verlaine1979

He's taken a year out before waiting for the right job to come up. I doubt he's short of cash, so waiting would make a lot more sense that taking whatever's available and potentially damaging his stock at a smaller club.

Honestly, do you really believe that the statistical model for 'expected goals' is accurate enough to account for the myriad variables at work in every moment of a football match?

It's pretty common practice in Spain. Barcelona seem to put them in on pretty much all of their youth player sales, and Real had one on Morata that enabled them to take him back off Juve after 2 years for only for only €10 more than Juve paid.

Even when Koeman was doing well he never had the hype Tuchel has as a manager. I think Koeman wanted to leave last summer because he knew that a less successful season at Saints (for whatever reason, recruitment, league competitiveness or just plain bad luck) would erode his standing and career progression. Tuchel would probably look at us the same way - a couple of seasons of duking it out for a Europa League place with saints isn't exactly going to burnish his reputation beyond where it is now, while getting caught in any downward trajectory we're on as a club would actively undermine his credibility. Frankly, we'd be a very stupid place for him to cash in his Dortmund career chips right now.

If Arsenal had decided to get rid of Wenger this summer, Tuchel would already be on the list. Going to somewhere like Saints in the interim would actually be far more of a risk to his career than sitting on his hands for 12 months and waiting to see which of the big clubs need a new manager next season. He did his audition at Mainz years ago, he's not going to do it again.

Yup - he was happy to be unemployed for a year waiting for the right job after Mainz. He's obviously from the Theresa May school of job negotiation - no deal is better than a bad deal.

Funny, its as if you imagine there's no connection at all between the quality of football played and the probability of getting good results.

Tuchel was perfectly happy to sit around for a year waiting for the Dortmund job to come up after he left Mainz, wasn't he? Regardless of the circumstances of his departure at Dortmund (which seem to have nothing to do with his performance as coach), he's regarded as one of the most promising young managers in world football. If he was even thinking of coming to an 8th-placed PL team with big question marks over future expenditure, he'd need his head examined.

Honestly, what's the point of harping on about not getting beaten by Liverpool when we got absolutely spanked by Man City, Spurs, Chelsea, Arsenal & Everton at various points of the season. Is there now a special award for going unbeaten against Jurgen Klopp?

Do we have some sort of ethical stance against trying to poach managers from other teams? We only seem to be interested in the ones who are already out of work whenever we have a vacancy, which probably isn't the best way to go about finding the right candidate. Let's just identify the next German hipster coach off the production line and blind them with TV money.

Indeed. Cedric's crosses in particular seem to be more often overhit than not, and have a wafting, looping trajectory rather than being flat. As for the OP, I'm not sure how any of the stats he's quoted prove that we don't have a creativity problem unless the fullback booming it in against a packed defense is what passes for creativity these days.

Nope, nobody is saying that at all. If we'd achieved 8th but with a few more wins (lets say another 4, as Everton finished 15 points ahead of us) I suspect 99% of fans would be content with the season even though we'd dropped league places. As it is, we only finished 6 points off 17th, and closer to relegation than overhauling the nearest team above us. We struggled for goals all season, and the fact that we never found ourselves caught in the relegation dog fight is probably more to do with the fortuitous timing of when we got our wins than any brilliant strategy on our part. There were times last season when I was frustrated with Koeman's over-reliance on the fullbacks in attack, but this season crossing seemed to be our only attacking tactic and yet we had even fewer players trying to get into the penalty area. Passing was slow, both in terms of decision-making and the speed with which we actually play the ball, and off the ball movement basically consisted of players edging towards the goal while trying to maintain eye contact with the ball at all times, regardless of whether this meant an opponent was in the way. I feel like I spent 57 hours of my life this season watching the ball being slowly recycled out wide before Cedric boomed one in for an easy clearance.

Our idea of movement generally seems to be trying to maintain eye contact with the ball at all times, while slowly backing towards the opposition penalty area.

Suggested a couple of times as a potential Mane replacement last summer. Not a popular choice with the Davo-brigade.

Honestly, this is such BS. More often than not, when Boufal loses the ball he ends up racing after it and putting in a fairly rash challenge to try get it back. I'm sure you observed one incident that conforms to your narrative of him as a lazy foreign flair player, but at least try to have a little consistency in how you apply your frustration. After all, its not as if our current captain doesn't lose the ball constantly, and trotting after it ten yards behind the play is functionally the same as 'wandering around'.

Crazy. You expect her to essentially hand over about £100m in value to the new owners out of sentimentality?

Since the Lander money is apparently being raised from debt, the club's accounting is unlikely to be as simple as that.

If true, half of europe will want to buy him, so no chance he'll end up here. Atletico Madrid will need a new striker for a start, and he's absolutely a Dortmund style signing.

At the top of any list marked 'Managers we haven't got the slightest hope of even getting to come for an interview'

Is anyone surprised we take more crosses than anyone else? Our approach play is so slow that generally shoveling it out wide to the fullback or Tadic is the only option left other than recycling it back to Forster for a punt upfield. Bertrand and Tadic are decent crossers, but Cedric has a tendency to balloon 9 out of 10, and besides, due to the aforementioned slowness in approach, most crosses end up being made against a well set defence, meaning they aren't all that difficult to defend against.

Fear we'll struggle to get rid of Long if his wages are as high as suggested. No promoted team is going to look at him and believe he's going be the 10-15 goal striker who'll give them a chance of staying up.

Really nice weight of pass down the line from Clasie too. Bent it round the fullback.

And this is becoming a problem. Tadic, Redmond and Boufal have all been ropey of late, and are all subject to the pressure of being replaced, while JWP chops in and out of the side. Regardless of how you rate his long term career at Saints, Davis has been just as flakey as any of those, but is an immediate pick through the captaincy, even when Clasie arguably put in a far better performance than any he's managed as a defensive midfielder (and scored a cracking goal as well). If the captain is going to be undroppable, you'd better make sure you pick someone who never deserves to be dropped.

Wow, then followed up by two awful passes in the box in the same attack. Awful.

Credit where it's due - excellent cover from Davis then