S-Clarke

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.

Yeah, I can see it playing out unfort. We wouldn't be able to pay him the wages he probably feels he wants now, so he's going to bide his time, it'll get to next summer and we'll have a 'can't lose him for free' scenario develop in front of our eyes. £30-40m? Tops.

They've got a player in James who will be a game changer for them. Calvert-Lewin will score goals, he got 15/16 last year. He's a good goal scorer. They'll be up there for top 5 or top 6, no doubts. Be interesting to bounce that view at the end of the season!

The spurs fans were sold a duff by the media. 'A forward thinking midfielder' 'the first potential replacement for Eriksen'. That performance there was him, that's Hoj. It doesn't get any better or worse than that. That's why I've never understood the clamour for him.

Ruben Loftus is exactly the type of midfielder we need, profile wise. Be interesting to see if this happens.

Standard Hoj performance really, they'll enjoy his home performances. All he'll do is stop them playing.

He is very limited, but he's still decent enough. Still pretty technical, but too slow in my opinion. Like you said, squad player and in the team for certain games etc. We really need someone to step in and replace him as a regular, I'm sure Ralph wants that but it all depends on how much finance is available. Romeu was bought as a squad player for us under Koeman and I have no issue having him in the squad, I'd still expect him to play 20 odd games a season.

I must admit, It's a bit odd hearing the commentators saying 'Koch' at random points during the Leeds game. There could be some really uncomfortable timing moments as the season goes on! Wonder how long before they're asked to call him Robin instead...? (probably not long in this world)

Fair enough. Yeah, agreed our match day revenue is a small income compared to our PL TV money, but it would still need to be covered in some way. That 80m clearly wasn't a loan to aid us in the transfer market anyway!! Agree, it's certainly not good to just say you're happy with the status quo. There's a lot wrong with his ownership IMO, and I'll always stand by that and will be very pleased to see the back of him.

Not sure anyone is being that negative to be honest, just offering opinions. As you said, everyone's opinion is different and we all have different types. So labelling others that have a different opinion to yours as bedwetters is a bit silly. We didn't play well at all, in my opinion. If that's our standard then we are in for a pretty long season. But it won't be, so we'll be in the mid-table zone again which is about fair for us.

Not entirely sure what that is for, but quite a few clubs have used a form of loans during this 'coronavirus' period. Possibly leveraged against future TV income, not sure. We've got to plan in the eventuality that stadium numbers will still be through the floor all season, that's a key income for any club. I imagine that loan is just helping us cover that issue, amongst many others. It's not great, no, but we don't have a very engaged owner so it's prob our only option.

I don't think anyone's wetting the bed.

Could have been equally him or Stephens to be honest, both way too slow to be playing in a line that high. I'm sure we didn't press that high last season? Vestergaard wasn't any better. Salisu soon I imagine.

I'm not sure what Ralph see's in Smallbone during training to suggest he's a like for like for Armstrong? Smallbone looks like a bog standard clogger midfielder to me, doesn't look like he has attacking instincts and likes to play the safe pass. Good option in the squad and he will mature I'm sure, but he's certainly not an Armstrong replacement.

Bump to this - absolutely flawless pre and post match for me. Impressive. I had days of not being able to get on here over the last few months, but since last weekend it's been flawless. Nice one Steve on whatever has been changed, as it's a different kettle of fish now.