S-Clarke

28 WTF. Where has my life gone.

Our best approach is to keep him, buy someone this summer for £10-15m (or a loan with a view to buy) who can use a season to grow into the side with the idea of them replacing Ings. Still risky, but probably the safest way of doing it. Selling now and pocketing £20m would put us in as worse a position as letting him go for free without a replacement.

I don't think we can count on Will having a pre-season or being avaliable for the start though, so I don't think we can count on him. I reckon he'll head out on loan in January to get some game time. I do genuinely think we will see another CM arrive, esp if Jankewitz leaves. Two full backs, a CM, Theo and depending on things, maybe an attacker late on in a loan deal is what I can see.

I remember when we signed him, there was collective uproar on here that we were replacing £32m Shaw with a freebie loan who had been relegated the season previous with Villa. I guess it's a lesson to give everyone a chance, no matter where or what they're coming from. We have enjoyed Bertrand at the peak of his career and I'm glad that he was here throughout that. He has provided us some wonderful memories, particularly in the Koeman years. It was probably one of the best £15m we've spent in recent times, an absolutely no thrills full back who rarely provided any glaring issues. We've been pretty comfortable for 7 years at LB because of Ryan being around. Sadly his legs have started to go a little, he cannot get up and down the pitch with the same vigour that he used to. That massively impacts our game as it requires the full backs to press hard and stretch, so he's struggled a little bit with the intensity over the last 12 months I've felt. Overall though a great servant for us, lots of good memories - but now is the right time for both the club and himself to follow different paths. Hopefully he finishes his career at a decent club and maybe one day comes back here in a different capacity.

He can play anywhere in the midfield really, he has such good energy. Absolutely perfect player for this kind of high tempo game. Easily my player of the season. I think he's been someone who has stood up throughout the season, even during the bad games/bad runs he has been someone who could always hold his head up high.

There have been links to Arsenal for a while now, cropped up in the last few windows so probably something in it. Arsenal fans must be close to mutiny though, Bertrand isn't a signing who is going to take them anywhere bar where they are now, maybe lower. All a bit strange really.

Credit to Leicester on that one, I didn't see them getting a result here. Must frustrate them that all the media seem to care about is that Man Utds defeat handed City the title. That was a great result for Leeicter and they've beaten both Manchester clubs on their own patch this year. They clearly deserve top 4, from looking ropey after the Newcastle game I think after West Ham losing and them winning tonight it's all but done.

Yeah, possibly. Certainly Jack didn't stay at LB though, Vestergaard didn't seem too comfortable as the right sided CB. That throws up a conundrum as to what you do with Salisu - I don't think you drop Vestergaard as he's our best CB and he's our left sided one, and seemingly Salisu can only play left side as well.

We shuffled it quite a bit in that 2nd half. It seemed to start with Vestergaard as the right sided centre back and Salisu on the left, with Jack still at LB. But we looked quite uncomfortable like that I felt. It seemed as if we switched to a 3, with Redmond and KWP playing the wing back roles. That seemed much better and all 3 centre backs were much more comfortable on the ball.

Good pair those two. They assist each other too, it's not just a one way relationship. It's something that's evolved massively over the last 18 months. A fit and on-form Adams and Ings partnership gets us top half imo.

To be honest if he doesn't sign, I'd still refuse any bids. What could we do with 20-30m in terms of replacing him immediately? Absolutely nothing. Might as well keep him for another year, evolve the team a bit more, see where we end up. Maybe get in a clever striker this summer with an eye on him being an Ings replacement, but provide him a year to play the second fiddle role.

For the majority of that game that was actually a pretty good performance I felt. I thought we attacked well for the majority of that first half and certainly reacted well to going behind so early. We stuck to the game plan and eventually got our rewards through Ings, probably one of his best finishes this season. Eye of a needle stuff. Palace were still in the game though and I didn't think Bednarek was dealing with Benteke at all, in fact Bednarek was having one of his 'I can't defend' performances so I was glad to see him subbed. 2nd half we started on the front foot, got ourselves an early goal and I thought we'd take it on from there. But credit to Palace, the period between 55-70ish mins was probably their strongest spell. They probed well, stretched our centre backs and were worryingly winning a lot of 50-50's. Our attackers such as Minamino and Redmond were on the periphery of the game and we just couldn't get a break. Couple of really lucky escapes as well, with Jack Stephens moment and an absolutely horrific flap from Forster at one point. The third goal came because Palace opened the game up, they pretty much removed their midfield and we exploited that space through some clever passing with JWP and Adams - and there's Ings with a goal of a level much higher than anyone else we have. From that point on we just controlled it, Palace had committed to their 'all guns blazing' approach by this point and we just kept picking holes in their midfield. Arguably this was the period where Minamino saw more of the ball as there was more space, but he still disappointingly didn't do a great deal with it. But overall, that was more like our performances from the first half of the season. Sure, there were some moments where they pegged us back a bit but I thought we saw them out quite well in the 2nd half and took our chances when they came. Important to finish the season strong, let's see where we end up.

He's got good energy, buzzes around the pitch. But ultimately he's too weak and cannot impact at this level. He's 26/27 now I think, he's not 'one for the future' - this is him. I don't know what Liverpool are holding out for either, he needs to go to a league more suited to his obvious technical talents.

Where is Dalek? This is absolutely made for him.

Good point, he won the super cup over there.

So, Poch went to PSG, the league at which they've dominated for years. I think everyone accepted he was finally going to get a trophy once and for all. But once again he'll finish a season without a trophy as manager as PSG have just blown it tonight. Weird career Poch has had.

Didn't think about Fulham, that's confused me a bit now I've looked at their loans. They have Lookman, Lemina, Aina, Areola, Lofus-Cheek, Maja, Andersen all on loan...and I'm fairly sure they've all been in the same match day squad on multiple occasions?

He was alright, he's still oretty poor though, wouldn't be against seeing the back of him tbh. He was 'decent' but still didn't actually do anything. Agreed on Theo, he was dross yesterday.

I'm fairly sure you can only loan two players from the PL - both have to be from separate clubs. There can be another 2 brought from outside in Europe. West Brom bought in Okay, Diagne from Europe. And then added Maintland Niles and Gallagher from the PL clubs.

You're very optimistic! I hope you're right, but I can only see a maximum of 4 players. 2 full backs, one on loan and one for about £10m and an attacker (probably Theo on a free) will be what we do in the main. The 4th will be whatever pops up at the end of the window. I'm assuming we're keeping everyone else as well.

8 players??? a £20m striker?? I hope you're ITK!

Oh dear.

Gave it a good go tbh. Only out on GD in the end. They'll be a decent outfit next year I think

I do know where you're coming from. These people are trolls, they are doing what they're doing for the reactions and the buzz that gives them. Like you said, the constant highlighting of it is providing them that buzz over, and over and over again. The best thing to do is just ignore it, delete it, report it...but don't make a noise about it and silence these idiots. At the moment they have the stage in a weird way.

Oh yeah for sure, I read some of the Man City forums yesterday and Christ what a bunch of moaners. Pulling Pep apart for the team, throwing Augero under the bus etc. It's a very impatient society and everyone wants everything tomorrow, not just related to football, but it has kind of flowed over into that. Generally fans don't want to wait for their club to 'build' over seasons, they want it now and they'll moan until they get incredible success. The reality is that we are in our true position for a club of our size, probably punching a bit when you factor in the no investment factor. That Claude bloke did have a rant after most games tbh. He actually died last month, saw it on the news the other day (most of that Arsenal fan tv lot became 'celebs')