Verbal Kint

I've never really got the injury prone thing with him. He's played a lot of games over the last 4 or 5 seasons

I'm shocked to be honest. I thought it was a certainty he'd go on a free in the summer when he could get himself a better financial deal. We have always made sense though as far as he's concerned: local, a team that creates chances and won't be battling relegation. Hope it's true and that we aren't paying too big a fee

Whether I or you think he's any good is irrelevant to be honest, as far as Koeman is concerned he is third choice striker, yet he is probably in the top 3 or 4 earners in the squad and it's very likely he earns more than Pelle or Rodriguez. I simply don't think that's a particularly smart use of money when we have been set limits on what we can spend by FFP. The actual numbers are irrelevant to me, it's where that fits in with the rest of the squad that's important. If Shane Long was our first choice striker every week (I think he should be by the way as he offers a lot more than Pelle) then it would make sense, but the reality is that Pelle will be back in Ronald's team tomorrow and Long will likely be on the bench again very soon. This is Koeman afterall. You're probably right about us underpaying some players currently, but what do you think will happen when those players come to renegotiate their contracts and they see third choice players earning that sort of money? It drives their wage demands up

Would you pay him 50k a week with him being one of the highest earners in the squad? Do you think in a world of FFP, where we can only increase our wage bill by a certain amount every season, that maybe having a squad player as one of your highest earners isn't the best use of funds? I like Long, I wanted us to sign him when MP was here as I thought he would fit in well to the system, but the numbers involved with him make little sense IMO

I'd be disappointed if we offered him a contract extension. 31 years old this summer, hopefully Rodriguez back fit and clearly would be the right time to sell and bring in a new striker

And if he was playing as one of two central midfielders I wouldn't have a problem with it. And I don't think he's a bad player at all, I just think playing 3 defensive minded midfielders is one of the major reasons why we struggle to score goals or break teams down. The other one being abysmal finishing throughout the team on the whole

I expect a player in that position, if we are serious about competing for top 8 finishes, to get near to 10 goals and 10 assists. Tadic has got near that last season and will probably achieve it this season, so it is very possible to find players of that quality. Payet, Wijnaldum, Alli etc were all players we could have realistically signed

Have a look at chances created or key pass stats then. whoscored have the following top 10 of midfielders this season for the average number of chances created per game (more than 10 games): Ozil, Payet, De Bruyne, Eriksen, Silva, Tadic, Hazard, Cazorla, Willian, Lamela. Davis is 28th on their list. He just isn't a very good player in the final third and there will be plenty of games where we struggle to break teams down, precisely because we play players like that in attacking positions

I'm not. His finishing isn't good enough to justify that sort of fee and his very high wage. BUT he has always had something to offer and has been massively underused by Koeman since the day he signed, and many people have been saying it for a while. This is the first time I can remember him getting a run of games as a centre forward

He's playing as an attacking midfielder. We play with two holding and one further forward like most teams do these days. There is huge responsibility currently on our main striker to score a lot of goals because we have nothing coming from midfield. Tadic is not a natural scorer but he is at least one of the most creative players in the league, and we know Mane is good for 10+ goals a season. We need more goals from the third attacking midfield position if we want to finish in the top 8 regularly and push for top 6

In the last 4 seasons he has scored 6 league goals. He should be getting more at least that every season! In those 4 seasons he has had 12 assists, again he should be getting near to that in a single season. He isn't a creative player, it clearly isn't his strength as he is incapable of playing an incisive pass as his first thought is to play it safe. RK is to blame for continuing to play him every week in an attacking position. Davis has a role to play in the squad, but he shouldn't be an automatic first choice for that role in a lot of games

Hopefully now Koeman has realised that we don't HAVE to pick Pelle every single game even if he's fit

There's a reason why none of the big boys want him. He's a no. 10 that doesn't have any impact in the final third of the pitch. The bit that separates the best teams in the league and decent teams

Where are the goals and creativity coming from in that side? I hope we can grind it out, but that looks far too negative

Doesn't look as though Koeman is prepared to change much in the attacking positions. My money is on us starting well, miss a few sitters and then Watford score with their first real attempt. We will dominate possession after that without creating much and Watford get a breakaway second. Lose 2 nil and Koeman bemoans lack of clinical finishing, despite him continuously picking players who can't score goals.

