tajjuk

He had over 20 games not a 'short spell'. And £20 million on a player is not a gamble these days, its a low price for that sort of player. Maddison was £25 million like 3 years ago. Both Ibe and Solanke had played quite a lot for Liverpool and not done well, they had like 2 goals between in them in about 50 appearances, so the warning to Bournemouth was pretty obvious there.

We paid £15 million for Adams who had a similar goalscoring ratio in the Championship, is 4 years older and doesn't have anywhere near the England youth team experience. £3-5 million more in today's market seems pretty good for a highly rated English 20 year old trained at a top academy, who's proven himself in the Championship and has been capped at every level for England bar senior.

I'd imagine it's a combination of factors, Ralph probably wants him as a squad option but likely he wants to play more which can't be guaranteed, plus he's probably amongst the higher earners I would reckon and his contract is running out so better for the club to cash in rather than losing him for free. Talented but inconsistent probably best described him and I'd probably say lacking the fast decision making to play under Ralph's system where everything is done at high pace, Boufal has always I think looked more suited to a slower more possession based style where he can stand up his marker and take him on before having a shot or finding a pass. Never got these accusations of laziness though, seemed to always work hard to me when I have seen him and we've never heard anything of him being a bad trainer or being unprofessional, seems to have just got on with it despite getting little game time.

Pereira is their main threat. If we can keep him quiet then we should have a decent chance of winning as defensively they look poor, yeh they scored 3 goals against Chelsea but all of them were errors and they basically scored with every shot they had.

Probably not though as long as it is a decent amount higher than what you pay for him it fits are model of buying cheaper and selling on. Plus they don't often get used, like Chelsea reportedly had one on Ake but didn't use it, the club with the buy back has to want or need the player and the player has to want to go back as well. But I just don't think we have £20 million to spend on a striker, the money is needed elsewhere, if we didn't have so many transfer f ups over the last 2-3 years we'd probably be in position to buy someone like him even if he wasn't a priority.

I don't think he would be a bad signing IF the fees were ok and we had an option to buy, rather than just giving game time and potentially improving another clubs player. He clearly has some promise but just hasn't got there yet and I'd imagine sitting on the bench for Spurs isn't going to help him much. But I also just don't see him coming into the team anywhere, he's not a better left back than Bertrand and as I said he's not really a good winger for the system, his dribbling is not great and I think he found it a lot harder to have an impact when he stepped up. He seems more of a player that is good on the transition where he can use his pace and good runs to get into good positions, rather than take on full backs and get crosses in or create space for himself by taking players on. Which is why I presume ultimately he has in his few appearances for Spurs largely played as a full back or wing back. But like you say we need strengthening elsewhere as a priority. If we are going to loan to buy a youngster from a PL team I'd go for Brewster, I think long term he'll end up as a top quality player and seems to have his head switched on that he needs to move away from Liverpool permanently to develop, but sadly another position we don't really need and we are just not in a position to take chances like that because of previous transfer F ups, there is talk of him going for less than £20 million which I think could end up being a bargain for someone from what I have seen of him.

You want to quote me where I said that? If you are going to put silly gifs its always best to get your facts straight otherwise you look like a right moron. Oh wait you are, carry on then.

I thought Ake was ok and is a decent player all round, its tough to judge a player in a relegation team but I always thought he looked solid but Bournemouth as a whole were a mess defensively. Thing is you can spend all this money but your key players are your key players, City without Laporte and Aguero (and also Jesus to replace him) are much less of a team, especially when you then shift everyone else out of position to cover those absences. They then had Garcia who doesn't want to be there and played like that and I have never got what Mendy offers to that team he seems a very clumsy player who doesn't play like a Guardiola player as he seems to do lots of wasteful crosses and looks uncomfortable being asked to play more of a passing game, but then the other option is Zinchenko who is good on the ball (because he's a midfielder) but a liability defensively. I mean Liverpool conceded 3 against Leeds with their first choice team all available, so they were able to just cover it, had they had say Van Dijk and Mane or Salah missing then they might have lost badly to Leeds. That Man City loss was just a perfect storm, Leicester scored pretty much every attack, I mean Vardy could try that 100 times and he wouldn't score it, Maddison scored a worldie and the 2nd half Man City were playing a 4-4-2 with a target man and had no clue what they were doing.

