S-Clarke

They don't have a DoF yet though, that will be Dan Ashworth once his gardening leave is over. Until then he is unable to have any influence over Newcastle. Their current signings have been overseen by the legacy scouting that spent £40m on Joelinton. There is no doubt that Howe had a significant involvement, probably the primary involvement, in every single addition they made in January.

I think this is step 1 of removing his involvement, he's got to try and sell it now. Not sure how easy that will be though, so it could put Chelsea in a very, very tricky position for a couple of years. Broja is probably going to be needed by them.

I thought Everton have played quite well tonight. I can see them getting the points required without much trouble. I still think the bottom 3 will be the bottom 3 as it is tbh.

Skates 0 - 3 Fleetwood Bit of comedy for our afternoon.

Hmmm, you do start to worry about Brentford if they lose this one. They're right in it now.

Feels like the whole club is in some kind of unusual positive symmetry right now. Good place to be.

This is what you get with Belisa, it's a right old ride for a time but when it goes wrong....it often goes catastrophically wrong. They miss a focal point as they have no centre forward really, Bamford has been a huge miss as has Kalvin Phillips. I don't think they'll go but they're be in and around it for the remainder now.

No, I don't particularly think we're playing 'better'. We just have more strings to our bow I feel to see games over the line. The pragmatism has come from a bigger squad and more varied options. We definitely benefited from whatever we did in lockdown re: fitness, we did catch teams out I think who maybe weren't as prepared as us. We took that into the following season though and played the same way really, dominated games and controlled things as we stormed to the top of the league. I don't want to speak too soon but it looks like our 'awful run' was more of a freak rather than the norm, that's what I think a lot of fans were feeling and why we didn't pull the trigger (glad we didn't). The lack of squad depth and the use of players who weren't quite ready are reasons as to why we fell through the floor. Or it could just be that Ralph prefers years with even numbers.

I doubt it, England will carry on from within I reckon. I don't think they'll go Foreign.

Nah, Trippier is one of Southgates go-to guys, one of the leaders in the squad. If he's fit he'll go without doubt.

Similiar ish in terms of results and points I guess, but like you say I think we benefited more from catching teams by surprise rather than doing anything tactically clever or different. This run is a little different as like you say we know what we're doing, we have multiple ways of playing and we can switch systems mid-game to get results etc. More depth to the squad, better quality depth as well which is the most important thing. Our tactical approach to defending and defensive coaching this year has been what has set us apart, and given our defensive showings in recent years that's testament to the coaching staff over the summer (and probably partly due to not having Vestergaard or Bertrand in the 11 anymore)

It's clear that Broja is talented, but he's young. He'll have these spells. The best young players in the world have spells where they're doubted. Bale at Spurs is a pretty big example of that. You can often tell when a player has an edge in ability and Broja has that, but he's still young and he's still learning the game and such performances like this will happen. He still gives us a threat and enables us to play in a lower block with the threat of his pace in behind, which is great when we're playing the big sides. Not so much against Norwich. Pointless comparing him with Armstrong as they're not the same sort of player. Armstrong doesn't have the physicality of Broja and I think that is what will probably do for him at this level. (unless he bulks up massively)

These threads at the start of the season are always difficult. We'd just sold 3 starters (including our best player, Ings) so it was pretty much down the scouting to get us doing well, and they've done that. Tino, Perraud, Broja, Saisu, Lynaco to a degree coming to the fore etc have been excellent examples of our scouting replacing what we lost for less outlay. I didn't see us comfortable top 10, I thought we'd struggle to replace Ings goals if I'm honest...but we have different strings to our game now - defensively, probably due to Salisu in the main, we have gone up 3 or 4 levels compared to last year. So we're not relying on 2 or 3 goals to win a game.

I think KWP has to be knocking on the door now. England are blessed with Full Back options though so it's a difficult spot. James, TAA, Chilwell, Shaw etc are probably still ahead of him. (I'd like to think he's jumped ahead of Wan Biasaka though) The bonus KWP has added this season is his ability to play at LB as well, so that's given him more of a leg into any squad. JWP should be a shoe-in for a CM role though.