He isn't at all. I'm in complete agreement with you about us buying average players who do nothing but block youngsters, but Clasie is far better than any of our young midfielders. His passing is vastly superior. Physically it is worrying how long it is taking him to adjust but on the ball he is miles ahead of Reed, JWP, Davis etc. There were lots of people who thought the Morgan/Wanyama partnership was the best thing going, but the reality is we had to get a better passer in there somewhere. We moved the ball far too slowly and we had reached our maximum with those two as a pair. A Clasie type player is essential, it's just a shame we no longer have Morgan to partner him

If you want to push towards the top 8 then you need to score 50+ goals a season. Our centre backs ill get a couple each and you might get another couple from the full backs combined. Maybe 7 or 8 from the 2 holding midfielders at a push and Davis might get 3 or 4. We know Tadic isn’t going to get more than 6 or 7. The problem isn’t just that we lack a clinical striker, it’s also that we lack goalscorers throughout the team. That needs to be addressed in the summer but Koeman for now HAS to start picking teams with goalscorers in them. Seager, Ramirez and Juanmi need to be playing more prominent roles when we are struggling so much for goals. They may not be the answer but he has to try picking teams with more attacking intent. It’s no good for him to come out and say “it’s the same story every week”. Of course it is Ronald, because you pick the same bloody team every week. What does he expect, that Pelle and Long will suddenly become clinical goalscorers? That JWP and Davis will suddenly develop into goalscoring machines?

That must have been leaked from the boardroom after what Koeman has said. Has Sam Cunningham been used by the club before?

Ideally that's what we want. But in the modern game getting a striker in who will be first choice every week and be able to press well, hold the ball up, run the channels, have the pace to threaten in behind will be very hard to find. But Rodriguez could be that player for us and him constantly being injured is killing us. We just can't rely on him anymore and will have to start planning without him. It must be very tempting to sell Pelle this summer when he turns 31 (and Long if we can get a buyer), and with us likely to sell Mane as well we could have a huge change in our attacking players for next season. I think we should do exactly that, but it obviously won't happen until the summer

It's meaningless though. Everyone knows VW is angling for a move and doesn't want to play for us, but is the first name on the team sheet every week. As with most things, Koeman says the right things but rarely delivers on them

No I think they did it before the end of June to include it in the 2014/15 season figures

And people wonder why we have sold so many players and not been able to have a net spend the last two summers like other clubs. Wasn't there also another 20 odd million we owed in transfer fees as well as a loan from Vibrac?

If you're paying 25 million for a player then there will be bigger clubs than us interested and so he will go elsewhere. And 25 million pound players don't sign contracts for 60k a week. That's why Morgan left

About the same. It's just their biggest earners are actually their best players and play for them every week. Our best paid players over the last few years have been Gaston Ramirez, Dani Osvaldo and Shane Long. Osvaldo and Ramirez combined will have cost the club over 40 million. Thank you Nicola Cortese, thank you

There has just been so much hype surrounding him that it's now fairly bizarre how highly he's rated. Seeing him linked with Man City as he has been is just laughable frankly. However, I do think there might be enough ability there for him to effectively be Clasie's understudy next season. I.e a defensive midfielder capable of starting attacks. I have seen more intention from him this season to pass the ball forwards, and there really is no other position for him to play. He's far too slow to play wide, he doesn't have any attacking instincts in him to play as an attacking midfielder. If he is going to have a future as a good PL player then it will be as a defensive midfielder, but even then I'm not sure