Midfield_General

Yep. All true. Stating the obvious, but what it comes down to is what people value him at based on what he’s shown and what they think his potential is, and everyone is going to have different opinions on that. Personally I don’t think an offer of £35m + £8m + some sort of sell-on is buttons for him given he’s not signing a new contract, and if we need to sell him to buy as appears to be the case then personally I would probably have taken that rather than gamble on getting a few million more but also possibly seeing his value drop if we don’t sell him this window. But I don’t run the club and as a fan I’m not close enough to it, and others may disagree and think he’s worth more, or the gamble was the right one, and of course that’s fine too. The club obviously thought they could get more, either by pushing Everton up further or because they thought there was other genuine interest that would mean more of a bidding war. They may still be right. The truth is we won’t know until the end of the window. Interesting to see how it plays out.

No offence taken. Play him because it will give us a better chance of beating Ipswich on Saturday, because he’s our best player in that position, and even if he has an average game he’s probably more effective than Adam Armstrong or whoever. Not because if he plays he’ll definitely show the world he’s a super duper £45m player and it will make Everton or whoever come running to sign him. Being the best right wing option for a championship team doesn’t necessarily make you a £45m player. It just makes you the best we have available.

That I agree with. If he’s ready to play, play him purely because he’s better on the right than any of our other options and we want to win the game. I think the risk of injury would be too much though so can’t see him playing again until after the window shuts if we’ve blown the game of transfer poker and he’s still here.

Not necessarily. When’s the last time he had a consistent run of games when he actually looked a £45m player? Two managers ago? The outrageous price we’re demanding is largely based on some good games he had before Christmas and then loads of hype from people within the club saying how much potential he’s got, and us pumping up his perceived value by bandying about figures like £100m in the hope that it makes people think an offer of £50m actually represents value. If we play him he might show a flash of genius that gets everyone scrabbling for him, but based on his form over the second half of the season he might also have people asking what all the fuss is about. Personally I think our summer transfer strategy was predisposed on him being the one we definitely sold because of his contract situation, and we can’t really move forward with the other signings we need until we sell him. We got a bit greedy, overplayed our hand, and now we’re stuck having to go back and look a bit sheepish as they’ve called our bluff. As they seem to be the only real option and time’s running out, a power move from Everton would be to lower the bid slightly and see what we do then, because if the counter offer is true we’re making it pretty obvious that our bluff’s been called and we need to sell him. I still think he’ll go there, probably for a deal worth about £40m and 10-15% sell-on, but it will be right at the end of the window and will put us under pressure. Our position was based on their being others who also wanted him and were prepared to join the bidding, but now with apparently no other interest, Everton hold the cards now really so they can make us sweat.

If Che Adams, BBD or Sekou Mara had missed that exact chance, I wonder if so many would have been saying how it wasn't that much of an easy chance actually

Not only that, but being hung out to dry, being asked to play against Premier League quality defences, as a traditional winger out so wide he had chalk on his boots, in a position he was obviously utterly unsuited to and therefore got ridiculed when he tried to play, can't have helped either. What sort of idiot looks at a lumbering ox like him with zero pace or close control and thinks 'yep, he's a Premier League quality wide man alright'?

Oh come on now. At any level of football you have to be able to adjust your body or your run ever so slightly if that’s what’s required. It’s early days, he needs to bed in and get used to the league and the role and all that, but that’s a sitter at any level, as was the one against Wrexham, slight push or otherwise. He’s not going to get many easier chances than those.

Agree with that with the exception of Downs who has done absolutely nothing to warrant a starting place from what I've seen of him vs. Wrexham and last night. He's not only missed two absolute sitters but also looks weak as piss and has provided absolutely no physical presence whatsoever, which is worrying seeing as he was meant to be one we were bringing in to make us a bigger, stronger side. He has just been getting brushed off the ball and nothing has stuck to him so far. I hope he's just rusty and will settle down as he gets used to the league and the role he's asked to play, but early signs really have not been great and he clearly needs to be given time to get up to speed and maybe adjust to the physicality of the league. Bearing in mind that Armstrong simply cannot play CF and BBD is just shocking anywhere, that means that for the foreseeable we are still relying on either Archer or Stewart for a physical CF presence and goals. Which is a scary prospect over the course of a season. If Stewart is feeling better he needs to start on Sunday, and if we can find anyone to take BBD and/or Armstrong, we should ship them out just to get them off the books, and try and put their wages towards someone who can give us an option to hold the ball up and bully defenders, because we've got literally no-one who can do that as it stands. Keiffer Moore is a very limited player but they picked him up for £2m and he gave us all sorts of problems on Saturday. We need at least one option like that who lets us mix it up a bit when we need to change the approach.

