tajjuk

They haven't sold their best players but at the same time they have bought terribly, how Liverpool have mugged them for what close to £40 million for Ibe and Solanke is beyond me. Also Fraser shows the other problem with not letting your players go, he's running down his contract and barely putting an effort in this season, much like Van Dijk did for us until we sold him. It's all well and good people saying we shouldn't sell our player but most of them are unprofessional mercenaries that don't give an F, and coupled with greedy agents in their ear will quite happily phone it in, go on strike or whatever to get a move. Most wantaway players are not like Mahrez.

Danny Ings going to get a buff for the January update?

Watford's new manager bounce is likely to wear off soon, it does for most clubs, quite a few clubs in the bottom 3 have done this before, change manager, peak for a bit but still go down. Newcastle have massive injuries, 10 first teamers out and their lack of goals is now starting to catch up on them, said it when they played us that their luck was likely to run out, you can't consistently rely on parking the bus and scoring from 1-2 chances you have. Bournemouth also have injuries and pretty bad form. Norwich are probably already down, Villa don't look great even if they have ground out a few, and Burnley seem to be going the wrong way as well now. It will also be interesting to see if Moyes can turn West Ham around, there doesn't look much fight in that team or teamwork. So I'd say all those clubs IMO are more likely to get relegated than us, of course we could get some terrible form but I don't see it, I think we can look more up then down now IMO. We are also above Arsenal, at least for now.

We are 5th on expected goals stat - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/50822875 So attacking wise, whilst we miss chances we clearly are good enough to score goals and create chances, so kind of confirms that defence has to be the priority, sort that out, get some better defenders and we should clear relegation easily.

Kane has scored in his last 6 games against us and has more goals on New Year's day than anyone else, so it's pretty inevitable he will score.

The Athletic is predicting it's full backs (both sides) and a centre back, but could only be 1-2 because of the difficulty of signing players in January, also they are saying apparently the 'soft' cap of £15 million ish players is going, and that if the right player comes along the club could spend more (like £25 million) but at the same time predict the budget is only about £30 million at best, probably depending on outgoings. Thinks the best option for us is maybe loans with a view to buy of players looking to get game time before Euro 2020, reckons that might be the best way to sell the club at the moment as players might not be convinced to join in January and in a relegation battle, but 6 months of game time in the premier league to get into their Euro 2020 squad might tempt them, then if sign them in the summer or they can return to their club if we get relegated.

They are defensively frail, but of course Ali, Erikson and Kane are all big threats. We need to get at them and put them under pressure as they seem a bit soft, especially away from home, almost Arsenal esque.

Well the team we have played twice is Chelsea, so there is that.

No that was a clear pen, it was clever by Kane the little drag back did the defender with ease and he basically cleaned him out. Don't get all the moaning about VAR, offside is offside, doesn't matter if it's a knee or 10 yards, you'd complain if they gave the ball not the wholeway across the line as a goal, so what difference is offside? The right decisions are being made, it's the only clear cut bit of VAR.

I think had we had a week to prepare for the game we would have won easily, the players put a lot into Chelsea and it showed the tempo, the crispness wasn't there and its always going to be easier for the team that sits deep and defends, than the one trying to make the play if there is a bit of fatigue. Palace are pretty ordinary IMO and I fancy us beating them at their place. I am also less worried about Spurs and Wolves, both of course better than us and capable of beating us, but they will come here to beat us and will play more, so if we play like we have against Chelsea then we have a good chance IMO. Plus the team knows they will have to put a real performance in against Leicester.

We really need something more to break teams like this down but at least we got back into the game and got a point. As said above, overall for the Xmas period we'd all have been delighted with 7 points from the 3 games. I think the Chelsea game took a lot out of us, couldn't really muster the tempo to really challenge them. Let's see if we can get some reinforcements in now and we can then push up the table.

Interesting, I wonder if Boufal is on there to attack their left back? He's barely played this year and is more of a centre-back.

Palace have quite a nasty injury list, especially in defence so they might give away chances. But that also might make them play very defensively and we'll then probably struggle to break them down, they then have Zaha as a threat on the break and Ayew is also playing pretty well as well. We'll also have to see whether we can maintain the same level of intensity, must have been a hard game at Chelsea, we had barely 1/3rd of the ball so players like JWP and Hojberg put in a lot of distance. Can easily see us huffing and puffing all afternoon against a defensive palace, not having enough tempo because the team is knackered and them nicking a 1-0 on the break.

