S-Clarke

Can't complain about that really, nothing wrong on Tuesday at all - so not upset about seeing the same side. Wolves missing Neves and Marcal, who was going to play CB for them. They've had to draft in a youngish player called Gomes who is making his first team debut.

Yeah, exactly how I see him really. That's why I always felt in the summer that we needed cover for Romeu, as Diallo shouldn't be seen as that. We do struggle when Romeu is out as we have no replacements of his profile.

But as tajjuk states, their places in the side evolved because of the transfer ban they were under (Notably Mount, James, Abraham etc). Lampard gave them a chance as he couldn't buy anyone else. Mount and james have taken their opportunities, but you could argue that their opportunity to stake a claim was because of an extreme situation in regards to their transfer ban. I agree with the general point tajjuk makes re: the hoovering of talent, it's making players think twice and they can see options outside of waiting for an opportunity at a Chelsea etc. There are so many players at Chelsea who have wasted their careers just waiting for a chance, if they'd have moved earlier and played they may well have hit their potential. Fakayo Tamori is another one who has moved on, clearly had the talent as he's at Milan. Things are shifting I think.

And if Watford lose, that's probably game over for Ranieri as well and Watford will once again be looking for a new manager. Rubbish way to run a club that.

Just read that article, sounds like they're trying to setup a second year loan to me. I don't think Chelsea will want to sell as there's no rush, even after the end of a 2nd year loan he'll still have huge value, potentially worth even more than he is today. I could see him as a Lukaku replacement at that point or still a huge source of income if they decide to still sell. Chelsea are in the driving seat really, shame he had to sign that 5 year deal!

I guess with Tino it's a bit of an extreme example, as this is a full youth player who'd never played any pro mins - that's the sort of player I think we'll be targeting, rather than the Conor Gallagher's etc. Funnily enough the overload happened when we signed Tino, as we already had a first choice in KWP there with Valery as backup at that point. We've thrown Tino right in as he's clearly good enough, but that has shown that as a club we don't care how old you are and if you're good enough you could even oust our current first choice player. (and he's now had to change position for the most part)

I think we've put ourselves at the front of the queue to snap up future ones though. There will always be top players that aren't getting the pathway at big clubs, as the big club can go out and spend £100m on instant success. So if these young kids want to play, we are an example of providing that. Tino sets our image very clearly and that will make us very attractive, I feel as if we're trying to build a Dortmund style model in England.

Brighton should have won that, as per most games they play against middling teams! 1-1 good for us. Keeps them all around us.

Bednarek is a funny one, when he's on form he's a decent, reliable and experienced PL defender. If he drops off it's an extreme drop off...and he just forgets how to defend. It's calamity city when he's off form. I don't think he's really changed under Ralph a great deal, he's got older, more experienced but he still has flaws in his game. He's aggressive and does commit, but if he's caught out he lacks the agility and pace to recover, whereas compared to Salisu...he has that ability to recover. If we wanted to push up with the Villas, Leicester's etc his is a position I'd look to evolve and give Salisu a better partner. Nothing wrong with him for where are now though, a fairly solid player most of the time.

The Brighton game livened up in the 1st half (Towards the end). Brighton had a pen awarded by VAR and then subsequently went on to miss it. Two mins later Brighton bundled the ball into the net and celebrated a goal from a corner, but that was then ruled out by VAR as Maupay 'brushed' it out of Butlands hands. He had two hands on it to be fair. Brighton being brighton, better chances but cannot put the ball away.

I don't think people are expecting to get him for £5m, but the same deal is still a possibility in the sense of a buy back or first refusal. I think it's all academic chat anyway, I don't think we have a sniff of getting him. Best chance is a loan for a 2nd year.

I think you often see clubs that are united from the top down do well. Leicester are a fine example of that. Whenever there is uncertainty at the top it will always filter down and eventually impact the first team, maybe not immediate but certainly over time.

That's not obvious at all is it! The PL have screwed the season with this unambiguous rule. Clubs are just taking the piss out of it and will continue to do so until the PL refine it.

It's all looking really positive to me. Our head to head comparison is very healthy, which is probably pointing to a better season than last season. The last season comparison is closing up as well, so as long as we have less of a disaster of a 2nd half then we will finish in the 50's points wise in my opinion. Feels a long way off, but if we replicate or even better the first half then we're on for that.

Hope you get out soon Minsk and hopefully you're feeling better!

I've never really rated him myself, but he's been one of the best keepers in the league this year in my opinion. Didn't expect him to do as well as he has at Arsenal.

He was epic against Brentford, his best performance for us in my opinion. I know at the time we bought him he was the PEH replacement, but I don't think he was ever that really. I know when Romeu is out we put Diallo in there but they're totally different players. Diallo will thrive in a team with security behind him and where he has the freedom to burst forward. I don't think we'll see the best of him if we deploy him in a two alongside JWP where he is expected to be the deeper of the pivot. Very talented player though, lots of pace and really agile.

Sky don't check sources a lot of the time, they just throw it out there for the big story. A lot of what they report in January is agent fed or twitter rubbish. They are like twitter on steroids on deadline day.

I'd imagine talks have already started in the background. He's got all the tools to be top class, he's still a bit of a rough diamond in certain aspects though - for that reason I don't think top, top clubs will be sniffing 'just' yet. Probably in his best interests to sign a new 5 year deal with us, carry on playing regular and progressing for another 18 months and then we will probably start to see the big interest.

Nah, not really sure he'll add anything we don't already have. We've already got loads of number 10's who flatter to deceive and don't actually score, so we don't need another one. He seems very erratic. I don't think you can question his application or commitment, but I think as fans we may be a bit bias towards him as his best game of the season is 99% of the time against us.

I remember that one very well! We weren't fancied at all, I remember dreading it. Wolves were playing well themselves, we went there with a threadbare squad and lots of square pegs. Wolves attacked us all game, created so many chances, missed a penalty. We just kept hitting them on the break and we were very clinical about it. Saganowski was in the mode of everything he hit went in as well!

It would be a shitty relegation for all those clubs in the Champ hoping to compete, especially whoever got relegated with Newcastle. They'd just buy all the best Championship players and storm to 100+ points or something daft like that. As funny as it would be, a relegation wouldn't really harm Newcastle or set them back. It would allow them to 'walk a league' and get some serious momentum to continue when they get back up.

I think you can often tell if a player has it (the superstar level potential), you don't need history of stats to back that up. When Bale, Shaw, Ox etc made their first few starts with us, they didn't have any stats to back them up but you just knew they had a bit of superstar swagger about them and that eventually they'd get those high end stats. As fans we're lucky to have witnessed the development of some great young players, so we should all be fairly good judges of a young player without needing stats to validate it. From what I have seen, Broja has that swagger about him, so does Tino. They will both go to the very top. Compared to players like Armstrong, Adams etc, they'll do a job...but they just lack that extra step those young guys have.

Agreed, 28/29 will be the cut off. The rqd points has dropped so much over the last couple of years, probably a case of the gulf getting too big. Established clubs are miles ahead. Bar the ocasional stories of the likes of Leeds, Brentfords, Sheff U (using momentum from their promotion - but it does catch up with them) promoted clubs nowadays just struggle to even get close to competing. So you'll get a clutch of clubs who just bounce between leagues for infinity (Norwich, West Brom, Watford etc)

And that was after he'd previously blown up, at 85mins. Only to be forced to restart, but like you said he still didn't finish 90mins. All very weird. He must have had some money on Mali.