tajjuk

Not really, and honestly I know there are some doubts about Valery, but he clearly showed in the 2nd half of last season he has a lot of talent and was a big part of turning things around under Ralf after Huges was sacked, some top performances in there. From what I have seen of Walker-Peters, and the fact he seemingly has been over looked by two top coaches and can't get a place ahead of a very dodgy full back in Aurier, I am struggling to see how a guy 2 years older who has shown less promise than Valery is worth getting. I know Valery has had problems this year, but who knows the full details, maybe this virus has been affecting him the whole time and it only got diagnosed recently? Some viruses can be really nasty and drain people of their energy, constant headaches etc. whilst not showing masses of physical signs so he could have looked fit to play but really wasn't and is now being ruled out until he can get rid of it. Long term I think he'll be a good player, seems to have all the attributes needed to be a good modern full back, but he needs to learn and improve his defending, which will take time and experience. Replace Cedric like for like, as in Cedric is the senior player and first choice, so we need a new first choice right back, who then has Valery challenging him for a place.

Also i think the Athletic said something along the lines that in the first period of the season we were pressing like a top 6 side, but defending like a relegation side and not taking chances like a relegation side, and now we are literally the best pressing side in the league, taking chances properly and defending more like a top 10 side.

JWP going into the midfield two. The form of Ings. Believing in the high press again and the players fully committing to what Ralph wants to do. Going to a back 4 and settled back 4 with obviously Stephens raising his game. The 4-2-2-2 being used over the 5-3-2. Players not being played out of position. Bertrand back in the team as a LB and playing well. The 9-0 being a wake up call zenith moment for the team, there were no excuses after that they had to do better, they weren't working hard enough and they had been embarrassed.

Not sure about Walker-Peters, Poch played Aurier and Foyth over him, and Aurier is a terrible full back and Foyth is a centre-back. Now Mourinho has played Aurier and gave a debut to an 18 year old at right back against Liverpool instead of playing him.

Beat Palace, draw with Wolves and lose narrowly to pool, that would be amazing and would be 10 points from the 5 and we'd be on 32 points from 25 games, with then a run of Burnley, Villa, West Ham, Newcastle, and Norwich. We could be above 40 points in March if they keep this up.

Those three games pretty much encapsulate our turn around in fortunes, first 3 times we played them we lost 4-1, 2-1 to 10 men for most of the game and of course 9-0, then the next 3 games we win all 3, 2 of which were away. I'd reckon European football is more likely (but still a long shot) than relegation now. Especially as I am presuming our run in of fixtures will match our November/December run of games, so will see loads of games against bottom half teams.

Still seems odd though, if it's a loan with no option to buy then we are getting cover at left back that has no top flight experience at all, to help develop a player for PSG. If he's moving for more chance at first team football and there is a deal to buy/loan with option to buy etc. , then he must know he is moving as back up and we must not have much hope in Vokins if we are getting someone pretty much the same age, and we are still getting a back up with no experience. You also have to wonder at the mentality of a player who gave up probably one of the best routes from academy to first team football in the world at Ajax to move to money bags PSG where he would have far less chance of first team football as they buy ready made defenders. He's not even played for Holland U19s, U20s or U21s either and second division football in Holland is probably League 2 level at best. Doesn't fill me with much hope, the most positive thing I can say about him is he's big for a full back, 6' 2".

More correct decision are being made which IMO is a good thing. I'd say probably the offside thing will be looked at and changed, and maybe the handball rules will change as well but neither of those are VAR related really. And I reckon refs need to more look at the monitors themselves. But generally I think if more correct decisions are being made then that is the most important thing and it shows for us as over the last few seasons we have had some real stinkers of bad decisions against us and now we are actually getting fair decisions.

Yeh but the argument I suppose is that the handball gave the attacker an advantage, it allowed him to basically control the ball and move forward, without it the attack is not happening and therefore the goal is not. I mean they look at fouls around the halfway line as in some cases someone can win the ball with a foul, gain an advantage, the other team is in transition and 1-2 passes you are in for a chance at goal. Someone could accidentally handball the ball around the player closing them down inside their own half and that creates the space to play a ball over the top which the striker then scores from, even though the handball is in the other half it's played a huge role in allowing the player to set up the chance. I think you can only do it in phases IMO, if it's part of the same phase of play and the attacker gains an advantage from it they wouldn't have had without the handball then it gets ruled of regardless of where it is. I saw Steve Bruce moaning about an incorrect corner given to the opposition and that VAR should have ruled that out, but then his team had two chances to clear the ball and didn't, so it's nonsense to suggest that led to the goal.

He needs to get over whatever fitness issue he has, doesn't seem to be able to play consecutive games. Looking at him you wonder if he gets over that he could have a similar impact to Adama Troare, seems to have a similar build especially if he keeps working on it, explosive pace and power, you don't even really need good dribbling ability if you have that, what Troare has worked on a lot is end product, finishing, crossing, composure basically.

LOL. -------------------- Exciting news if true, be interesting to see who it is, as said above I am pretty sure all our transfers have come out in the media maybe 1-2 days before they signed, so we'll see. Apparently statistically though spending £35 million in January on average only accounts for about 1-2 points more.

