tajjuk

Poch must be under some serious pressure, the next best odds on another team winning the league are Monaco at 20-1. He has to basically win the treble as a minimum.

Well at least that is where you can give some credit in the PL, the TV money is distributed evenly, Real and Madrid take a way bigger share and hence why they don't want any of it going somewhere else. The wages is the biggest issue, Greizeman is on like £600k a week, literally no one in the PL comes near that and there are IMO many players in the PL better than him. They also gave him like a 5 year contract at the age of 28. And they swapped the 24 year old Arthur, who was playing well for the 31 year old Pranjic who they then gave a £270k a week deal. The same amount Busquets is paid. Another 4 year contract as well. The fans are literally now booing these players because they basically blame them for Messi going, but you can't blame them for not wanting to go, who is going to give them contracts like that. I mean Greizman will earn like another £90 million until the end of his contract As for FFP its basically gone, UEFA have completely relaxed the rules because of Covid and said club's owners can make up the shortfall, which means for clubs like PSG and Man City they can at the moment basically put as much in as they like.

If we can push them to about £18 million for Vestergaard, which is basically what we paid for him, I'd take that. That would give us around £25 million (maybe a bit more) to add to the squad. Nat Phillips on a loan to buy, with like £12 ish million fee, and then go get someone like Delaney for £10-12 million. Should also leave funds to maybe go get a B team left back for £5 million or so.

Hasn't he literally just been injured and only just come back to training? He missed the friendlies because of that injury.

Watkins missed out on the Euros though didn't he? Calvert-Lewin got the nod and then iirc only played about 10 minutes. JWP missed out to Henderson basically, who was about as useful as a bag of wet cement and clearly not at all fit. I think if he keeps performing as he has done then likely he will get back in, we don't have a lot of midfielders anyway, Rice and Phillips are hardly world class and basically do the exact same job and Henderson is 31 now and it's possible his body might not be up to it anymore. The only stand out one IMO is Bellingham who has looked class for Dortmund and is the more progressive of the four that went to the Euros.

I don't think money would be the top of his motivations, it is of course always a factor but he strikes me as someone who would prioritise playing time/trophies/England chances etc. I mean to be honest if he moved to a top 4 club he'd get a default pay rise anyway. Also whilst we know money is a driving factor in football (and life) we are seeing more and more younger player prioritise playing time above most other things.

Obviously not in quality but in style, I mean it's not like these players just appear, they develop as young players. De Bruyne was signed from Genk for £7 million. Sporting signed Bruno Fernandes for 8.5 million Euros. Norwich picked up Maddison from Coventry for less than £3 million.

I suppose this is a fair point, if you have players like Havertz or Pulisic etc. then you are naturally going to be very creative, but as our attackers are just not that level of quality and can less create something out of nothing we need basically extra bodies getting forward. I agree with what someone above said, I am not sure our overall quality has improved (it might do with time players like Perraud might show more quality than Bertrand) but our depth and options to do something a bit different I think have improved and IMO that is more what we suffered with last year. Injuries completely derailed the season and we didn't ever really recover from that. We now have a bit more depth in most positions which should help with the injuries but also help with freshening things up late in the game so hopefully we don't lose so many points from winning positions. But also I think with someone like Broja who seems a bit more physical in size, a pace and power combo, that gives us something a bit different to change a game. Then if Salisu becomes a regular, which it looks like he will then we will have more pace in the centre-back area which I think was another area of weakness. And then Perraud brings more pace and forward play in the left back area to add more threat on that side. Overall as well it seems Perraud is quick, Tino is supposedly very quick, Broja is quick and Armstrong is quick, so we've added a lot more pace to the team which should help with counters and recoveries. Personally I am still kind of hoping we sell Vestergaard for £15-20 million, then bring in someone like Nate Phillips on a loan to buy and then use the money for another midfielder as well, plus maybe a young left back similar to the tino deal. Then I think we would have really good depth and options. Long term though I have felt for ages we have needed to try to find a proper playmaking no.10 type player. Someone in the De Buryne sort of mould that pick those passes out because we always struggle to break down those deep sitting teams and most of our current players for those positions are pretty similar run with the ball type players.

No it doesn't, that is trope parroted by the right wing media.

Not discriminating against people or hating people and then supporting causes or acts that highlight or speak out against that discrimination or hate is not a 'political ideology'. It's just being a decent human being. Has nothing to do with politics.

Sums it up really, people against this are really rather sad and pathetic. There is no real 'debate' here because that would suggest there is some controversy or that it's a complicated issue, when it isn't, its pretty obvious this is perfectly positive move by the club that no rational or intelligent human being could have an issue with. Which then obviously says a huge amount about the people that do.

Just thinking that Messi had all these tears at leaving Barcelona and he really didn't want to go, his family were settled etc. etc. Then why didn't he just play for free for a bit? Wasn't there a guy who played for Atletico back in the day who loved the club and they were going through financial issues so he just agreed to play for 1 Euro for a while. Just play for free or very little for a year or so if you love the club so much and let them sort the mess out. Not like he's a 25 year old with his first big contract, he must have more money than he knows what to do with and huge endorsement deals.