Could be worse. Could have just lost to Bromley, like Ipswich have. So they will actually go into our game looking worse than us.

Oh christ. Him as well. Fuck me we're screwed

So just to be clear, our goalscoring options this season are: Adam Armstrong Archer BBD This Downs geezer who has now missed two open goals in 60 mins of football Ross Stewart and his amazing glass knees Fantastic.

Glad we've got Downs in to supply the goals

3-4-3

Yeah it does: Eduard Spertsyan Southampton’s Armeni-an

Yeah and they’ve gone to PSG, Liverpool, Arsenal and Real Madrid. Goes to show how good their recruitment has been.

We’ve priced Dibling at £50m - we turned down circa £40m + £5m plus 15% sell-on if reports are to believed. For a player who has achieved less and only has one year left. On that basis we’ll be looking for £50m absolute minimum for Fernandes. It’s not a credible offer from West Ham.

What about if you kindly stopped to pick up a hitchhiker and then they brutally slayed your entire family? You’d regret it then, wouldn’t you?

I know I should let it go, but I just can’t… The unshakeable belief in something that doesn’t work, and the way so many people seem to fall for it. The total, unwavering commitment to such a deeply and obviously flawed principle. The falling upwards. I must admit, he fascinates me. (Not in a gay way) (Well maybe a bit, at the beginning. But not now)

Oh dear. He’s actually just sat in a press conference and tried to paint dropping points to Motherwell and at home to Dundee as “part of a 5-match unbeaten run”. This after saying after the Dundee game “I was pleased we didn’t lose”. They are losing their shit at him, saying he doesn’t understand the culture, has a loser’s mentality etc. As far as they are concerned, a Rangers manager should expect to win every game. They aren’t buying his spin at all. He was always going to be under a lot more scrutiny up there but it’s incredible how quickly they have turned.

God, that Sunderland game. 79% possession at one point and lost 5-0. Schooled by Tony Mowbray and a team who ended up coming 16th. Everything that was wrong with the ‘philosophy’ there on show for all to see. Putrid.

Yeah, it’s a difficult dressing room that has already seen off a bunch of managers and as he can’t shift them out he now has to rely on a bunch of players he publicly slagged off and threw under the bus after his very first league game, to play for him and get him out of trouble. Someone’s also leaking his team selections a day before they play. So he’s definitely got a mole and it’s possible he may have lost the dressing room already. It was a big, big gamble to go in so hard and so early on players he’s going to need to keep picking. If they’ve already decided they’re not having him and down tools, he’s screwed.

The irony is that if his style is going to work against anyone up there, it might actually work against Celtic because unlike pretty much any other team in the SPL they will actually come out and attack Rangers. Martin’s whole philosophy is about drawing teams in and then trying to expose spaces they leave when they press, and Celtic will actually come forward and have a go at them so it might work. But the massive problem he has and the reason he is crashing and burning in the league at the moment is because every other SPL team other than Celtic just parks the bus with two banks of five when they play Rangers. They have no interest in attacking and just come to sit deep and get a point. As we know, Martin’s style is completely ineffective to break down a low block because it’s so slow and ponderous and his teams just end up just endlessly passing it from side to side in areas of the pitch that aren’t dangerous while the opposition happily sit back and let them do it. That’s what’s happened so far against Motherwell and Dundee who are dross and it’s why the fans are so angry. They were told they were getting someone who knew how to break down a packed defence, and of course Martin talks a great game and got them believing it. But now they are seeing what his teams actually do on the pitch they are tearing their hair out because it’s so ineffective and anyone who knows how defensively teams play against Rangers could have told you that his approach wouldn’t work against that.

Good grief 🤦‍♂️. MLG - you’ve got competition. Yes, I’m aware of how team sports work, thank you. Saying a player has ‘won something’ is a fairly common shorthand for describing when they were playing in a team and that team won the competition in question. I wasn’t suggesting he entered those competitions as an individual. I’m surprised I need to spell that out, but ok. In Grealish’s case he was an integral part of one of the best club teams in modern history; he played in 50 games for City the season they won the treble, and started every Champions League knockout game. Dibling may well go on to be a great player but Grealish is the finished article.

Grealish has won the Champions League, the Club World Cup, the FA Cup, the Premier League three times and has been capped by England 39 times. Tyler Dibling has played one on and off season in the premier league, scored two goals and been relegated. Maybe that’s something to do with it? Dibling is all potential at this stage. Grealish is the finished article and at 29 is in his prime, especially for the way he plays which doesn’t rely on pace. Not that it matters, as they’ll never activate that clause.