verlaine1979

McCarthy's distribution isn't great. If he's passing towards the halfway line he only seems capable of floating the ball rather than pinging it.

Watching Celta against Barcelona, and still think its a huge shame that Boufal isn't here to work with Hassenhuttl. Think he'd suit both the style of play, and the style of man-management.

Although it was a good performance at the weekend, as I was watching I couldn't help think we'd look even better with Lemina's energy in the midfield. We should be looking to add more dynamism to what is, Lemina aside, quite a flat-footed central midfield - not reducing it.

Also he presumably wanted to keep a bit of pace and energy as an outlet just in case, rather than sticking ward-prowse or davis on to stodge us up defensively. Don't think any of our past three (probably four) managers would've made that choice if they'd a chance to stick on a 'seasoned pro'.

Need three players to build on today's performance - a CB with some pace, a utility midfielder with some pace & energy (Quina at Watford has been very impressive last two games and only cost them £1m), and an attacker with either genuine pace or genuine strength.

Good signs, but the lack of pace throughout the team is still a worry, especially if they start to tire second half. Our quickest players only seem about as fast as Arsenal's slowest.

Since it seems quite likely that the current Ajax team would comprehensively thrash us, it's hard to argue that he made the wrong decision in moving.

The fact that he's behind JWP in the assist table despite having played the equivalent of over 55 full matches more (14000 minutes vs 9000 minutes), says pretty much everything you need to know about what a mediocre player he's been for us.

Online video performance isn't measured in impressions.

Eh? He wasn't bad in that game, but I'm sure more than a few people commented that he wasn't quite as dominant in the air as they were expecting.

It's mostly because there is a consensus around JWP that he's pretty mediocre except for his striking of a dead ball. I largely agree with that verdict so there's no need to labour a point almost everyone shares. On the other hand I disagreed with the consensus that SD was one of the best/most under-rated/finest signings of recent decades, as I regularly saw him let us down defensively and slow us down in attack. I've never been on a wind up, just stating a point of view that I didn't see many others expressing based on what I watched week in, week out.

Only caught the highlights, but the contrast between Murphy and Redmond was quite stark on that evidence. One has pace, the other doesn't, and it seemed to make a big difference in transition and attack.

Ffs, you're not clinging to the fantasy that pep thinks he's great are you? He was having a go about our negative tactics, not singling Redmond out for praise.

Eh, this is just a load of cliche-ridden waffle. Both players have deficiencies and neither have really performed as well for the club as was anticipated when they were signed - you only like one better than the other because of his nationality.

'slightly'

Boufal is quicker than Redmond.

Eh, every international break someone comes along to say he's put in a man-of-the-match performance against some European minnow or other. Fact it, it's been almost three full seasons since he was an effective PL player. The pace of the game has overtaken him, and most of the time he's a dithering liability.

We also sneak in a mention with: "No side has had fewer different individual scorers than Fulham (4, same as Southampton)."

I suppose you could call not getting thrashed by Watford a positive sign, but you have to be starting from a pretty low base of optimism. We pressed with a little more energy (but not a lot more organisation) in the game, which was good to see, but aside from that I don't think the Watford game showed any great advance on previous performances. Moreover, I think Hughes' decision to pick Yoshida and Gabbi was really just a cynical ploy to distance himself from Reed.

Spot on.

Hughes is the one sending out a paper-thin 4-4-2 week after week, despite the fact that pretty much our entire squad was recruited to play a different formation.

There was really no downside for Hughes picking a few of the irregulars today. It immediately reinforced the narrative that Reed was a problem, whether the result was good or bad. Call me a cynic, but I don't believe Reed has had any say over the first XI this season, and that the fault with the tactics, selection and substitutes rests entirely with Hughes.

The total market cap of Lander is under half a billion quid. I'd guess your estimate is out by a distance of several hundred million pounds.

Trump has bankrupted is companies a number of times. If you regard his tactical use of bankruptcy as 'innate business acumen' then I can only hope that one day someone who owes you a large amount of money uses the tactic on you.

Despite all the obfuscation, the clear message coming out of that interview is 'we've got no money, and should count ourselves lucky that for the moment, the owner isn't actively taking cash out of the club to support his debt' Hopefully no one will bring up their erroneous understanding of FFP. The mechanisms of FFP allow for increased capital expenditure and wage expenditure every year, particularly for clubs who aren't participating in European competition. If the owner had cash and wanted to, he could pump in double-digit millions almost every year pretty much without penalty. We've been sold down the river.