A really, really comfortable win. I don't particularly think we went above 2nd gear, but we still had too much for an absolutely inept Norwich team who look destined to drop without much of a fight. First half was better than the 2nd half, midfield dominated it throughout. Romeu was a class above. I think if we were a tiny bit quicker in our build up we could have scored a bucket load. Elyounoussi in particular struggled to find space and was ineffective most of the night I felt as he lacked the pace to really stretch it. Tonight is the sort of game where we needed a bit of pace in the number 10 roles in order to stretch the game a bit and pull Norwich around. Broja was really poor I thought. I go back to what I said a few days ago...if he puts in those sorts of performances for Chelsea he is dropped straight away and would struggle to get back in. We give him the opportunity to have these 'spells'. He's clearly got ability and talent but he's still young and he has a lot to learn and I still say we're the best place for that, hopefully he see's that and isn't blinded by the dollar or a 'promise' of Chelsea involvement. We're in a really good place, certainly back to 2020 kind of form. We can enjoy the battle at the bottom from afar and look up for a change. I don't think we'll get European or anything like that, but a top 10 finish and beating our points total from last year has to be our target now given our run.

Brave shout, their next 3 or 4 fixtures will determine their future imo. I will be watching with interest to see how they play out! It's nice to be able to 'enjoy' watching this from afar for the 2nd season in a row really.

I got confused when I saw that, as there is also a Xavi Simons at PSG who is a ridiculous talent, I thought it was him to start with! I don't know a great deal about Xavier though.

Anyone can buy him if they want to, it's just that Chelsea have a deal to sign him at that fee if they wish to exercise it. It doesn't mean all clubs can execute the same fee. For Man Utd, and 4 years left, £60m no less.

Yeah I think that's fair. He was clearly undecided about staying here and from a club point of view, given what our model was at that point, could not afford to lose our best player for free. That would have killed us. Luckily we used his fee to strengthen us in other areas such as the Broja loan fee, Armstrong, Perruad, Tino, Small etc. None of that would have been possible without Ings leaving. Ings has probably got himself some extra dosh and a tasty signing on fee, so we leave it there really. He probably does regret it at this point but by not signing the deal the club couldn't hang around and risk losing him for £0.

Not sure if this impacts our prep or not, but apparently there has been structural damage to the dome at Staplewood. (similar to what happened to the O2 I think)

They're either safe as houses by mid march or sunk right into the mire. I reckon they'll be ok. Same as Everton no matter how 'close' they look atm. I still can't see a way out for Burnley, Watford or Norwich to be honest. They'll win here and there but they've got too much to do.

They've kind of hit the wall we did a few years ago. They had a few seasons of being absolutely spot on scouting wise with the likes of Ndidi, Tilliemans, Perreria, Fofana etc. Then they got a bit crazy and spent silly money on Vestergaard, Somoure and Daka who have not impacted in any way really.

I think that's it really, his tactical inflexibility kept being brought up but I'd say that was generally down to a lack of options to choose from. We were pretty rigid. This is probably the first season that Ralph has had close too what I'd call 'his team' and the 'depth' he requires, and look at what he's doing with it. It would have always been absolutely mental to ditch him and I'm glad the club didn't flinch. That's why I've got so much trust in Martin and co, they have their heads screwed on.

His injury status may well have been a reason we didn't push too hard for him in January, I guess we want to see how he recovers as well (He's been injured since Nov apparently). He'll be going into a positive team though who look on the up, which can only be a good thing in order to showcase his talents.

And this is why Saints is the best place for him at the moment. We allow him an environment to be a bit niave and to learn that side of his game as we don't expect to win things or win every week. At Chelsea he'd be under a microscope, a couple of performances of the level he showed yesterday and he'd be getting hauled off and a 100m striker would take his place. He wouldn't have the time to develop there as many players have shown over the years, christ even Lukaku himself had to leave Chelsea to develop before they bought him back for stupid money. That is seemingly their model. THey were forced to throw James, Mount etc into the side when they had an embargo and that's the only reason they developed. In normal circumstances that wouldn't have happened in my opinion. As a current player, Callum Hudson-Odoi is a fine example of someone who needed to move to progress as he had a lot of natural talent. But he didn't and he's now stagnated and is at danger of never fulfilling his potential.