LOL no he isn't. If he was class he would actually get more appearances for Spurs. He's a young player with potential (who is probably over hyped like most English teenagers are) who's career has stalled a lot, and IMO he lacks the skills to be a top level winger which is why IIRC Mourinho has mainly been using him as a left back again, not an attacker as he was at Fulham. I don't really see the point of signing him, unlikely Spurs will allow us to sign him permanently and we don't really need him, just a waste of funds on a player that is currently worse than what we have. Oh and he wasn't a wing back for Fulham, he played as an attacking left winger in both their promotion season and the PL. Your comments make no sense, you criticise Veerman as not being a first choice midfielder for us, but then suggest we sign another player who also wouldn't be a first team player in a position we don't need.

The players we want aren't available at the right price? The players we want the clubs that own them have to get a replacement first? The thing is we don't really know, very rarely do we know about a signing a long term beforehand, the club seems very covert in what its doing and often many of the rumours we are linked to are complete rubbish.

I think people often overlook the value a good strike partnership is worth when on of the two is scoring all the goals they tend to right off the other partner. They seem to work very well together and Adams seems to also be showing some of his strength despite his relative smaller height he was bullying some of those Burnley defenders last night and you can see how much Ings values him by the way he celebrated the goal with him.

No he's fine on 3 which I said and I said he occasionally has a good game where he stops a lot that comes his way beyond what you'd expect i.e Man City but that is rare and other mid level keepers in the league like I said Fabianski and Dubrovka do it far often. He is not fine on crosses, he is a flapper who tends to punch to often and often comes for things and doesn't get, which is not going to inspire confidence of his defenders. And he is very far from commanding, it's telling watching him in these behind closed doors games you can clearly hear other keepers but barely hear or see McCarthy, he is generally all round timid as a goalkeeper, it covers all facets of his game and is why he gets beaten most of the time in 1v1s, he doesn't make it hard for strikers as others have pointed out. Even a low confidence Forster would have saved some of those against Son just because of his size and because he comes at the attacker more. And of course mistakes is relevant, he makes more of them than many other keepers, the stats back that up and was lucky last year that more weren't punished because he had a big set of howlers. Why do you think De Gea is getting so many criticism? Because he is making far too many mistakes and should have been dropped, he is nowhere near the best in the world anymore and hasn't been for a good 18 months. He's not a decent keeper, he's bang average when he's in his best form, which he isn't right now. A lampost would 'do a job' and probably wouldn't give the opposition the ball back so often. As Adrian says he gets a clean sheet and yet again gets a free pass, our outfield players seem to get far more stick for their performances despite McCarthy being poor most of the time, his all round game is trash and his only saving grace is shot stopping, and he's not doing that.

Results are all over the place, this no pre-season thing has effed clubs up, don't think you can read much into form of any teams over these first 5 or so games. Even Bayern Munich lost 4-1 today, to an average team, Dortmund 2-0 as well, Man City losing 5-2 and Man Utd deserved to get spanked yesterday but lost. And yeh this handball rule is stupid. Do it like Roy said, if its deliberate its a foul, if its not its not. Much simpler. City also showing how important Laporte is to them. All 3 were pens, first maybe a little soft and the 2nd unlucky but all were clumsy.

Not sure Armstrong has the pace, he works hard but he's similar to Ward Prowse, he's not fast and at times it can cost us. The Burley left back, who is hardly lightning outpaces him pretty easily on several occasions and Armstrong had to clean him out and was lucky not to get a card.