The City of the last two seasons is better IMO, as were the Arsenal invincibles and the older Man Utd teams. The only real difference between City and Liverpool this year is City have had injuries to key defenders and Liverpool haven't, if Liverpool lost VVD and say Robertson or TAA to a 3-4 month injury and had to reply on the likes of Lovren they would be losing games. Liverpool are very good but the league is flattering them, their only real challenge is City and they have had injury problems to defence, the likes of Arsenal, Spurs, Man Utd and Chelsea are all in transition and probably the weakest they have been for many years. All of them bare maybe Utd were much better last year and provided more challenge, Spurs were even in the title race for 2/3rds of the season last year. This year all four I think are way below the points they were last year.

Not really, they parked the bus and got a goal through a mistake from a hoof down the channels, pretty similar to Newcastle, we were the better team in both games. We just struggle to break down teams that park the bus but we are hardly the only ones, Newcastle did the same to Sheff Utd and Watford did the same to Man Utd. They didn't create chances on the break anyway near as well as we did vs Chelsea yesterday, we broke with quality passing and got numbers into the box yesterday, neither Newcastle nor Watford IMO did that but our defenders are so error prone they gift goals, that is the problem against teams that defend so deep, we struggle to break them down and commit unforced errors to give them easy chances. It's why we need better defenders and probably some more creativity, and we would then be winning more games against crap teams like that because we'd give them less chances and break them down better. At the moment most of our chance creation relies on breaks and winning the ball back high up the pitch from the press, but crap teams like Newcastle and Watford just sit in all game and camp their box so we can't do that against them.

Thanks for the info. Gao wanting to sell is the only thing that makes me thing we might spend in January because he knows a relegated team is going to be worth far less than he paid for it. Let's just hope as others have said he's not looking at the table right now thinking well we are 14th so no need to spend. I know people would be massively reluctant about Red Bull, and the name change potential would be very worrying, but you have to admire what they have done overall with their clubs, their general philosophy especially around transfers has been excellent and mirrors what we try to do as well. The likely strikers from Ligue 1 are Victor Osimhen from Lille, who is being linked with the likes of Liverpool, Chelsea and Spurs, so it might not be him. The other one is probably Habib Diallo from Metz, who has been linked to Newcastle.

We are still the worst team in the league at home and they are very good away, would probably take a point. 3 wins in a row just seems unlikely as well, we had a chance for it 'on paper' against Newcastle and mucked it up and fell we might do the same here.

I never said that, but you mean the top 8 that is literally two wins away? LMAO muppet.

Considering Bournemouth were talking what like £70 - 80 million for Wilson, who has also had a similar injury record, is a similar age I would expect similar. Consider his contract and importance to us, you'd expect him to be valued around £50 million but then be expected to pay another £20 million over the odds as we don't want to sell.

Ings himself probably doesn't want to, chance a premier league hat trick He's also captain in my fantasy team, but yeh with the xmas games no point burning him out

Might have a good chance of being first up MOTD today depending how the City v Leicester game goes, other games so far today seem very dour, Bournemouth v Burnley has had 3 shots in 70 minutes between both teams, Newcastle Palace is dour, Everton v Arsenal was apparently terrible.

Dangerous score line as they say, massively dangerous for a fragile team like us, come on Saints get a third and then cruise it out, don't make it nervy, just keep putting pressure on them.

What’s the point of any premier league team? Money rules the league, sure there will be seasons where a few of the top 6 will in transition and someone like Leicester will surprise, but any success they have this year will quickly be shut down ax their betteff tv players will get bought by the big boys. Man City and Liverpool are both manoeuvring to increase their commercial revenues and cash in on those foreign fans which means the gap will get even bigger. I am sure it won’t be long till the big clubs demand more from the tv deal as well.

We are linked with Club Brugge striker Emmanuel Dennis apparently, has an 'impressive' 1 in 3 record in Belgium.....

Probably helps he has a released clause, plus they are Liverpool and his club are out of the Champions League. Not sure many other clubs have arranged transfers for the 1st of January.