verlaine1979

For long stretches of the game against Burnley we hardly had the ball, so its far from a foregone conclusion that we'll be a possession-positive side this season - especially if we elect to play 3 CBs regularly.

You could be right, but he was pretty mediocre before he joined us, so I'm not really expecting him to flourish all that much beyond what we've already seen. Redmond's problem is he doesn't have any outstanding qualities - he's not particularly quick, not especially tricky or inventive, and he's not a great finisher or passer. You need to be better than average in at least one of those categories to have a reliable attacking impact on games, and he's just middling in all of them.

Redmond isn't quick either. I'm not saying he's slow - just average. Very, very rarely see him outstrip anyone for flat out pace, same as most of the rest of our squad. But you're absolutely right that Armstrong hasn't done enough yet either way. Still, we bought him to play in central attacking midfield, so we should probably at least give him a run there before letting Redmond (who has has several years now to regularly put in meaningful performances) to nip in ahead of him.

Pretty much everything good he did was central, but his starting position for us has always been wide where his lack of sustained pace is a real problem. Those flashes yesterday might be just that, but assuming they really do illuminate where he's most dangerous, I'm still not sure where he fits into the starting 11. #10 is the obvious position, but his passing is pretty gash and he'd be keeping Armstrong out of the side.

I think it was more the case that after getting spanked by West Ham in his first league game, Hughes decided that any further hammering was likely to be fatal to our survival chances and so made us ultra defensive for the final stretch. It worked just well enough for us to survive by the skin of our teeth, but it's not as if we transformed into Chelsea circa Conte's first season.

Looked so much more comfortable with four at the back, which makes me wonder why we spent the entire pre-season stubbornly playing a back five. Redmond was very good second half, Elyounoussi showed touches of class and Ings looked sharp. Despite all the chopping and changing, our best team now looks pretty obvious: McCarthy, Bertrand, Vestergaard, Yoshida, Cedric, Lemina, Romeu, Redmond, Armstrong, Elyounoussi, Ings

Not sure this is really relevant. Under FFP our wage cap is £7m higher than it was last season, when Forster's new deal was already in place. Since then we've lost two of our absolute star players and replaced them with newcomers to the league. There's absolutely no way that our wage cap for the new season has significantly constrained us from signing reinforcements - it's the capital outlay on transfers we seemingly can't afford.

Why would FFP be holding us back when it's assessed season by season with an additional £7m + commercial and player trading revenue being added to the club wage cap each season? We've just gotten rid of two of our biggest earners in Tadic and VVD, and the likes of Elyounoussi, Armstrong, Vestergaard and Gunn are hardly going to command similar wages to established PL performers (especially as only one of those was actually a first choice player for his previous team). We've been bought by an owner who seemingly can't get his money out of China, but for some reason nobody wants to believe that the club are constrained in capital expenditure, and that the problem must lie in the murky, opaque world of FFP. Looking at the recent ownership history of the club I find it far easier to believe that we're being managed to a strict acquisition budget rather than we're simply hamstrung by a wage cap that seemingly doesn't affect any club of a similar stature.

So, according to Transfermarkt, our player purchases and player sales almost exactly balance out over the last three seasons (there's about a +3m Euro difference spread over three years). So it seems we're not just determined to be self-sustaining, but we're going beyond that to being cost neutral in player trading. Our most recent financial results showed us making a post-tax profit of £34m, though that was before the takeover and VVD sagas etc.

FFP allows us another £7m on top of last year's wages, plus additional commercial revenue, plus profit from player trading, plus we've removed Tadic and VVD who were probably our top earners or very close to it. All their replacements have been newcomers to the PL, and thus wont be on anything like the wages of the two who left. Even taking into account continuing to pay partial wages for loanees, I don't believe for a minute that the stumbling block to signings is a lack of extra headroom on the wage budget.

I don't buy it - under FFP you can increase the wage bill by £7m each year, plus apply additional commercial and player trading revenue to increase your wage ceiling if you want. We've removed two of our most senior players from last year's wagebill (Tadic and VVD) and haven't replaced them with anyone who'd command anything like an established PL wage. I wouldn't be at all surprised if you could cover all our incoming wages this season just from the space freed up by Tadic and VVD, without even touching the additional £135k a week FFP allows you to add as a baseline. We aren't buying because we're cash constrained in terms of transfer fees, not wages.

Have we seen any post-takeover financial results yet? If money was taken out of the club to service the debt used to acquire it, what would be the first indication other than a line-item in the annual accounts?

Indeed - though in recent seasons the number of crosses seems to be a function of how slowly we move the ball forward, and how limited our attacking options are once the opposition defence is set.

Moreover, when people are asking for a 15 goal a season player, they mostly seem to be referring back to a bygone age when the striker was the absolute focal point of the team, scored the vast majority of the team's goals, and the entire purpose of the game was to get men to the byline to put in crosses for them (in other words, mid-nineties Utd). The game has gone through at least one if not two tactical revolutions since then, and as you suggest, arguably no role has evolved more than that of the lone striker. It's great if you can find one who can create and score their own opportunities while playing in support of the overall tactical approach (though if you can, they either cost a fortune or don't stay with you long), but it's far more important to find one with the intelligence and technique to hold the ball long enough for meaningful attacks to build around them.

No, I can see he has decent control, but he didn't outpace anyone during that mazy run and I haven't seen him burst past anyone in any of his pre-season cameos so far.

My assumption was that Gunn's reputation is such that they're assuming there's a very strong possibility that he'll be a top-rank, £35m+ keeper in a couple of years tops. In other words, bought for the return-on-investment potential as much as anything else.

BM were just so much better than us. Quick, technical one-touch stuff, great movement, great energy. In contrast we looked absolutely lumpen with no idea of how to move the ball. Five at the back with two up front isn't making us any more defensively solid or creating any more chances - ditch it and go back to a variation of the formation used by pretty much everyone that doesn't have Hazard or De Bruyne in the team. And as an aside, is it just me, or does Elyounoussi really lack pace?

We've got a lot of centre backs on the books, but does anyone really believe that our squad is suited to playing five at the back? As an emergency measure last season to try and stop us shipping goals long enough to lurch over the line, sure, but it's not as if the ones we've got are so good compared to the rest of the squad that we need to build the team around getting as many of them on the pitch at once as we can.

Aside from Lemina, Gabbi and occasional flashes from Bertrand out wide, we look so lumbering from back to front. BM are so much more energetic (and technically accomplished on this evidence). They remind me a bit of us under Poch - not really star-studded, but playing with a very clear strategy & identity.

Three slow CBs at the back maybe gives us a false sense of security? Seems like any turnover with the fullbacks out of position is going to leave us vulnerable almost every time.

Hoj made a huge difference when he came on - hopefully this will be his breakout season. Armstrong looked good, and if he keeps up the inclination to drive forward in possession, that'll make a nice change. Aside from the tap-in, didn't see a lot from Elyounoussi, either in terms of pace, control or vision, though Tadic would probably have put it wide...

Just like Redmond - always cutting inside...

I hope I end up eating my words, but that's about as dull a side as I can imagine we're capable of putting out.

We can't compel him to leave though. With his current deal, FF has no disincentive to sit a year out. He's only 30, on an extremely good wage by all accounts, and his reputation is unlikely to suffer through inaction. Even if he decides to honour his contract and sit on the bench (or the bus) for the next four years, he's entitled to do so.

Is he really at risk of not being named as our third choice keeper for the season? It's not as if not naming him in the squad would relieve us of the burden of paying his wages.