him I think. Wasn't he about 15m a few years ago?

For the illiterate, the point isn't whether the Palace goal was a good or bad finish. It's whether it shows that he's a good finisher. And the answer is, it doesn't. He's a terrible finisher, as the last five games or so have demonstrated over and over.

I want him to be a decent finisher, but he isn't. Putting one in from 2 yards with the outside of his boot doesn't erase the host of much simpler chances he's wasted over the past few games.

Nice goal, jammy finish. He got it because he went with the outside of his right, which is something he does because he can't use his left, not because he knows its a delicate wand of a foot. Che isn't a good finisher, as the numerous one on ones he's scuffed straight at the keeper or wide of the post amply demonstrate. And at almost 25 years old, he's not going to improve now. He's good enough for second choice, and nowhere near good enough as first. So it'll depend on what we find ourselves needing this summer.

That was a good ball, admittedly, but it's more his composure and the speed with which he finds and executes the short pass when we're trying to retain possession and shift the opposition around. So often you see him get the ball, take an age to turn and look, and then have no choice but to play a hurried ball to one of Vest, KWP or the keeper that invariably puts them under pressure. Salisu looks a lot more confident on the ball, and for that alone I think we'd be a more effective team with him swapped in for Bednarek.

I'd happily lose Bednarek over the summer. We already have a rubbish central defence, so I'd prefer it if we just recruited a crap CB who can pass and doesn't massively hinder our attempts to play out from the back. Obviously a good defender who can do that would be ideal, but tempering expectations.

Lucky - if he'd gone with his left (as most would in that position) he'd probably have missed. Finally, his refusal to use his left foot pays off!

In the games where I thought he was doing okay early on, he was playing more centrally. He'd pick the ball up, move forward a few yards and the move would break down. I gave him the benefit of the doubt because of course most moves driving through the middle of the pitch get smothered. But now he's spending more time out wide and I realise he'd just doing the same thing. He runs in straight lines in the hope that this will be enough to take him past a defender, and 99% of the time it isn't, so he gets robbed and the move breaks down. He's so predictable he gets his pocket picked almost every single time.

Not all 15m strikers scuff the ball as badly has he does. He's got the technique of a 5m striker, though his hold up play is good.

Adams just doesn't strike the ball well. If he's not hitting it as hard as he can in a straight line, he doesn't connect properly. Was obvious from watching his Birmingham highlights.

In the most recent financial statement, 78.8m is listed as an amount falling due in 2025. Another loan is specifically called out as a 'revolving facility', so I'm assuming the MSD loan isn't that.

Isn't it a loan secured against pretty much every asset the club owns? I can't remember the exact details, but I think repayment of the principal doesn't start for a few years, but interest payments have kicked in already.

You buy the club if there's an upside to owning the club. Villa were the example you gave previously, who were bought when they were in the championship, providing plenty of upside. We're already in the premier league, we're priced high for a business carrying 80m of debt, and we've got no high probability routes to increase revenue. If Gao drops his price by about half, we might get a private equity buyer coming in. But they are only going to be interested in us as a kind of distressed asset where the upside is all in the discount (which is pretty much what da grosa was saying in the first place).

They don't. It's just nonsense. There are so many grim, under-developed bits of the city that I suspect the council would bite the hand of anyone who agreed to clear them of industrial contaminants, let alone build mixed used developments on them. They're not holding any property developers to ransom over ownership of saints.