Top PL strikers cost huge amounts of money. Lukaku has scored in the PL per season, 17, 15, 10, 18, 25, 15, 12 and he just cost £100 million at the age of 28. Kane will cost City upwards of £100 million at 28 with dodgy ankles. The world's biggest clubs are struggling to buy proven goalscorers for decent fees, how do you expect us to do it. Ings has scored 7, 22 and 12 goals for us, He's only actually scored over 20 goals twice in his entire career so far, so good player yes, one of the PL's top strikers? No not really, he's basically had one very good season and then some other decent seasons. I mean someone compared him to James Beattie which seems about right, good but not top striker who got the fringes of the England team and had one very good stand out season. So we are not really needing to replace a huge amount of goals, part of thew reason for that is because quite often he's not on the pitch and with age and his injury record that trend of him missing games is only likely to get worse. I am not sure how the club be criticised here. We offered the guy our highest ever wage and a 4 year deal for a 29 year old with a poor injury record. He turned it down and we received around £30 million for said injury prone 29 year old with a year left on his deal, probably more than any of us were expecting. And we've gone out and replaced him with the 2nd top goalscorer in the Championship, who's just had his best ever season (and scored more goals than Danny Ings ever managed in the Championship btw), who is 24, so could improve, by the sounds of it fits our style of play and also loaned in a promising young player from Chelsea as an extra option. Plus two highly rated young players from Chelsea# youth team, including seemingly the best rated young fullback in the country. And replaced another aging out of contract player, who had clearly declined in ability over the last 18 months, with the best performing left back in the French league last year.

No normal intelligent human being with an ability to feel empathy would see this as a negative.

I just can't see it personally. Villa seem to have blown their load anyway, all their signings seemed to be rushed in to soften the blow of Grealish leaving. Even if we consider he might want to join or at least listen to how much money they want to throw at him, I can't see them coming up with the £50 million plus fee we'd need to even think about it and I reckon this late in the window we would want all that up front as well.

I'm going to say maybe sneak top half or just comfortable mid table. so like 9-13th. We have lost Ings so yes that is a big hole, but I think Che is improving and will do better, I think Tella is improving, and I think Armstrong will be a decent signing. Add in that I think Perraud potentially improves us and offers something different, Romue is now back fit and Salisu I think will become a key defender and adds some more pace in the back line, and it looks like Broja could also add some physicality in the forward positions we don't have. So I think overall we have more depth, we have more options that can give us different things in the team, which is where I think we were let down last year. Not enough depth to cover injuries and not enough off the bench or in the squad to change games or to keep the performance up. Of course I'd like to see a few more in, another centre-back that might improve on Vestergaard if he goes would be great and would love to see a GK because I don't think either of the two we have are good enough, but I think that seems the least likely option. Another forward thinking centre-mid option would also be great.

Seemingly we have a lot of pace now in the team, with all the signings supposedly being very quick so hopefully we should be better on the counter.

Pukki and Watkins stepped up straight away from the Championship, and they probably played for teams in the Championship who created more chances than Blackburn do. He should be confident as he's basically had the best season of his life. The issue with Che i think was that goal didn't come early and IIRC he got a bit unlucky early on, hitting the woodwork I think a few times, so good saves, bad decisions etc. and then it started to weigh on him and his confidence dropped. We've also seen quite a lot of teams come straight up and do well because they are confident and used to winning. Like Leeds and Sheff Utd the season before. I also don't think these days there is a huge amount of difference between the bottom half of the PL and the top hal8-10 of the Championship just because of how clubs there have parachute money and have basically many PL level players.

Yeh you do kind of feel that Villa only had to step up £5 million more for a guy much younger with less injury problems who is probably as good and may become even better.

That finish in the thumbnail, think he does it twice in the video, might be fluke but he gets just enough lift to get it over the keepers feet and basically puts it in that gap between arm and feet when they keepers do that fairly common starfish approach to closing attackers down. Now again might be just luck but if not that is a very calm and composed little finish.

Yeh it's possible, but there is also the Alderweireld situation where he does well and someone else just jumps in and takes him.

Looks like he can play both through the middle and probably be an option for the wide positions as well, he must scare some fullbacks at 6' 4" and able to run at that sort of speed. I like in the goal for the Albania U21s, where he bursts through the middle with staggering pace and the defender tries to block him off and just bounces off 😄 Again shame there isn't an option to buy, but his options getting into the Chelsea team are limited so maybe if he has a good time here we can make it permanent.

The FM Blackburn researcher seems to think he's very quick, he's got 18 for acceleration and 17 for pace (out of 20), but I suppose it's tough to really tell how quick people are if you don't see them in timed races or racing against someone you already know is quick. Certainly from the videos his movement looks sharp and he seems to run in behind well or get across defenders quickly.

one* and no it doesn't and that isn't the saying anyway.

Irony at its finest. Also I am glad you are comfortable with yourself as I doubt anyone else would have you.