SNSUN

Sesko has decided to stay at Salzburg this season rather than join United. I wonder if we're still interested in his strike partner Junior Adamu whom we were linked with earlier in the summer. May make it easier to get him if Sesko stays put.

Wait, we have to play more games? Damn. We really need something from this bearing in mind our next few fixtures after but Leeds won today coming from behind so won't be pushovers. It's games like this we HAVE to win if we want to stay up - but I can't see it. Hopefully we bring a player or two in midweek but this may come too soon for them to play. I think Ralph will stick to the 3 CBs in which case I'd rather see ABK, Stephens and Salisu. I think this will be, at best, a draw. 1-1.

Top choices for CHO there. Saints or Leicester. Would be a decent signing for us though. CHO and Aribo behind a decent new striker - we might actually beat some teams with that.

It does seem strange that he was left out for a striker that was largely unfavoured for all of last season. We'll miss Adams if he goes but as has been said, maybe we see selling him as a way to add funds to the bank account for new players. I think it'll be another wrong move by the club but I don't run it.

Ha, just said 4-3-3 on the formations thread.

Right now I'd take anything but the 3-5-1-1 or whatever bollocks Ralph is playing that we clearly do not have the players for. Some kind of 4-3-3 would do me with JWP, Romeu and Lavia doing the donkey work in midfield protecting the shite defence, and a fluid front three that concentrate on the attacking side of things. (Armstrong, Aribo and Adams currently). If Lavia IS a true DM, then having him in that role should negate the need for a 3rd CB.

Agree, We don't have an attack but at least start by having a good defence and hoping to nick a goal for a 1-0 or something. The Sean Dyche playbook. We conceded 67 league goals last season and were in dire need to sign defenders in the summer - we signed 1, ABK, and he didn't even get a game today so we were using the same lot we have during the terrible run at the end of last season. Until we can bring another CB and full back in, we should not be playing this 3 at the back nonsense and go back to Ralph's tried and tested 4-2-2-2. The problem with THAT formation is we don't have the strikers. It's Catch-22.

Well this result can only spur the club on to bring in the players we keep saying we need. That's 2 strikers, another 10, a full back and probably another CB. So nearly half the team still needs to be improved. That's just great. We are relegation fodder as it stands. Yes it's a long season but it's blatently obvious we aren't good enough, or ready enough, yet. Granted today was Spurs though, who will most likely finish 3rd if not higher, but we didn't help ourselves. We did stop Kane and Son scoring though... Leeds next week will be the acid test. Win that and we can restore some dignity, and hope, for the season ahead. Lose or draw and we then have Leicester, United and Chelsea.

Where's Dalek? I'd take his usual prediction right now! 😁

I was excited for the season this morning. Now I can see it is going to be a long season. Sack off this 3 at the back nonsense (we don't have the CBs!) and go back to 4-2-2-2. At least we'd offer more in attack than trying to go defensive against one of the best attacks in the Premier League.

Cash Out. I doubt that'll be the end of the scoring!

Well this is going exactly how most of us thought it would then. I said it at the end of last season and I'll say it now. RALPH NEEDS TO GO.

1 goal away from a draw! It can be done...

Not done our "points lost when going ahead" stat any favours so far...

Please keep the score down Saints.

Come on Saints! Stuck at work while all my mates are getting pissed at a garden party so anything to make today better would be great. Apart from being 1-0 up, have we actually played well or have Spurs not started well?

I'd be surprised. Zaha, Eze, Olise, Edouard, Mateta, Ayew - their attack is strong and their defence isn't bad. I think they lack a bit in midfield and they go a bit "gung ho" at times but I can't see them anywhere other than mid-table. This Arsenal team will do better than last season's Arsenal for sure and they don't even have Smith Rowe tonight. It's been a good game. I'm quite looking forward to tomorrow now.

Cheick Doucoure has looked decent on his first Palace appearance tonight.

It depends how they spend the money as to how well Brighton will do - they have £90 million odd from sales and Potter must be rubbing his hands together. They've brought in Colwill which is a start but bar a striker nobody has ever heard of, they've not done anything in the window yet and of course the season has now started.

If he's even half the player Jeremy Pied was, we're in good hands.

Edouard was clinical as hell for Celtic. Not really clicked at Palace yet. Mind you even Moi looked good at Celtic so...

I've only heard of one other person called Pol...

And a decent, specialist right back, or one that they can trust. They have Cedric, Bellerin and Tomiyasu on the books - Tomiyasu is injured (and is more of a versatile CB), Cedric is crap and they want to get rid of Bellerin. Partay's future is still potentially uncertain so I agree on the CM and striker depth but overall Arsenal are probably heading in the right direction with the transfers they've made. I'm glad to see Saliba hasn't been sent back out on loan too, we were linked with him before he signed for Arsenal and I've been wanting to see what we missed out on.

Poor old Leicester. No signings, bigger clubs want their players, Vardy knocking on a bit, Kasper gone, Barnes out for weeks, Perreira out for months and even Bertrand is still injured. Oh, and they still have Jannik. I mean, not a good time to be a Leicester fan. Maybe we can put in a bid for Dewsbury-Hall, to wind them up a bit.😈 I have no grudge against Leicester but am reminded of this comment... "They don't have to sell. they have a choice, maybe their objectives have changed. They were looking to be a Champions League club, I believe."

I started writing this post saying that Aribo is the only one that improves his position, because our AMs bar Stu were largely average. Aribo and Stu make for a decent AM and hopefully we can strengthen that further. Then I wrote about Bazunu, and realised that he probably does strengthen GK because even though we lost Fraser, he was never really first choice over Alex Mac when Alex was fit. Bazunu will at least compete for the GK spot with Alex (which may raise Alex's game) and maybe even make it his own if he performs well consistently. Then I wrote about Lavia. Did we need to strenghen CM? Well with JWP, Romeu and Diallo we had 3 good to reasonable options there, but I did say last season we really need a proper DM to come in, someone Wanyama-esque. Since we don't know that Lavia brings anything similar to that, he is highly rated and is regarded as a DM so I guess we can say we've strengthened that niche position. Then I stopped writing the previous post, as I realised I was trying to make myself pick fault with our signings when they're all seemingly quite smart acquisitions... at least positionally. Yes there's the unknown element of them and questions over their age, but I think we could have had a much worse transfer window. Even ABK was getting good reviews at Bochum it seems and could help plug our leaky defence. Where we are weaker is in attack, without Broja and even Long, although we've brought in Mara he's still a complete unknown. Yes we will strengthen here but the season starts and we're looking at losing Adams and playing AArmstrong, or even Aribo up front which weakens the AM position. We are also weak at wing back/full back without Tino for a while yet and Perraud only just back from a broken leg. I really hope Djenepo doesn't get eaten alive tomorrow. Still, there are a few more weeks to bring in players (and ship some out) and I think we'll do that OK. What we don't want is clubs coming in late and trying to prise the likes of JWP and KWP off us, disrupting everything. As the season starts then I have to say we're still not ready (hence why we may be playing Valery, Djenepo and Moi and not using a recognised striker) BUT we've at least given ourselves a fighting chance longer term by bringing new players in. I think we'll have a rocky first month or two but find our groove as the new players settle in. Then there's the WC that stops things for six weeks - I predict we'll come out of that flying like we did post-lockdown in 2020. I'm apprehensive about the season, we are one of the weaker teams in the league on paper and I think we'll be in, or mentioned in the same breath as, a relegation battle until later in the season, when I think we may start to pull away as the youngsters improve and gel.