The fact you think a regulation save at his near post that he was literally standing 2 feet away from was 'crucial' highlights the problem. If we are praising our keepers for saving shots from 20 yards that are straight and they are standing near where the ball went, then that highlights the problem. That is a save he should make, its regulation. As for the better team argument, that makes no real sense because GK's who do badly for good teams get highlighted even more, see De Gea and Kepa, whereas average keepers that get peppered and thus are seen to make a lot of saves get over rated, see someone like Marshall for Cardiff. Forster was a clearly a better keeper, seen by the fact he got 6 England caps playing for us, at a time when England decent GK options (like Hart in good form), whereas McCarthy has got 1 England cap, and hasn't been near since there not being many good GK options for England at the moment and the no.1 probably being the worst England No. 1 in a generation. Also Forster can at least pass a ball 30 yards to one of his teammates. For a modern good keeper you need to - 1. Be able to pass and distribute quickly and accurately to recycle position and start transitions. 2. Get quickly out of the goal to sweep up. 3. Save shots without pushing them back into play. 4. Produce some saves where you expect the strikers to score. 5. Command and organise your back line. 6. Confidently come for crosses. 7. Not make glaring errors that lead to goals. McCarthy can't do 1, 2, 5, 6, and 7. He's decent on 3. And occasionally he has above average game, maybe 1-2 times a season, but most of the time if there is a good chance they score pretty easily against him, as happened against Spurs. He's basically like a worse version of Fabianski or Dubravka, they like him are a bit flappy on crosses, make errors that give easy goals and don't have good distribution. But crucially those two keepers regularly make top level saves that stop their teams conceding goals they would be expected to concede and they do this a lot, so it makes up for their other errors and lack of all round game. But McCarthy doesn't. So really what good is he? His supposed best attribute is shot stopping and he was 13th for that out of PL keepers last year, so not even in the top 10, for his supposed main strength, and he is bad to awful at everything else. IIRC he was joint 3rd for mistakes leading to goals.

He can't pass a ball, he constantly gifts the ball back to the opposition if he has to pass it more than about 20 yards as shown tonight. Which means we can't recycle possession through him and surrender possession very easily for no real reason. People standing out on the wings completely free and he can't pass a ball 30 yards under no pressure. Now if he was some sort of worldly saving keeper winning points on his own you'd let him off, but he isn't, he's a decent but not exceptional shot stopper, he's bang average at crosses and I don't think he is particularly very commanding or organising at the back. His positioning is also piss poor, I wonder in part because he's being asked to be a sweeper keeper but clearly isn't, so has no idea where he is supposed to be and its impacting his game, or whether generally he is just crap at positioning. He nearly got caught out tonight by a Westwood freekick because he was oddly positioned and later on Vydra lobbed massively when McCarthy was in no mans land, because again he clearly has no clue where he is supposed to be. If Forster is anything near back to his best, and that is a big IF, then he is very clearly a better keeper because in his best form he is levels above what McCarthy is. I think people have become so used to inept Goalkeeping over the last 3 years that McCarthy comes in does ok, has some good games and is then massively over rated. Really we need a new GK, but that aint happening but I wouldn't be surprised to see Forster get back in if his head is right just simply because McCarthy offers very little apart from shot stopping and recently he's not been great at that.

Thought defensively we were excellent and the work rate and communication across the team was excellent. Attacking wise we were meh, some nice flashes of play in the first half, obviously the goal but some other nice moves that almost came off save for some poor first touches or finishes. But second half we were a non-entity going forward and seemed reluctant to even counter attack with any thrust. I thought particularly Armstrong and Djenepo looked very rusty and not match fit, they put the effort in but Armstrong could barely control a ball at times and looked constantly a yard off and Djenepo was just a shadow of the games he had last year, no confidence to take his man on or make runs in behind, hopefully its just match sharpness and him needing a run of games after being out for long periods last year. Romeu was excellent save for the odd miss pass, JWP was decent and was everywhere, we played some decent balls into forwards in good positions so the play was generally quite positive but it just didn't click, people's movement or control or the weight of pass let promising moments down where we really should have hurt Burnley. This was best exampled I think by Ings offside goal and the blocked shot Armstrong had just before that, he had two identical positions where he picked up the ball in the no. 10 area in front of the Burnley defence and had their defence back peddling but just took too long to actually do anything and so had one useless shot blocked and in the other move took ages to pass to Ings who was by then offside, when he was in loads of space. As Ings said after the game, we are a dangerous team when we are in our rhythm but just aren't quite there, we look like a team about half way through our pre-season. Saying that you have to praise the spirit, work rate, and organisation after last week getting 5 thumped past them in the 2nd half, to then come to a bogey ground and grind out a result and a clean sheet. Praise also to Vestergaard who looked today like the player we hoped we had when we signed him, he won everything in the air, was calm on the ball and found good passes forward, anticipated things and showed good positioning. Hope it continues. I mean Burnley are pretty awful but they are relentless in their crosses and getting the ball in and around the box, but they barely had a sniff really. Also finally, McCarthy cannot pass a ball more than 30 yards, everytime we tried to cycle possession back through him and he had to do more than a short pass to one of the defenders , he put it nowhere near one of our players, not even somewhere where they could win it, he just chipped it back to Burnley under no pressure. Multiple times there was a free player that he just had to play a 30-40 yard chipped ball and didn't get it near. You can see the value of proper keeper who can actually pass the ball.

