santolijador

Correct, Douvlakis signed for Celta but the other one mentioned in the original post is Pavlidis who also has an incredible scoring in NL He has been linked with Sevilla (who have had a similar start to the season as Everton) and there are rumours En-Nesyri might be gone, but I suppose we could be in for him. Personally I think that would be a bit of a coup..

Sounds like a good character in his interview, seems like he'll bring personality and shouting to our defence

I actually don't mind this at all. Look at Ashley Barnes signing for Norwich - not scored that many goals in his career, but by all accounts (and that Burnley doc), a great influence in the dressing room, a wise head and ultimately someone who has played Prem and Champ games for a long time. Norwich fans are happy with his start to the season as far as I am aware. Ryan Fraser has been at this level and been promoted, is likely looking to prove a point and has been at Prem level for a while now. Spoke with some friends who support championship teams - with Holgate and Fraser joining I thought I would be the subject of ridicule, but actually the consensus was 'good signings, prem players, experience, 'teams need this kind of signing, alongside some unknowns from Argentina or Norway' Let's see if Fraser actually does want to prove himself and get back to winning ways

on to the next target (or keep che)

Amongst all this, I've been doing some research on players who might be able to replace Adams, in the event we miss out on Piroe and Che does leave and I have accidentally fallen in love with Tasos Douvakis and will be distraught if we don't sign him... Personally I do think that there will be a couple of options if the above scenario does play out (ie. losing strikers), but who knows, I guess all will become clear in the coming week..

I wonder where this leaves us - I can see a couple of scenarios playing out here: Either Everton have been totally screwed over by this MSP thing, and can't afford Che anymore OR Che goes, Piroe goes to Leeds and we sign a slightly more left field striker like that bloke from the SPL, or Van Hugedonk from Herenveen OR Board have learnt 0 lessons and we end up without a new striker at all OR Mail is BS and we get Piroe What do we reckon?

No.

Nice to score from a set piece and not concede from one

https://x.com/tacticallymatt/status/1691375584230752257?s=46&t=Z0GONXnZ8nMHomPNCKhjiA

Amazed that Sara hasn't been picked up by someone in the Prem/top leagues

that was dreadful. fwiw, i think Norwich will be top 6 at least this year

I wonder if Stu Armstrong + Alcaraz will leave us vulnerable on the counter, JWP would involve himself in ball retrieval, will one or both of these?

Fully expect Lavia to go to Chelsea now. Joe Shields, a 48m bid rejected and now missing out on Caicedo with a 100m bid. They have the money and Poch probably wants a CDM to sit alongside Enzo I wonder though, could RM channel some of that disappointed energy, and get him to put in one more mssterclass this weekend for Norwich? As a kind of 'prove them wrong' jobby. Probably not, but would be nice. I guess we will see Chelsea move quickly having missed out on Moises

I see Chelsea have basically signed Adams - is there a scenario where they decide to focus on other positions (unlikely, I know, given their scattergun approach), and Liverpool end up with Caicedo, leaving Lavia in limbo?

So, with JWP gone, Lavia nearly gone, do we pull a signing out of the bag this week? If not, when?

Actually quite excited to see what RM says after this

Spanish comms on DAZN keep calling him 'Martin Russell'

manning looks the business

Who do we reckon? Dragowski? Button?

Fairly certain that isn't the OM official account, just a 'saintsextra' style updates account. I wonder where that 5m € came from..if no obligations or anything, then I guess we hope he has an imperious season in France and can get rid next summer for a decent fee.

Based on 1 whole pre-season performance, I know who I want to start the season as our No1 GK... Gav looked fairly assured and pulled out a great save. Distributed well as well. Second half was better, I quite like this 2-3-2-3 set up in possession - will hopefully get the best out of Tino and Manning and potentially Meghoma depending on his development. Does anyone know why Ballard wasn't involved today? Is he injured?

I think they general idea (I may be mistaken here) is to encourage the opposition to lose their shape by pushing up. This, in theory, allows the team in possession to play around the defensive press and catch them out of position and hopefully creating more space in the final and middle thirds. City and Brighton obviously do this very well, it is of course dependent on the ability of the players in the system. This may all be wrong as well, just my understanding/making sense of it. Not saying I'm for or against the style, though after last season I am open to pretty much anything, especially if it does look pretty, has us dominating games and actually yields results. That is all yet to be seen though.

Reminder to all those preaching doom and gloom after roughly 45 minutes of this game: - Benfica are consistent Portuguese Champions + UCL quarter finalists, they are miles better than a standard Championship team - It is the first pre-season game of 5, 2 weeks after appointing a new manager - I suspect that very few of the players on the pitch for this first 45 will be starting against Wednesday - We are playing like 4 or 5 kids, some 16 years old Sure, it's not been that good, but these games are literally just to get fitness up and for RM to figure stuff out I'm 99% certain he's seen that first half, picked up on mistakes errors and individual things and will go away and learn from that. It's literally the first time he's seen them in a 'competitive' setting. Personally, I think its already clear that the 'style of play' has been altered and there have been some nice passing exchanges amongst some not so nice defending etc. Please, a bit of perspective when watching this...