I wouldn't want to see us mess with a consistent back four that has been working. If we lose, we lose, no real shame to lose away to the 3rd best team in the league and I doubt we will get hammered again, but I think the team we have at the moment is in a good place and I'd rather see us have a go, try to be solid and hit them on the break like we did at Chelsea rather than we ultra negative. I think we can cause them problems and Liverpool as well, we just might not stop them scoring 1-2, but if they have a slightly off day against the form we are in then we could easily get a result.

He has a serious ego problem, I mean it's obvious when Ralph said 'second chance' to him, he meant at the club and that his performances for the club, regardless of the manager had not been good enough. Instead of going yeh thanks I'll play better he complains he hasn't had a first chance. Just because you get a new manager does not suddenly mean everyone forgets you have been crap for the last year. He strikes me as one of those 'why me' people that is always looking at other to blame apart from himself for his failings.

Goal of the round was the Oxford player's mazy run, or Arters shot against Villa, or Vassel's shot, all better than Jones's IMO, he'll just get the attention because the media love in for pool.

Good, what about Stephens and JWP?

He was, but there were clearly reasons why he ended up at us and Celtic previously, not much bigger clubs, and those were doubts about his ability. Point was very few centre-backs are the finished article at 24-25, most don't peak until their late 20s, maybe Stephens is finally fulfilling his potential and putting the talent he clearly has (otherwise he wouldn't have been here for so long) and using it to produce on the pitch. Or maybe it's just a run of good form and he'll return to type in a few months. Fonte is another good example, he had been bumming it around on loan at various clubs in his early 20s, then signed for Palace in the championship than we signed him in League 1, at about 25-26, doubt many would have predicted in his early 20s that he'd go on to be a good Premier League centre-back, earn 42 caps for Portugal and win the Euros with them.

That is subjective, what I read was tedious and just read as a lot of complaining about things people do not fully understand. I did not see much that was 'interesting', I saw a lot of ignorance. This is a transfer thread, it's clearly supposed to be about discussing transfer rumours and potential incomings/outgoings, not the clubs PR record. Coming the to the thread, seeing there are 4 new pages and then seeing it's people waffling on about meaningless crap is a waste of time, go put it in another thread IMO, all this crap about PR should be cleaned out of this thread because its off topic.

Reading an article in the Athletic it seems Ralph has been a big influence, challenging him to do better, working on his weaknesses and that he suits the system as he is our best ball playing defender. Also have to remember he has only just turned 25, centre-backs usually take a while to learn their trade, a lot of defending comes from experience unless you have raw pace to cover any mistakes. Van Dijk was 24 when he joined us and until he start performing regularly for us their were doubts over his ability, hence why he wasn't picked up by bigger clubs whilst at Gronigen and then Celtic. Also credit is given to him being a good communicator, so a lot the improvement is probably from having a stable back, the right players in front of him as well, and every working well as a unit.

Agree with others, we won't need to play Pompey again let them stew, it would just be a banana skin and Ralph would feel obliged to play a full team. Some lower league team at home would be perfect.

Is it a worry JWP is playing yet another 90 mins, hasn't he played pretty much every minute over the xmas period?

Interestingly whilst several managers are moaning about the festive schedule, Sheff Utd ran the most of any team over the festive period but only picked up one injury. And only 1 of the top 20 players who ran the most over the festive period picked up an injury (Deli Alli). Which kind of shows that the complaints are probably not that valid and really the period is a test of club's squads and their fitness, clearly some premier league teams and players are fitter than others and are more able to cope with the demands.

Leicester are very good but I don't think they have been in as good form recently as they were for the first 2-3 months of the season. Granted they have played Liverpool and Man City recently, but they were poor in both games not really in them at all, plus they drew at home to Norwich, drew away to Everton in the cup throwing away a 2 goal lead, narrowly beat a terrible West Ham (with a changed team) and even their 3-0 against Newcastle flattered them as Newcastle gifted them all the goals and had 4 players injured in the game. They will still probably beat us but if we play like we have against Chelsea and Spurs then we have every chance of causing them problems and at least picking up a point IMO.

To be fair to Alli, the one where McCarthy spilled it and then blocked his follow up he didn't appeal and actually congratulated McCarthy on his block, its Kane and Eriksson that were running around after the ref asking for a pen.

I reckon we can beat Palace away, and Wolves didn't look great against Watford the other day. Leicester are good of course but you'd hope our players could put in a big performance there to try to somewhat make up for the 9-0, and who knows maybe we'll be the first to snatch something from Liverpool, they might have a Champions league game or be so far ahead they take their foot off the gas a little. 4 points, 7 from the 5 games and 29 points from 25 games would still be decent, we'd be looking for 11 from the last 13 probably to stay up with a lot of winnable games.

Would love to sign him but I think he'll go to someone else as we won't look at Defenders, plus as he is available for free I think in the summer, I'd imagine someone might gamble on a transfer fee now to steal a march on everyone else. Especially as you'd expect most of the big boys would happily take a 22 year old young english goalscorer for a free as a squad player.