S-Clarke

It's a fair stance, but it'll be taken out of his hands if Danny doesn't sign a new contract and he's on 1 year remaining this time next year.

I was surprised to see Leicester going after the Roma winger, Under - he's a really good player. Even more surprised when I saw it was a loan...! So, they are out there...just got to hope our new 'setup' is ready to do the job. It would be nice for us to back Ralph once and for all, he's been on a shoe-string here since day 1.

Redmond came in when we had Puel and it seemed as if every.single.player had been reprogrammed to pass back. Maybe he was scouted for specific Puel requirements? Not sure. But yeah, I agree, he 'wimps' out of opportunities to fully attack full backs. He'll often be in a good position and then turn back and it frustrates the living life out of me. Because when he does attack full backs, he can get to the by-line and produce something - why doesn't he do that all the time though? That's why Ralph keeps him in as there's always a chance he 'could' do that, but like you said he plays it safe. Feels like it was borne out of our Puel days. Hoj was exactly the same.

Lots of pressure on the next couple of weeks....definitely need at least 2, hopefully 3. Another CM, a couple of wide players. Then let's see where we go. I imagine we'll use the loan market.

Redmond is a strange one, if you look at him in isolation with his attributes he has everything Ralph wants in a player. Quick, pressing, energy in the attacking third. His problem is his pass selection and decision making, it's quite frankly awful. He'll sometimes have some purple patches where that will come good, but more often than not he will use his pace and pressing to either give the ball away or run into a blind ally. Frustrating, but you can see why Ralph sticks with him because of his attributes and what he 'could' potentially offer, could being the main word. The problem for Ralph is that he is hugely hamstrung financially, he has little to no movement in the market without moving players on first. I doubt we'd have had the money to replace long, he'd have gone for a free at the end of the day, so sense meant we kept him as an option. So if we can move Boufal on and use that money on a decent loan, it may work out. I've given up on Boufal myself, he's not a PL player.

It looks like we copied what we did in 'lockdown', as that worked well in a very unique and unprecedented situation. Basically, we got complacent, saw that what we did worked before and didn't bother to do anything else, even though in reality starting a brand new season is a totally different dynamic to coming back after 'lockdown'. We have done this so often over the last 5 or so years, we think we've reinvented the wheel and get all complacent and totally take our eyes off the ball. I thought those times had past us.

Is it me, or is Ralph sounding a bit pissed with the lack of numbers in the squad? He's got every right to, we've got nothing beyond that 11.

I'd be stunned if he was sold this window, that's not going to happen. But I fully expect this interest to have put a permanent pin in any contract talks, unfortunately. He'll be off next summer.

It's a strange one, we had the club saying how we managed 'lockdown' really well, and we've replicated the same situation this 'small pre-season' as it worked before, but that always stunk of serious complacency. It's a totally different scenario, it wasn't a break during a season, it was a stop and then a start of a new season. It looks like everyone got complacent and we are frighteningly underprepared. The squad is too small, even the manager is saying as much. Even Semmens has said he'd like to do more, but 'we know our limits'. I think the buck stops with a certain Gao and whilst he is in charge we will drift around in no mans land, hoping not to get relegated. Sounds like a laugh.

Shhh.

Nope.

Exactly, he's changed something. We can all see it. He needs to have a word with himself if he thinks that works with these players. Get back to what we had and scrap that line. So shit.

Worst 45 under Ralph, nothing in this half. Those guys need to take a long hard look at themselves, they've believed the hype and took their foot off. Shocking, disgusting attitude. The losers are coming back out to play.

I'll say again, what is up with our defensive line? We've changed something in pre-season from what I can tell and it needs to change back now.

Give him a break, that wasn't a sitter.

Same issue again, ball over the top, they get in behind. Causes us a problem, they get a corner - goal to them. KWP looks shit

That was a much better move, nice and sharp around the box. Unlucky Adams. Why do keepers always pull worldies off against him?

Redmond needs to get a grip of himself.

Are we playing a higher defensive line than last year? If we are, we need to stop it. It doesn't work as we don't have the pace throughout our back 4, we were caught over the top so many times v Palace and Brentford are doing similar.

Getting rid of players like Boufal will allow us more flexibility in the wage budget, that's what I'm hoping anyway. A fee for him will be nominal but it will still help. I wouldn't count on him for the new season anyway, so he's no real loss.

Iwobi cost Everton something like £35m last year, we'd have to fork out close to that to get him. And I think they overspent massivley.

Pretty much. I can't think of anything he did for us, apart from being the captain of quite a large group of losers in terms of our home games over the last 3 years. We were dreadful with him and when he was in the side. Relegation battles most years. I honestly cannot pull a good game he had from the top of my head.

He may kick on, but like you said, it's been 100 games for us of utter average bullshit. So I think that is just him.

Why are people/the media so surprised by his 'little impact' going forward? Why do other fans/journos think he's some sort of progressive passing midfielder? Weird views.

They keep saying it's his 'first game', but what they need to realise is that was him. He won't get any better or any worse than that, that was his default performance. Sideways, backwards, silly fouls, under hit passes and little forward penetration. The media have built it up so they expect some sort of mega forward thinking midfielder, but he's like a poor mans Morgan Schniderlin.