Hopefully the extra week further on means we are a bit fitter, sharper and more organised. This short pre-season has apparently mucked up loads of teams and they think that is why so many mistakes/goals are going in but I think probably because of our style or play (and Ralph oddly implemented a new defensive system) we are suffering from this the most. We know when he doesn't get time to work with the players that the team doesn't perform great.

See AC Milan I think, Elliott Management Corporation basically lent most of the money for the takeover by Li Yonghong, who then defaulted on payments so Elliott Management then took over the running of the club. So I suppose the same would happen here, the club would essentially become an asset of Ares if De Grosa doesn't pay the money back, rather than the club being liable for the loan. I'd also presume that investment companies of that sort of scale (Ares Management is I think even bigger than Elliott Management as a whole) have the ability to sit on an investment like that and re-sell it down the line. So we'd probably either be at the same state now with an owner that basically didn't want to own us and would put the bare minimum in to maintain it and sell us on as soon as possible, or might invest a little to increase their return.

LOL, nope, that pretty much shows exactly what I am talking about. 8 PL clubs have a net spend of less than £20 million per season, which means they all pretty much need to sell to buy and aren't getting significant outside investment, i.e are being run sustainably. as I said. Only about 3 in that entire list can spend over £50 million a season, but people like you bleat that we are the only club, when your own figures show that is nonsense.

If Forster is anywhere near back to his best he is by far our best keeper. McCarthy is in for shot stopping as his distribution is poor, if he's not saving above regulation saves (which he is not) then he's not very useful. Might as well have one of the other two as their distribution is better, plus I think Forster when confident is the better organiser/leader as well.

Neither of them are particularly quick. Even though I think both of Burnley's main centre-backs are injured, we never do well against them and I full expect it to continue, reckon it'll be similar to the Palace game, they will sit in and be deep, we'll have lots of possession, not take our chances and they will probably nick one. More likely from a set piece than a fast break in behind though I reckon.

I don't know what you are talking about , I'd reckon about half the PL clubs are run sustainably and have to balance the books, even Liverpool. Leicester having been selling a major player pretty much every season to fund investments for the last 4 years. We've just effed it up because our recent signings are crap so haven't had good re-sale value.

As a minor caveat for him, that was New York Fashion week I think so kind of expected to dress a bit, lets call it flamboyantly. My main worry would be Everton have literally bought in 3 centre-mids because their midfield was so crap last year. Particular complaints that they weren't physical/hard working enough. But as someone above said, my recollection of him when he first arrived on the scene was of a very busy energetic player box to box type player who was pretty solid technically. He seems to have regressed a little but who knows whether that is the mess that Everton have been over the last two years and he might shine under better management or whether he is just at that level. Our loan to buy policy on a few other players has worked out ok, so as long as their is an agreed fee option in there if he turns out good then its probably ok as its fairly low risk and as Everton need to shift players then we can probably negotiate a favourable deal, but if he's our only solution its a bit of worry, why not keep Reed?

Apart from Ederson and Allison, are any keepers in the prem right now any good? The amount of goals going in seem to be high and a lot of the shots you watch scored aren't straight in the corners. Henderson maybe, but he apparently can't dislodge an error prone De Gea, Sheff Utd paid a lot for the Bournemouth keeper who didn't impress me much. I think a lot of keepers are products of their defences, what sort of shots and types of chances are allowed against them. At the end of the day whilst McCarthy is not top class, he's no worse than a lot of prem keepers but we just gave Spurs easy chances to score.